USA By Telephone

You can usually make direct international calls from pay phones, but if you aren’t using a phone card, you may need to feed the machine regularly. Prepaid phone cards are a common and relatively inexpensive means of calling abroad. Each one comes with a Personal Identification Number (PIN) and a toll-free access number. You call the access number and then follow the directions for dialing your PIN. To purchase prepaid phone cards, check online for the best rates; www.callingcards.com is a good place to start. Online providers generally send your access number and PIN via email, with no actual “card” involved. You can also call home with prepaid phone cards purchased in the US (see Calling Within the US, below).

Another option is to purchase a calling card, linked to a major national telecommunications service in your home country. Calls are billed collect or to your account. To obtain a calling card, contact the appropriate company listed below. Where available, there are often advantages to purchasing calling cards online, including better rates and immediate access to your account. To call home with a calling card, contact the operator for your service provider in the US by dialing the appropriate toll-free access number (listed below in the third column).

Placing a collect call through an international operator can be expensive, but may be necessary. You can frequently call collect without even possessing a company’s calling card just by calling its access number and following the instructions.

Placing International Calls. To call the US from home or to call home from the US, dial:
1. The international dialing prefix. To call from Australia, dial 0011; Canada or the US, 011; Ireland, New Zealand, or the UK, 00.
2. The country code of the country you want to call. To call Australia, dial 61; Canada or the US, 1; Ireland, 353; New Zealand, 64; the UK, 44.
3. The city/area code. Let’s Go lists the city/area codes for cities and towns in the US opposite the city or town name, next to a }. If the first digit is a zero (e.g., 020 for London), omit the zero when calling from abroad (e.g., dial 20 from Canada to reach London).
4. The local number.

Calling Within The Us

The simplest way to call within the country is to use a coin-operated phone. Prepaid phone cards (available at newspaper kiosks and convenience stores), which carry a certain amount of phone time depending on the card’s denomination, usually save time and money in the long run. Most prepaid telephone cards come with a PIN and a toll-free access number. Call the access number and follow the directions on the card to check your minutes. These cards can be used to make international as well as domestic calls. Phone rates typically tend to be highest in the morning, lower in the evening, and lowest on Sunday and late at night.

Cellular Phones

While pay phones can be found in almost every city and town in the US, if you already own a cell phone you can avoid the hassle of scrounging up change or a phone card. Cell phone reception is clear and reliable throughout the country, though in remote areas or in the mountains, reception can be spotty; your provider may also slap on additional roaming fees of up to $1.25 per minute. Travelers who already use US cell phones may want to consider upgrading from local to national service plans to avoid long-distance and roaming charges. Call your service provider to check their coverage policies.

The international standard for cell phones is Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM). If you want to use a foreign cell phone in the US, you will be able to make and receive calls if your phone is GSM-compatible. The downside is that GSM-compatible phones will only get coverage in relatively populated areas and, even then, only if the phone is from North America or a tri-band phone. A tri-band phone allows you to use both European frequencies as well as the North American frequency. You will also need a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card, a country-specific, thumbnail-sized chip that gives you a local phone number and plugs you into the local network. Many SIM cards are prepaid: they come with calling time included and you don’t need to sign up for a monthly service plan. Incoming calls are frequently free. When you use up the prepaid time, you can buy additional cards or vouchers (usually available at convenience stores) to add more. For more information on GSM phones, check out www.telestial.com, www.roadpost.com, or www.planetomni.com. If your cell phone is not GSM-compatible, consider purchasing a cell phone with prepaid minutes. Verizon (www.verizonwireless.com) and T-mobile (www.tmobile.com) are well-known cellular providers that offer prepaid plans for a variety of budgets.

Time Differences

Because the US is divided into three different time zones (see the time zone map on), regions can vary between five and eight hours behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). New York, NY is five hours behind GMT, while Los Angeles, CA is eight hours behind. The majority of the US observes Daylight Saving Time, with the exception of Arizona (not including the Navajo Reservation) and the Eastern Time portion of Indiana. Clocks change for Daylight Saving at 2am local time.