If needing a phone for more than just a few calls, or if you travel much it is very cheap to just have a cell phone unlocked or buy one already unlocked. I am not taslking about fancy smancy video internet video phones, but for basic calling. On Roatan you can get an unlocked cell phone with sim card and some minutes for about $25 US. If you already have a unlocked GSM phone the sim cards are even less. While a quad band phone will be most universal worldwide, most of Central America and South America have carriers using GSM 1900. You can also googl GSM maps to find just what is needed worldwide.
Calls from my Cell phones in Honduras to the US are less than $0.20 cents per minute. When our plane was diverted this past winter and we spent the afternoon and one night in Belize I got a local sim card for about $5 and had no trouble. Even if a US or North American carrier has plans for international and even if they worked well they will still be quite expensive.
Also, once you have your sim card, even if you run out of minutes and do not buy a phone card for more time you can still recieve calls from anywhere at no cost.
Is it worth it for one week at an AI where you can just pay a dollar or so a minute for a couple of calls to check in? Maybe not, but there are phone stores around the island so if out and about at all it is pretty cheap and easy, BUT there may or may not be English speaking people at the store. Some are bothered by this but they seem to forget that out of something like 23 American countries, only 3 have English as the official Language and the US in Not even one of them.
Calls from my Cell phones in Honduras to the US are less than $0.20 cents per minute. When our plane was diverted this past winter and we spent the afternoon and one night in Belize I got a local sim card for about $5 and had no trouble. Even if a US or North American carrier has plans for international and even if they worked well they will still be quite expensive.
Also, once you have your sim card, even if you run out of minutes and do not buy a phone card for more time you can still recieve calls from anywhere at no cost.
Is it worth it for one week at an AI where you can just pay a dollar or so a minute for a couple of calls to check in? Maybe not, but there are phone stores around the island so if out and about at all it is pretty cheap and easy, BUT there may or may not be English speaking people at the store. Some are bothered by this but they seem to forget that out of something like 23 American countries, only 3 have English as the official Language and the US in Not even one of them.
