Traveling with cash/euros?

First, my condolences for being in charge of paying for a group of 10.
You're correct: Travelers checks are so 20th century.
ATMs will only give you a limited amount of euros per day. You can't know in advance what the limit will be: it's determined by at least two things: the daily limit set by your bank, which you can know in advance, and you can ask your bank to increase that. But the limit of what you can get out of an ATM per day is also governed by how much that particular ATM and the financial institution behind it, allows from that ATM, and you can't know that in advance and can't change it.
If you religiously use a money-belt, worn under your clothing (pants for standard money-belt, shirt or blouse if you opt to use the slightly less secure method of a neck belt)--then no pick-pocket can get your cash. In the US a money-belt is only partially effective, because the thief can use a weapon and force you to hand it over, but fortunately in Europe the incidence of strong-arm theft with a weapon is lower than here; we've never had on this forum an incident where someone has lost cash in a properly worn money belt, unless they forgot and left it in their hotel room or something similar.

You could probably do maximum ATM withdrawals over several days. Can any of the family members also use a debit card at an ATM? Or open several accounts with CapitalOne 360 and do withdrawals on several cards. A fun problem to solve.

Enjoy the planning and the trip!

Check to see if you can pay in advance with a bank transfer - I use www.transferwise.com

Divide the cash between the responsible members of the group(say those between 10-70 years old, although this can vary) and collect it only before payment.

Can any of the family members also use a debit card at an ATM?

Right. I'm assuming you're traveling with other adults who can use an ATM? Have them withdraw euros and provide you with their shares of the excursion costs on the days you'll be taking them.

How much money are we talking about? If its a thousand euro or less, I wouldnt worry about it - ATMs (bancomats) work just as easily there as here. A few thousand, and maybe I'd have another plan.

Except that the amount can matter if the OP tried withdraw a very large amount all at once. Most of the ATMs we ran into had limits on how much you could withdraw at one time so multiple transactions might be necessary. We'd also temporarily increased our daily withdrawal limits with our banks before the trip.

This might be helpful:
https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/money/cash-machine-atm-tips

Contact your bank and ask them to raise the limit on how much you can withdraw from an ATM each day. (Be sure you've told your bank that you'll be traveling--dates, general locations.) Also, consider taking 2 or 3 cards so you have options if one quits on you or if you need extra money at some point.

I don't envy you, though. It's hard enough paying for 2...

Thank you so much for the input! I was hoping to avoid the older folks in the group from handling cash but I think I will have them either carry their own cash for brief periods of time for these excursions or I can help them at the ATM - I just can't be responsible for carrying that amount of cash. I will check with my back and see if I can increase my withdrawal amount - I think it was $200 per day last summer when I was in Europe.
Thanks again!
Jane

But note carefully: the amount you can get out of an ATM in Europe is controlled by 2 things:
1) your bank's limit, which you can attempt to influence; and
2) the limit placed on the ATM by the financial institution/owner of the ATM, which you cannot know in advance and which you cannot influence.

In Italy, DeutscheBank is one brand that usually allows quite high withdrawals in a single transaction, and they're in most cities, including one in Positano and one in Sorrento. If you use an ATM with a lower per-transaction limit, it's still OK to make multiple withdrawals until you reach your bank's daily limit, but takes longer.

What Kent just said.

I needed several thousand Euro cash on a past trip. I had my bank's daily limit upped to $700 USD and was able to withdraw 500 EUR from a single ATM each day in France and Germany over 5 days.

Italy may (or may not be a problem) because of ATM operator withdraw limits. I tried to obtain 300 EUR from a Venice airport ATM but it denied the 300 EUR withdraw (and my bank's daily limit was $500 USD). I reduce the request to 200 EUR and it spit out the 200 EUR. ATM limit was likely 250 or 200 EUR. Italian ATMs must be sensitive to potential fraud. I don't know if the machine lime is per transaction or per day.

Work around to ATM operator limits could be multiple ATMs and/or multiple people in your party. And yes to spreading the cash between several responsible people in your party.

I understand it may not be possible, but if you can make a credit card work for payment at all, you could rack up some serious bonus points for paying for that many people. They could pay you in cash or check, and you pay your card in full at the end of the month. Just make sure its a card that has no foreign transaction fees.

If it were me, I'd get a new card with a signup bonus for a minimum spend before the trip. You would hit the minimum spend easily.

If a credit card is at all possible, I would look at this as a golden opportunity and not a burden at all, but that's just me. You can probably earn at least a round trip international flight worth of points. PM me if you want additional details.

The adverse impact of low withdrawal amount limits set by the ATM owner occurs if your financial institution charges a out-of-system usage charge. Some banks charge as much as $5 USD per transaction for cash per "Non-network international ATM" withdrawal in addition to foreign exchange fees.