I am interested in calculating the current/future volatility in a better way than using Historical Volatility (HV), with the main intent to more accurately calculate theoretical option prices (as option players know, implied volatility may be very different from HV and is itself neither constant nor uniform leading to the well known phenomenon of Volatility Smile, or skew). Does anyone have a formula, and a brief description in simple English, that they would like to share? It doesn't have to be hyper-accurate, just something that can do the job decently. Guess something that can be calculated entirely using one or two variables, such as stock price series, would be the best solution, such as ARCH, GARCH, etc.

Note: I am somewhat math challenged so simplicity is important!