Prepaid Cell Phones

[IggyWH]

My parents now are both retired (60 and 55) and they've been doing a lot of traveling and seeing the country, something they couldn't do years ago because of kids and financial reasons. They don't own a cell phone though so I'd like to buy them a prepaid phone for them to take along with them, if for nothing else than emergency reasons. I have a couple questions :

1)Anyone suggest what they feel is the best to get? Something small to fit in my mothers purse would probably be best, but they are getting old though so something that's also loud.

2)My parents, and pretty much my whole family, lives in Pittsburgh. If I buy a phone out here in Cali, it'll have aa Cali area code to the phone number, won't it? Is there a way I can purchase a phone from here that will still give them a local to Pittsburgh area code, so if someone else in my family calls the phone, it won't be long distance?

3)Is this just a dumb idea all together? They've never owned a cell phone and don't even want one, but I'm sure they'd use it if they had one. It's so rare that you even see payphones anymore, let alone ones that work, that it just seems smart to have one just incase.