How do I call my wife in Sweden, Copenhagen, and Hungary while she visits for two weeks?

June 17, 2007 8:54 AM

How do I call my wife in Sweden, Copenhagen, and Hungary while she visits for two weeks? I'm in the US and she will not have a cell phone or a computer.

It's probably best if I call the hotels, but is jajah or skype my best bet? Anyone have other suggestions? How about via calling card so I don't have to be around a computer.. Any thoughts/suggestions are appreciated.

posted by seinfeld to travel & transportation (6 comments total)

Can she get a calling card and call you? If her access to phones is going to be limited, it might be easiest for her to control when and where the calls happen.

When I lived in Italy, my parents bought a calling card (through AT&T, I think) and gave me the access numbers. I used a pay phone to dial the access line for Italy, entered their calling card number, and dialed their number. They paid the bill through their phone bill. I doubt it was the cheapest method, but it certainly worked fine. May be worth asking your phone company (assuming you have one) if it's only going to be for two weeks.
posted by occhiblu at 9:11 AM on June 17, 2007

You can get prepaid international calling cards pretty much anywhere in Europe. That way she can call you from any payphone. That'd probably be the easiest way.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:22 AM on June 17, 2007

If she calls you, don't let her call from inside her hotel room, even if she has a calling card. A lot of hotels will add all sorts of surcharges for the use of that line.

The best bet in my mind is to have her find a local internet cafe where she can call your number in the states using VOIP. It would be more expensive than Skype to Skype but you wouldn't need to be at a computer.
posted by chlorus at 9:39 AM on June 17, 2007

If the only thing stopping her having cell phone access is lack of a pricing plan/network it's worth looking into buying her a pre-paid SIM card.

For example this is the first link on google, I'm sure there are others out there.
posted by gadha at 9:57 AM on June 17, 2007

My wife and I just returned from a year in Dublin, Ireland and she took trips to Denmark and Hungary. In Dublin and Denmark there were call centers where international calls could be made for a relatively cheap rate, advertised in the window of the store. I believe there may have been call centers in Hungary, too, although I called her from a place in Dublin while she was there. The rates as I recall were around 10 cents a minute. Many European cities have variety of small "mom and pop" call centers (which double as internet cafes) due to their new immigrant populations...
posted by Slothrop at 1:27 PM on June 17, 2007

For international calling, Skype is FAR cheaper than any other way that I've found. Here are Skype's per minute rates for those countries (it varies depending on region, landline vs. mobile, & service provider):

Denmark - Landline $ 0.021
Denmark - Mobile $ 0.246
Hungary - Landline $ 0.021
Hungary - Mobile $ 0.218
Hungary - Budapest $ 0.021
Sweden - Landline $ 0.021
Sweden - Mobile $ 0.292
Sweden - Mobile (Telia) $ 0.292
Sweden - Stockhom $ 0.021

So in other words, you calling her on a landline will be a WAY better deal just about always.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:38 PM on June 17, 2007