As you have a uno your best option is to try the software serial. It is just downloading the lib and try.
I have used software serial before and the quality is OK.
One of the differences between UNO and leonardo is that the USB on the UNO is serviced by a chip which is actually connected to pin 0 and 1.
On the Leonardo that is not the case. This means that the serial port on pin 0 and 1 is free for other usages. In other words with the Leonardo you have 2 hardware serial ports.
Leonardo does have some drawbacks as well. Basically it is not as mainstream as the UNO so there were/are libraries that do not support the Leonardo. It changes all the time so if you want a project with the leonardo it is better to check at that time whether all shields/libraries needed support the Leonardo.
Adding this all up: try with your uno and the software serial lib http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/SoftwareSerial.
The comment on the code states
Receives from the hardware serial, sends to software serial.
Receives from software serial, sends to hardware serial.
Sounds like what you are looking for.
Best regards
Jantje