Travel Technology - Calling home from Greece: Prepaid card or rent cell phone?

Heading to Greece in a few weeks for the month of April. I was not planning on doing anything to "call home" but the other couple we are travelling with would like to be able to check messages etc. He said he heard that you can 'rent" cell phones at the Athens airport? I wonder if it would just be easier to pick up a prepaid phone card at Costco or something.....ideas?

QUOTE=david4455]Heading to Greece in a few weeks for the month of April. I was not planning on doing anything to "call home" but the other couple we are travelling with would like to be able to check messages etc. He said he heard that you can 'rent" cell phones at the Athens airport? I wonder if it would just be easier to pick up a prepaid phone card at Costco or something.....ideas?[/QUOTE]

Do not rent a cell phone it will cost way to much money. How often do you go overseas? You can buy a UNLOCKED gsm phone very cheap on e-bay. You can go to Telestial.com and get a greece sim card. The people you want to call you will have the number. You will be able to call around greece. If you call the U.S. it will cost $.92 /min. better than $5.00 /min from your hotel. You can buy top up cards at any tabac shop or kisok. Phone cards may or may not work in Greece. I have a sprint card, and I can only use it in a few countries. Telestial also has a special promotion for phone and sim card. It can be quite expensive. Just to let you know I have no interest in this company. I have used them before and they are quite responsive. Look at the sites, and make up your own mind. I hope this helps. This is my 2 cents. have a great trip. :D

One more resource you may want to look at. [url]www.thetravelinsider.com. He has a wealth of information about cell phones. Look under the Road Warrior banner. This should give you a lot of information. Just my 2 cents. :D

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/grecia.html

I would get or borrow a GSM phone, get a prepaid card in Greece, and then setup a callback service to hit the cell phone in greece. you should be able to get a card for 10-15 euro, and then call back services are about .11$ per minute to greece.

www.nobelcom.com

Thirteen cents a minute from Greece back to the US.

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/grecia.html

Just looked here for info on Australia. It answered all my questions about who the providers are, pricing, etc. :cool: