Daily living expenses for young adult

She shouldn't need to upgrade on a train, second class works fine. There is a charge for a sleeper on an overnight train but I've never taken one.

Eating - depends on how she plans to eat. I could survive well spending 20 Euros per day on grocery stores and to go food. I could also spend 100 Euros or more per day eating at nicer restaurants. Dinner at a restaurant can be anywhere from 20 to 50 Euro or more. Fixed price menus are the better choice because you know the total up front. A huge slice of pizza to go in Italy will be less than 5 Euro, the price jumps a lot if you sit down. Buying snacks and picnic food at a grocery store should also cost less than 10 Euro for one, including some meat, cheese, bread roll, olives, chocolate and a soda and/or water.

Touring - Again it depends on what she wants to see. An Opera, Ballet or Theater show can cost a lot, maybe 50 Euro for one show (there are cheaper options, if you take advantage of them). I would probably assume an average of 10 Euros for each site that charges admission and plan no more than one or two sites per day. She can augment that by googling "Free things to do in _____". There are a lot of good things to see that don't charge admission including many museums and churches.

I'm sorry it's a little vague. Different people have different ideas on what is their minimum so she needs to accurately guage her own preferences and set a budget. It's good to have a budget; if not, it's easy to blow your money quickly and be completely broke the rest of the trip.

It does depend on what she wants to do. I budgeted about $100 a day for 10 days and came home with money but left myself the room to be safe. I was in Paris and Rome. She has to also plan for the bigger costs she will run into. The first day in each city was pricy getting the passes etc.

I would have her plan for 10 Euros for breakfast and 10 for lunch and about 25 for dinner. This will cover a little left over for midday snacks etc. She can also eat dinner cheaper by going to the grocery store. I found eating a good hearty dinner at the end of the day really helped me in staying engerized and healthy. Tell her not to scrimp on nutrition. She will need it.

Have her pack a water bottle or tell her to buy a bottle of water and reuse it and just refill it. It will save money on drinks during the day. Remind her that staying hydrated is a must when walking all day travelling. I refilled mine at every bathroom stop at the sink. The Louve had a water fountain attached to the sink.

If she is in Paris a museum pass is a must (it saves tons of time and money). It is 45 euro for 4 days (still worth it.)

In Rome getting a 3 days Rome pass is worth it. The Rome pass includes your metro ticket. I think it is about 25 Euros.

I used the sleeper on my overnight and found it worth the money. I forget the cost.

Brad and Jaclyn have provided you with good info. I agree with Brad that sticking to 1 or 2 "sites" per day is a good idea, but depending on how long your daughter will be there even that gets to be too much day in and day out. Some of the best experiences I've had were hanging out in a park, or on a street bench and striking up a conversation (think "Forrest Gump"), or slowly nursing a beer in a pub, all at little or no cost.

Margie,
I'm a young adult, 20 years old. My girlfriend and I are planning out our 21 night journey right now - financially speaking. We've done this..bought a plane ticket, rail pass, and paid for our first 4 nights in Paris and our last 3 nights in Nice. We have 14 nights in between where we'll be traveling. We have not made reservations for those because we want to have some freedom so we figured this...

We've paid roughly $1200 for lodging for 7 nights (sort of splurged a little in Nice) and our rail pass with insurance.

While we're there we're on two budgets...

for the nights we've already paid for lodging 70EURO a day. This will be for food, tourist stuff, museums, etc.

For the nights we have not paid, 100EURO a day. This will be lodging, food, museums, tourist stuff, etc. This budget is risky in some places, but over the top in others. We are staying in hostels in some places so that'll give us extra room, however we're not going to 'roll over' any money - we figure we'll save. Also, over night trains help us save some money because we'll only need to pay the reservation fee - if applicable.

22 days, we're thinking $3000 is more than enough money. The goal behind this (which won't work for everyone) is to plan high so that when we move into our apartments in Italy we'll have extra spending money to have so we can travel some more!

I've been doing lots of research on budget saving tips, etc. and i've been very pleased with the information that i've gotten. If you'd like to ask questions or talk details about the $$ spending please message me i'd be happy to give you some extra input!!

When I was young and travelled around Europe, I just planned to spend what I had saved,, in other words , I just " made do " alot. My friend and I found that in some countries we really had to watch our spending, while in others we were " rich" . Where exactly is daughter going? Northern Europe is terribly expensive, but it gets cheaper as you go south, and cheaper outside ( generally) of big cities.
We ate alot of grocery store food.. and quick or take away.

Second class is all your daugther needs, I still travel second class and I can well afford not too, first class is mostly for business travellers, stuffy and not that much nicer anyways.

There is an upgrade to get a couchette, personally we never did that, so can't tell you how much, and we never could plan ahead ( you do need to reserve couchettes) as were just wandered around Europe for a few months with no agenda other then the two weeks we knew we were spending in Greece.