When I'm abroad it's usually for a pretty short amount of time so I just forgo phone calls altogether and use occasional emails to keep in touch with family. However, this last trip to Central America I did use the Skype in an internet cafe and it worked pretty well but the call quality wasn't great. It could have been a result of the kind of connection that the shop had, but the bottom line is the call wasn't good.

For the best results, I think a plain old phone card is the best low cost international phone calls. Pingo is a company I was just turned on to and they seem to have pretty good deals for International prepaid calling cards. I was just looking at the Argentina calling card rates and they seem pretty good.

Anyone else have any tips or advice on low cost international phone calls?