Travelling through USA
 

Hi, we're goin to travel through West USA for 15-20 days.

We would like to call Italy (and receive calls) at a cost less expensive than those offered by our mobile company in Italy.

It would be interesting to navigate also with our Iphone to look for motels along the road.

Can you suggest us a good solution? An USA-sim? What else?
For internet connection we should use wi-fi but we wouldn't be in main cities for a long time and so a connection should be more useful.

Thank you for your experiences and your time!

Well, 'West USA' is pretty big and I suspect there will be many places with no data when outside 'civilisation.'

I am going to suggest TRU truphone.com . Check them out. They work on both the T-Mobile and the larger AT&T network. At times data won't work and at other times it might be slow. But this might be the best and easiest option.

Here are their rates in the US and calls to Italy.
For an Italian resident
When in USA:

Calls to local landlines will be charged at: €0.11/min
Calls to local mobiles will be charged at: €0.11/min
Receiving a call will be charged at: €0.11/min
Sending an SMS will be: €0.09/sms
Receiving an SMS will be: FREE
Data usage will be: €0.22/MB

And when calling back home to Italy
Calls to Landlines will be charged at: €0.11/min
Calls to Mobiles will be charged at: €0.24/min
Sending an SMS will be: €0.11/sms
Rates shown for all other currencies are inclusive of tax / VAT.

Hopefully, others will see this and confirm or reject this suggestion. The data rate is probably about the best that you can get easily as someone in Europe.

Hopefully you have not left yet.

Pay only for what you use
 

You haven't mentioned what you are paying in Italy. Anyway, if you come to US, get a suitable prepaid plan from Truconnect. I have been using it since 10 months. No hassles of an expensive fixed monthly plan. TruConnect charges only for the actual usage. It’s great for the occasional users.

If your iPhone has UMTS 850 & 1900 you might consider a Straight Talk SIM. It's an "unlimited" monthly prepaid. You can have the SIM sent to your first US address with a month's service for about $45 if you use the promo code "SIMSAVE". They also sell an international calling bolt-on but you might want to just couple the Straight Talk account with a "dialthru" international service.

If your iPhone has UMTS 850 & 1900 you might consider a Straight Talk SIM. It's an "unlimited" monthly prepaid. You can have the SIM sent to your first US address with a month's service for about $45 if you use the promo code "SIMSAVE". They also sell an international calling bolt-on but you might want to just couple the Straight Talk account with a "dialthru" international service.

I'd also endorse Truphone for this -
I was surprised that the data rate is more than I expected, so I looked up their rates:
very interesting, for US residents, the cost is 15c/MB (in US $). But they appear to be charging 22 Euro c/MB, around 28 US cents, for Italians!

I thought Truphone was just ripping off US residents roaming in Europe relative to EU residents, but now we've discovered that they are also charging Europeans more for data when in the US!

It's still a good deal for a small amount of email/web checking, but Tru is only company to adjust prices by residency....