Find out more about calling America - international call

- Jonathan's Free advice -
The Top 10

Cheap ways to make an international call when you are not in America

and

how to let family and friends from America keep in touch without their calling rates forwarding them directly to the poor house!  These solutions are not free, but cheaper than att and some of the other big names international calling companies.

Most of this applies to studying and working anywhere internationally.  If you're back in the states already/again/still, be sure to check out the best rate calculator below.

The best rate calculator will take you away from this site,
but will save you on your total calling plan:
local calls, national calls, and/or international calls.

If you're looking for ways to save money making calls from your computer to a phone, click here.

(Quick note...   = A deal which will save you money.)

Note: Be careful to get the correct card.  My brother visited Austria for a weekend and accidentally bought a Eurocity calling card which which cost about 3.3 cents per minute for an international call to America from Austria.  This would have been a great international call rate, except that he studied and lived in Germany.

If you have friends who would be interested in reading the international calling advice offered here, click here and tell them about this page.
 

I don't know really anything about this.  Talk to AT&T or Qwest if you want set up an 800 # for international calls.  I would however recommend using an international calling card over this.  International calling cards are (generally speaking) easier to use because calling cards are designed for the country where they'll be used, whereas 800 numbers are designed for incoming international calls, which doesn't take into account the difficulty that might exist for the person who actually is somewhere international.

Qwest

Check out Calling Card Frenzy for some good calling cards!
 

Hello?  No email account yet?  If you don't already have an email account, you've got a good excuse to get one.  In addition to the international calling advice here, messenger and email can save you lots of money on expensive phone calls. I've linked you to a couple sites on the right which give free email.  If you don't choose one of these, there are hundreds of other free email providers.  Choose one from the international country of your choice.

I have purchased tickets through Orbitz, and it most often offers rates lower than the airlines' web sites.

    Special Flight Deals on Orbitz!

If you get tired of spending money on international calls, the Internet offers some great other methods.  If you are studying or working internationally, contact your exchange University or international employer to find out if you will have an Internet connection, or at least access to the Internet.  It's helpful to know.

It will let you make the use of internet messaging programs, email, and SMSing much quicker and more convenient, which will save you time, and make your life as an international person much easier. 

Why do Germans call a cell phone a Handy?  It's like asking why do people park in driveways and park in driveways.  I really don't know.  It's someone else's job to figure these things out.

A handy is a cell phone.  Besides allowing you to receive and send SMS', they also allow you to receive phone calls for free.  Since the phones can be bought prepaid, it only costs you when you call, not when someone calls you.

 When I was in Oldenburg, the E-Plus store had a deal where they were selling a NOKIA for 99 Marks (about $45), with 25 Marks of prepaid time and 70 Prepaid SMS'.  This was a great deal considering it gave me a phone for the entire time I was in Germany, and when I ran out of time, all I had to do was go back and get a refill call card for my phone.  Moral of the story:  Check out the benefits of receiving international calls when you don't have to pay for them.  This will vary from international location to international location, but check it out.  It will save you more money if, when people call you, it doesn't cost you anything for their call.

Auf Deutsch

(in German)

call girl is a great service.  Learn more about call girl when you call your girl.  Girls can be dumb, but boys can be mean, so you may as well learn to call girl.

In addition to the international call scene, there is the SMS scene.  MLife is bringing this into the mainstream in the U.S. but it has take a long time for America to get SMS (phone to phone Instant Messaging) like other international locations have.  It's just now getting as popular in America as it is in Europe.  To learn more about SMS, (a major means of communication in Europe) head to my SMS page.

SMS by Jonathan

SMS = Short Message Service

Don't Click here.

This I used quite a bit while in Germany.  Both of my brothers have MSN Instant Messenger, some friends of mine from school use Yahoo IM, and some people I met in Germany use ICQ.  Whichever you decide to use, these programs allow you to chat with one or more people in a real time typed (and now voice) conversation via the Internet.  Instead of calling long distance, even though it is very, very cheap, if you've paid your Internet already, why pay for long distance calls too?  You can share files, pictures, viruses (let's not do that), and keep in touch with people at the touch of a button.  Quite awesome!

MSN

ICQ

AOL/Yahoo

If you want to save your people (do you have people?  It's fun to have people) some moola (who are making an international call to you, long distance from America), your best bet is to have them use an international calling routing code.  This page is already too long, so to find out more about international call codes, click here.

Note:  This is not highly recommended.  Long distance over string can get difficult and due to the long distance between America and Europe, your string may break. However, if you decide to use this method, you are going to need one very long, very expensive, very strong string.  As for the cans, I've heard that the Campbell's Soup ones work the best, although I can't say for sure.