According to public wisdom, the days when Skype was secure are long gone and I use my own instant messaging server to communicate securely when it comes to text messaging. When it comes to video calling, however, there are few alternatives at the moment that are as universal, as easy to use and with a similar video quality. Under normal circumstances Skype video calls are peer to peer, i.e. there is no central instance on which the voice and video packets can be intercepted. That's a good thing and Skype has many ways to find out if a direct link between two Skype clients can be established.
And here's a really interesting scenario: Skype is even able to find out that a direct link can be established through my VPN link I usually establish with my VPN server at home when I'm traveling and a Skype client on a PC at home despite a NAT between the VPN link and the local home network. That means that when I'm traveling, Skype packets are routed directly between the Skype client running on a PC at home and the Skype client on my notebook that is connected to my home network over a VPN tunnel. At no time do such Skype packets traverse a link on the Internet outside the VPN tunnel. In other words, potential attackers that can passively collect packets between where I am and my home network are unable to decrypt my Skype traffic, should they have such an ability.
Sure, Skype and anyone who has access to Skype can still find out if and when I'm online, probably even where I'm online and when and to whom I make calls. The call content, however, can't be intercepted without me noticing, i.e. when the traffic suddenly is not peer-to-peer through the VPN tunnel anymore. Far from perfect, but something to work with for the moment.