Mexico: Calling back home
 

My daughter is leaving for Mexico for a week vacation in a couple days, and we're now finding out her Verizon cell phone would be very expensive to use in Mexico.

What's the best, least expensive way to call home, even if leaving her cell phone off, and using the hotel's phone?

Personally I don't think it's THAT expensive. No you probably don't want to have a long conversation about what she did that day but it's not an unreasonable charge to call and say she's fine and misses you.

OTOH, I've used local internet/long distance cafe's for calls home when I did not take my cell phone. As I recall, the charge was a couple bucks for several minutes.

Phone cards are also available for really cheap.

I think the hotel phone is likely the most expensive.

Are those phone cards available to purchase HERE in the USA, or wait to purchase it there, in Mexico?

By all means wait till you are in Mexico to purchase the phone card.

Do NOT use the hotel lobby phones,,they are the expensive ones

Use the TelMex phone out on the street infron of the hotel.

A few cheap ways- Casas de telefonos or some internet cafes have phones and you pay a fee per minute for calls to the U.S. They call the number for you and you pick up the phone when it connects. Sometimes as low as .25 u.s. per minute. Or Ladatel cards, work in any public Ladatel phone, there are lots of them. Stick in the card dial country code, area code and number. The higher the amount card e.g. 100p over 50p card the cheaper the rate. Somewhere under .50 u.s. per minute. There are cards you can buy with better rates yet, you call an operator, give them the number and they dial for you. A bit of Spanish required to do this. Cheapest of all bring a computer and use Skype. Free to other computers that have downloaded skpye. I use it regularly for meetings with Mexico. If she isn't carrying a computer many internet cafes are set up for you to skype from.

Actually she'd really appreciate an internet cafe to check her emails.....

She's gonna be in Cabo san lucas, btw.

internet cafe's are abundant and cheap. I would use e-mail as communication for a week and forget it. She could buy a phone card if something urgent came up.