I'll be traveling for about a month through western europe (Italy, France, UK mostly). One condition from work to get this much time off is that I maintain good email access at all times. I am with Verizon in the US, and until recently they had a very good unlimited global roaming plan, but they have replaced that with a plan that is twice as expensive for only 70mb of data. I have looked at prepaid data and that also seems ridiculously expensive at a few dollars per mb. Are there any better options?

In the UK, we have Giffgaff which gives you unlimited internet for £10(no fair usage crap) so you could just get a sim from them.

In Italy I use a wind sim - I pay 20 eur/mo. to get 10GB traffic (new users should pay only 10 eur for the first 6 months); you can also have 1 GB for 9 eur/mo. or 250 MB/week for 3 eur/week or 50MB/day for 1eur/day. If you get over your limit, you don't get billed, but speed decreases drastically; at that point, you can choose to renew your data credit even before the month is over.
Also 3 Italy has a good plan, 5 eur for 3GB/mo. but you must avoid roaming otherwise you pay much more for the byte.

Thanks. This is very helpful. Are you able to sign up for these services for just one month? In the U.S. you are usually required to sign a one or two year contract, but I don't think this model is common outside of the U.S.

It would be very useful to have one of these types of plans for 1 month that allowed for roaming throughout Europe, not just in one country. I realize that a plan like this would be more, but does it even exist? I don't think I need a huge amount of data. I plan on just using email and some mapping and web, no video or music streaming or anything like that.

The Giffgaff deal is Pay as you go so no contract required.

Also the Italian services are pay as you go. Just buy your sim card, activate the plan, and discard it when you don't need any more.
I forgot to say of TIM which offers 1 GB/mo at 2 eur per week (so, 250 MB per week).
When you buy an Italian sim card you have to have your identity card or similar, so don't forget it.

there is (AFAIK) no prepay/one month contract giving data roaming throughout Europe on one SIM at an economic price (I've seen some but the data costs are way higher thqan locally purchased SIM's).

The Tre Italia (Three/Hutchieson Whompoa) deal that debernardis' mentioned is really good - particularly in your case as the same data bundle is useable in both Italy & UK. .I use this frequently, it's reliable, easy to set up/cancel, lasts for a calendar month (or part thereof) and is great value. I'd reccomend this if you are

a) going to Italy before UK (note - you CAN'T buy a 3 UK SIM and use it's data bundle in Italy ... it used to work, but not any more)

b) going to be mainly in urban areas (where 3's coverage is generally very good) - in more rural areas, coverage gets patchy (as they are a pure 3G network) and you'll roam onto anothr operator's network (at additional cost) if you don't prevent this in your SIM settings.

I can't reccomend anything in France but I'm sure you'll get a local prepay card there OK. The
"one card for all" Europe wide solution is a lovely idea (the EU should impose it, at a sensible price!) but it doesn't really exist yet for folks who are not having their phone/data bills paid by a company.

Thanks again. I will be in Italy first, staying in Puglia but not sure where exactly. Where would I buy this plan in Italy. Are 3 stores common?

see here: http://areaclienti.tre.it/ac3_pages/18003_ITA_HTML.htm ... entering puglia in the search will show both coverage and local shops ("negozie"). Looks like there are quite a few. Like Debernardis said, you need proof of ID (passport) to buy a prepaid sim. I'm british but have a house and a social security number over there, and I still needed my passport. get used to it, that's Italy!

I feel to stress again that if you don't have Tre radio coverage where you're going to stay, you won't be able to use your data plan without paying big money - so beware, try in place before you buy.