Greetings foreign visitors! I’m sure that the pull of cheap Dollars is making you excited to come and visit the US.

But what if you plan to come to the States and make a lot of mobile phone calls? Prepaid phone service is nowhere near as advanced as it is in the rest of the world, but if you know where to look, you can still find some decent options.

Here are 11 simple things you need to know about our prepaid services, where to find them, and how to save some money.

1) Finding a prepaid sim

The prepaid “sim pack” is impossible to find in the US. No retail stores carry a “sim only” prepaid kit. If you are just looking for a cheap sim card for your existing (unlocked) phone, then you’ll need either purchase a kit with a phone, or visit one of the AT&T or T-mobile branded corporate stores. Even the phone kiosk in the local shopping mall won’t always be able to activate one of their sim cards for prepaid service.

Don’t bother looking around the airport for a prepaid kit. Some common stores that carry prepaid phones are:

• Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid and most other chain pharmacies (drug stores)
• Bestbuy, Circuit City, Radio Shack and Fry’s (all large electronics stores)
• Walmart, Target, K-Mart (department stores)
• T-mobile and AT&T corporate owned stores
• 7-Eleven and some other convenience stores

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T-mobile prepaid now comes with the option for unlimited nights. If you are a prepaid user, and have selected their "pay per day plan" ($1 per day for $0.10 calls), then you also get unlimited nighttime calls (7pm-7am).

If you talk a lot, then this really is a sweet plan, unlimited calls for a buck is pretty impressive, and even puts current postpaid users at a disadvantage (who only get 8pm nights).

The $1 charge only applies to days you actually use the phone, but has the disadvantage of not being eligible for the T-mobile prepaid gold rewards, nor can it be added to a Sidekick prepaid plan.

You can read all the fine print here.

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