A Few Questions Re: My Upcoming Trip

I suggest prepaid phones to use..And I would never buy anyone even myself a 700 phone those things get outdated so fast its sad. All depends on how much and who you will be calling once you get there though they even have prepaids now with unlimited minutes

A calling card will be the easiest thing if you are going over seas. I was in europe for a month and they really were a life save because I have T-mobile and it would have cost me an arm and a leg.

On getting a phone for your nephew I have no experience at all with Iphones.
best of luck and enjoy your trip.

My BIL travels international quite often. He always gets his phone in country. I think he buys the equivalent to a "Go phone" and pays as he goes. He has always said it's the best choice for him and the safest, since he won't be devastated if it gets lost or stolen.

Just buy a pay as you go when you get there.
If you are going to the UK, go to Tesco or ASDA, buy a phone for 20 pounds, and top it up - that's what we always do.
Depends on WHERE in Europe you are going though, each country has it's own network and coverage. If you are touring around different countries, you could buy a pay as you go in each country, or buy one here that is unlocked and has raoming.

Check out Magic Jacks. They're 35 dollar devices that you plug into computers and you are given an actual phone number that can make and receive calls on-line. Super cheap and pretty convenient if you have access to a computer. Recommended by Clark Howard. We love this!

i don't know about the international plans for AT&T...however, the international plan for Verizon was reasonable and I could drop it when I returned.

There are plenty of phone cards that you can purchase...go to Wal-Mart and check out their phones there - I believe they have some international plans there as well...

I wouldn't purchase my nephew a $700 phone..i love him to death but I wouldn't do that...I wouldn't because it's the "newest" technology with bugs in it...not sure why he feels he "needs" that phone...there are others out that are just as good if not better...but that's my opinion....

oh yeah - go to Radio Shack and make sure you have an adapter (http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&k...)
for your personal items...tell them where you are going in Europe as the UK has a different plug than Belgium and Germany...since I don't know where you are going I can't give you much more help that than

I don't know about international plans, but about the iphone get a used one on Craigslist.

this was a few years ago, but, I bought a nokia for less than $100 and then bought the sim card there. I did a quick internet search and there a lots of phones for $50 (mostly nokia, lol). There are even places you can rent the phone and get a prepaid card (for cheap). So, it seems there are more options now than when I did this last (5 years ago). I found this: (good luck and have fun!)
http://www.ustronics.com/Nokia-1280-Black-cellphone

I am living in London right now. I think your best bet is to pick up a cheap phone that you can top up. You can pick them up in many local shops and they can be as little as £20. If you just buy a sim card your phone probably will not recognize it as it is set with US factory settings. When I first arrived I unlocked my iPhone and got a UK sim card. Three months in my iPhone froze and relocked. Save yourself the aggravation. Enjoy your trip!

We also sold our old iPhone 3G phones on CL for $100 each. I think it took us a couple of hours to sell them, max. We had a huge list of people wanting to buy them. Check CL, and keep checking. You may find it quickly. We were just upgrading our phones, and the old ones were in perfect condition.
We travel to Europe occasionally. We never use our phones over there. We are usually visiting with friends, so we just use their phones. I imagine a throwaway phone purchased over there might be a good idea. You can get an international plan on your phone, but we never thought it was worth it.

I do not have specific information for you...too bad my youngest daughter isn't on Mamapedia...she has lived in Europe on 3 different occassions and has tons of experience in this. What I CAN tell you is to read the fine print before you buy an international calling card...some of them SOUND so cheap but if you don't look at the details you will miss the fact that there is an enormous connection fee each time you use it...so it is possible that it could cost you HUGE minutes each time you make a phone call, no matter how short or long that phone call is. It really IS a department where you need to check check and recheck the details befor purchasing anything!!
It also matter whether you are wanting to be able to call back to the States or if you are going to be communicating in-country with your friends that you are vacationing with. The cheapest way to keep touch with your family back in the states is definitely Skype...that is what I used to talk ( and SEE!!) my daughter when she was in Spain and now that our oldest son is back in Iraq it is a great and FREE way to communicate with him!!

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I do not have specific information for you...too bad my youngest daughter isn't on Mamapedia...she has lived in Europe on 3 different occassions and has tons of experience in this. What I CAN tell you is to read the fine print before you buy an international calling card...some of them SOUND so cheap but if you don't look at the details you will miss the fact that there is an enormous connection fee each time you use it...so it is possible that it could cost you HUGE minutes each time you make a phone call, no matter how short or long that phone call is. It really IS a department where you need to check check and recheck the details befor purchasing anything!!
It also matter whether you are wanting to be able to call back to the States or if you are going to be communicating in-country with your friends that you are vacationing with. The cheapest way to keep touch with your family back in the states is definitely Skype...that is what I used to talk ( and SEE!!) my daughter when she was in Spain and now that our oldest son is back in Iraq it is a great and FREE way to communicate with him!!

For day to day talking with family back in the states, I recommend skype. If you have your laptop with you, or can go to an internet cafe you can talk for free/little money. A friend of mine did that when she went to mexico - her ipod had wifi and it was much cheaper than calling on the phone. She just prearranged her talk time with her husband. But yes, if you want a phone you will probably want to buy a sim card overseas and use that (I don't think you need a new phone unless your current phone does not accept sim cards). I would only buy the nephew an iphone if he was reimbursing you!

We have IPhones and when my mom was visiting in Europe, we got a simple International plan on my phone so we had contact. It was not that expensive and we only spoke a couple of times. You can remove the feature when you get back home.

As for IPhones, we recently sold our old ones on CL for $100 each within 12 hours. Nothing was wrong with them, we just all upgraded. Make sure you get a legit deal if you do that so you are not scammed. I am not a big CL fan because of all the scammers but it has worked for us a couple of times.

Is your nephew asking you to buy the phone for him and he is not reimbursing you? Is it a gift? See what he is willing to pay.

A friend of mine got a "travel phone" at Costco....she said it was really cheap to use in place of her regular phone. It was a calling card. I'd ask at Costco what they have. Wish I could be more specific. Have a great trip, I.