A lot depends on how many $$ sights you plan to see and what kind of food you plan to eat. Prague is pretty cheap, you can get by on $30 a day (including hostel if you don’t buy souvenirs). Italy, maybe $40 a day (pensions I think are a bit more than hostels, maybe $50/day total). Trains in Italy are pretty cheap compared to the rest of Western Europe – probably you should just buy point-to-point tickets and don’t worry about a railpass. These prices are without big events – like going to a concert or buying a case of wine. You might want to have a separate fund for such things.

U.S. dollars? You could bring maybe $50 for an emergency, though you’ll probably have no need for them. Most useful for airport food I guess.

I’d figure on $85 to $100 a day, US, not counting transportation between cities and your plane ticket. Roughly, 1/2 for lodging and 1/2 for food, admissions, local transportation (mostly public transportation but you can spring for a couple of cheap city tours or taxi rides) clubs, beer, postcards, and misc. You can cut that in 1/2 if you stay in hostels, avoid taxis and tours, use student discounts, free admission days, etc, avoid expensive clubs and generally watch your spending. I’d use the price of a 10 day Italian railpass plus $100 for getting from Prague to Italy for a rough (and probably high) estimate of intercity transportation. I doubt you can make it from Prague to Italy for $100, but you probably won’t use 10 rail days in Italy, so it should average out. When you have a fairly complete itinerary use railsaver.com to see if a railpass makes sense.

I’d bring a couple of hundred in US dollars (take 20’s) for emergencies. Use your ATM card to withdraw the cash you’ll need every few days. If you normally use a credit card and are disciplined enough to stick to a budget take the card and use it where you can — but not for cash advances. You get the best exchange rates and the fewest fees using credit cards for purchases(assuming you pay off the bill when it comes and don’t use it at places that charge extra to use a credit card) and ATM cards for cash.

I think you just got two very different ideas of backpacking. Anyway, i usually suggest backpackers budget $40-$60 USD per day for western europe per day AFTER purchasing their backpacks, airline and train tickets.

Yes, pensions almost always are a tad more expensive than a hostel, but they are usually more personal and less crowded. if you prefer to party, chose the hostels. If you want to get the cheapest rooms, stay in a hostel dorm bed.

Thanks for all the feedback!!

Keep in mind that a hostel in Italy can be almost $25-30USD a night due to the crap value of the dollar against the Euro right now. That would depend on the season, obviously summer through mid september will be the msot expensive. But, if you figure $25 for accomadation, then add in $15USD for food, and that’s conservative (grocery stores, free breakfast at hostel, no fancy stuff) plus, I assume you will be seeing the big sights in Italy, so $15 USD fees for museums, etc. You already have $55 USD a day. Add in shopping, even if its just a few postcards, plus any booze or nightlife…I’d say about $70 USD a day, at the least. That is what I wil budget for my two months in tha fall, however I’m counting on the fact that I’m visiting some considerably cheaper countries like Poland, Slovenia, Greece, Portugal and Spain in addition to Italy, France and Germany, so hopefully I will spend less some days and more the others! Hope that helps…seems really realistic to me!