Tulip Inn Orange La Fayette

There are several ways to keep in touch with friends and family at home: bring your GSM cell phone, buy a European cell phone, make phone calls from your hotel phone (most expensive), buy a prepaid phone card from home, and buying a telecarte in Paris.

I recommend buying a telecarte to call home. There are many brands. Of course, the people at home won't be able to reach you using the telecarte. Hopefully they won't need to reach you unless it's an emergency and then they'd have to call you at your hotel.

Photo below shows 2 brands of telecarte:

1) www.iradium.fr

2) Maxicall (The last 'l' got cut off in the pic; its name really is 'Maxicall')

Anyway, purchase a telecarte avec code (telecarte with scratch-off code on the reverse). This code is dialed on the phone, you listen to a recording (available in multi lanugages), and follow the simple instructions to place your call.

I bought a USA telecarte with more than 50 minutes at 7.50 euro in February 2004. You can only purchase these telecartes with codes at major tabac stores usually the ones on main streets such as Blvd. St. Germain. They are sold according to the country you are calling.

(I do not recommend the telecarte avec code that you buy at the post offices. The instructions are ONLY in French. It took me an hour of trial and error to figure out how to place my call.)

You may use the telecarte at either a public phone or a hotel phone. However, the minutes get subtracted more when you use a hotel phone. But I was able to make about four or five calls between 10 to 20 minutes each with my card so I think it was a good buy.