Lordy

Hi there,
we will be visiting the US, Mexico and parts of the Caribbean in the next at the end of the month.
What would be a cheap phone to buy and make calls to Australia?
Do you have pre paid cells that will do this?
What is the best company / place to buy a an overseas phone?
Thanks in advance
Donna

Orlando_Vic

Hi Lordy,

The Motorola V195 <http://tinyurl.com/2el8nm> is a good phone for your U.S. needs and currently it is free (with $30 in airtime factored in). No contract is required and you will have no trouble buying more airtime. I just don't know if it will operate in Mexico and the Caribbean - I suspect not.

If you already have an unlocked tri-band or quad-band GSM phone, consider an International SIM Card through a company like Cellular Abroad <http://tinyurl.com/5ceu3f>?

A third option might be International Phone Cards through a company such as NobelCom <http://www.nobelcom.com/>.

And finally, the Mobal World Phone <http://tinyurl.com/6oqlr7> is supposed to work everywhere, but not in the U.S.

If you would like additional ideas, there may be some here <http://www.thetravelinsider.com/2002/0308.htm>.

doug_stallings

Buying or renting a mobile phone is a good idea if you want to make local calls and if you want to be available for emergencies (though they won't have voice mail, so you have to keep the phone on all the time to get calls). But they are never a good deal if you only want to make outgoing international calls. Phone cards or Skype are much cheaper and better for that.

If you want to call Australia cheaply, you need to 1) buy phone cards in the destination; or 2) use Skype.

You have many other posts on this topic and have gotten this advice consistently from me and many other posters. We've all recommended phone cards over a mobile phone.

Lordy

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.
Doug, this is the first time we have suggested buying a phone in the US to use. A friends has just come back from the US and wished they had done this instead of using phone cards.
Dear Orlando, thanks for our very detailed responses. We will check out the sites.
Donna

gail

I do not know about cell phone companies in Australia, but assuming you have a cell phone in Australia, I would contact your current carrier. We researched a similar question when our teenage dtr was to be in Spain for a few weeks visiting a friend. Our cell phone company was able to arrange for an international cell phone to be shipped to us in US for her to take with her as her current phone, our cell phone carrier, and the part of Spain she was visiting did not match up.

This was the least expensive option we found in all our research, including asking here.

doug_stallings

Lordy, I don't want to discourage you from getting a cell phone to use on your trip. But

It's actually a very convenient thing to have, and I almost always carry an unlocked GSM phone with me when I travel (especially for 2 weeks or more). I buy a SIM card in the country that I'm traveling to, and I use the phone to make and receive local calls. And I also give the number to family and friends in case they need to contact me for some reason. It's not a way to save money on calls back home, however.

I think that T-Mobile Motorola phone that Orlando_Vic recommended avove will work in both Mexico and the Caribbean; it's a quad-band GSM phone, and TMobile does have roaming agreements in most, if not all, the countries you will be visiting.

What you're going to run into, though, are pretty hefty roaming fees to use the phone in Mexico and the Caribbean, so buying a U.S. phone will cost you a lot once you leave the U.S.