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I don't have that apparently universal nightmare of showing up late for a class or a test, naked. My recurring nightmare is about pay phones. Really. I stand there, face-to-dial with a public phone, and no matter what I do, how hard I shout, how much money I deposit, I cannot get through.

The telecommunications industry has been hard at work making sure that nowadays this dream will never come true. Today, even E.T. would be able to phone home without much problem. His bigger headache would be trying to figure out the most convenient and/or cheapest way to call.

The options for long-distance communication have become dizzying, the technology sometimes verging on sci-fi. The good news is that many of these options enable travelers to get around the high costs of international calls.

[Among] the top choices for staying in touch when you're out of the country:

Callback

How it works:

This is an ingenious (and legal) and very inexpensive way to make long-distance calls from abroad to the United States. Companies offering this service in essence provide U.S. international long distance rates in countries outside the United States.

Before your trip, establish an account with a callback service, such as Kallback (kallback.com, [877] 777-5242). You give them a credit card to charge, and tell them what phone number you will be at while traveling; they give you a U.S.-based phone number connected to the callback service's computer system. Once abroad, you call this number, let it ring a certain number of times, then hang up. This is your signal to the company you want to make a call. Its computer will call you back at the number you've given them; when you pick up, you'll have a U.S. dial tone and can make calls. Kallback and other companies also offer options, for an additional fee, for travelers who are not always going to be at one particular phone and location.

Rates are usually worth the convoluted process: Kallback's rate for one minute from the United Kingdom to the United States is 15 cents. Usually this is a post-paid service, with the company billing your credit card automatically.

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