I have a Verizon plan. On my last trip, I put the phone on airplane mode before landing and set the phone up to only make calls on wifi (no cell towers). I was able to make calls and send texts back to the US at no charge as long as I had wifi. There was a small charge when making local calls (something like 0.99 per minute and only used to make dinner reservations) so it was much cheaper than the $10 per day or monthly international rate. Obvious downside was having to have wifi to make calls but since I was always in my room when calling, this was not an issue for me.