Going to Europe for 36 days

Europe is awfully big, where are you going? Have you got hostel bookings???

Very hard to judge. But I would start at $100/day/person plus transportation costs. $150 probably would be better.

Based on our family of five with three children (who cost less per person than adults) spent about $270 total per day, including everything except airfare. If you figure that children cost roughly half as much as adults overall, that works out to $155 per day for two adults together.

But we're pretty thrifty and it's hard to judge how two different families define thrifty. If you start at $100/day each at the high end of thrifty, then maybe you can save enough over 36 days to afford the round of antibiotics you will need for the tattoo :-)

Have a great time!

Julie,,your expenses will vary from country to country,, and even from certain regions,, so it would help if you could be more specific. Generally speaking northern countries are more expensive then southern ones, but there are exceptions ( ie a beach resort town on Riveria is more expensive then small town in Germany ) .

Hostels vary a lot in price. They're sometimes a good choice in expensive cities, but not such a bargain in smaller villages where B&B's can be found. It's impossible to even guess at a number without knowing where you're going. The Archi Rossi hostel in Florence is a great place that runs 60-90 euros/night for a double with breakfast, depending on season. It's tough to find anything near it in quality and price. The St. Goar, Germany official hostel, with an amazing view of the Rhine Valley, runs 36 Euros double with breakast. It's hard to generalize, really.

Look for hostels that offer a breakfast buffet if you want to load up early and save on your other meals. The one in Mainz, Germany is very good, with lots of selections. Most have a standard offering of breads, cheeses, cold cuts, butter and jam, coffee and juice, and often cereal - this one in Northeim is typical:
Breakfast spread

Germany's a pretty good place to visit for hostels - 550 official hostel association locations all around the country.

Tattoos are easy to carry home but you have to carry them a long, long time. I have a fun beer coaster collection, myself.

Julie,
I spent 39 days in 8 countries last fall( departed Canada Aug 26, arrived home Oct 03) and in total( air fare, Eurail pass, meals, accommodations, etc, etc) I spent about $6500 Canadian, but that was with splitting the cost of accommodations with a friend. Excluding the cost of airfare and rail pass, I would budget somewhere around $125/day each, maybe $150 at most.

Perhaps others may disagree, but while I support picnicking to bring down costs and have done so on every trip to Europe, I think 90% picnicking is an optimistic estimate. I don't know where you're going, but some places are easier to sit and picnic than others, and in many places enjoying a meal in different setting (an English pub, a Parisian cafe, or an Italian trattoria, for example) is as much of the experience as the museums and architecture. Make sure you grant yourself enough money to enjoy yourselves.
Happy travels.

In response to the questions of where exactly I will be going we are flying into spain and then travelling through france, ireland, the netherlands, germany, poland, greece and italy.
My mom and I can be very thrifty and have no problem sleeping in very cheap hostels.
We arent going necessarily for comfort, more so to visit theses countries and see the sites. Where we sleep isnt as important to us.
We were estimating our daily budget to be around $90 a day for each of us with a combined total of around $180.
I personally think that an estimation of $150 might be too high. But thats also why I wanted to hear opinions

FWIW, we make a couple or three month-long trips to europe each year. I feel that we do it about as frugally as possible, since that's the only way we can go so much. Forgetting to-and-from airfare and all transportation costs once there, we average (for the countries on your list) $75 pp/pd.

There are some big 'but's, however. We've already seen most of the places that charge entry fees, so few costs there. We've been to all of the big cities, so don't spend much time there. Breakfast and lunch generally come out of a food sack, but we have a car (more later) and stock up on grub at the big remote supermarkets. Between us, we speak all of the languages on your list (except Greek, Polish, and Dutch), so we have no problem eating and sleeping well beyond the normal tourist areas (and we have a car to get there -- more later). We don't buy souveniers.

Back to the seventy-five bucks: supper usually costs us about twenty dollars each -- do with that number what you will; we generally have a couple of coffees/beers each during the course of the day.

One place you might be heading in the wrong direction is by focusing on hostels -- for two people a budget hotel is generally cheaper.

Now to transportation. We have a car -- always. Rental and gas average $25 pp/pd. Within that amount we can squeak in a couple of channel crossings if we're going that way. You've got some pretty big distances to cover (somewhere to Irleand -- somewhere to Greece -- and back from these two places). Combining those costs with general moving around costs, I don't think you can pull it off for $25 pp/pd.

Over-riding everything else is that, since this is your first trip, you've got a big 'stupid factor' to add to your costs. Don't feel bad, mine are colossal and legendary, but you're going to have a bunch of small ones that will add up.

I'm pretty much with the rest of the crowd: it's going to cost you about $150 pp/pd -- and I can only gut-shot at your transportation costs.

Transportation has been pretty much covered. we are going to over estimate for things such as transportation within cities. We also have money set aside for train tickets which we are still trying to estimate point to point vs a rail pass.