If you have $23 a day for food for two people, sightseeing, local transit within each cit - you are going to get really hungry very fast. (Could you eat in your home town for $23 day. I don;t know how you wold do it in NYC - unless you stuck to hot dogs in the street and slices of pizza - nothing sit down.)

Sorry IMHO this is not nearly enough. Also I'm not at all sure that $50 per night is enough for 2 beds in a hostel - even in a shared dorm room. Can't comment on airbnb - but I would suggest that ou check out each place very carefully - is is really in the city or some distant suburb? Do you really get a room of your own? (A poster here used it in Amsterdam, I believe, and were shown to a large closet plus a bath shared by 9 other people).

Few people here are backpackers. I would get some of the Let's Go student guides and check out the Torn Tree sectin of the Lonely Planet web site.

(Oh, and last summer my daughter spent about $9000 in 5 weeks - as one of 3 girls - living modestly, although that did include point to point train tickets.)

I'm actually using Airbnb for our honeymoon, and yes, depending on the place you get, some are definitely in the middle of the city. Sometimes you can even get entire apartments by yourself, for relatively inexpensively. We're staying in a studio in Paris this June for $95 a night. I would have to say, if I were shown to a large closet and that's not what the reviews and description said, I'd be on the phone to Airbnb immediately. I've been looking at different places in Croatia/Italy/Greece, and some are 50-70 a night, and are pretty decent, really.

Yes, I realize that $23 a person per day is silly (although, if we had a place with a kitchen, we could always cook). That's why I was thinking "hmm, I should be raising this budget...".

But I do appreciate your comments

USD23 is about 17 euro. A coffee and croissant eaten standing at the bar in Italy costs about 2.00 or 2.50 euro. A slice of pizza in Italy is about 3.00 euro. You can buy a drinkable bottle of wine for about 4.00 euro.

A Happy Meal at Maccas is about 7.00 euro I believe (depending on one's definition of happy).

Accomodation at 40 euro a night for two people seems very cheap, and I suppose that you get what you pay for.

This might help:
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Italy

Your lodging budget is too low, especially if you plan to stay in major cities. The same with your food budget.

You've mentioned visiting up to 6 countries in 8 weeks. That's way too much - it's a country in a little more than a week. The more you move around the more the trip will cost you and the less you will see. Determine an itinerary based on cities/areas you really want to visit and then relook at your budget.

I would not jump to get a rail pass. You may be able to get point-to-point train tickets or bus tickets cheaper. In France the fast trains require seat reservations and there are few reservations available for rail pass holders and the reservations can be expensive.

Once you have an itinerary you can check out convent and hostel stays to save money.

I also would not determine the cost of airline tickets 18 months before your trip. Prices can change radically between now and next year.

Why not go for only one month to fewer destinations so that you'll have money to do things beyond merely eating, sleeping and riding trains?

When you're talking about 60 days and 5-6 countries, 10 days of travel on a railpass doesn't sounds like enough.

You could help reduce your costs if you are willing to camp part of the time. My then fiancee and now husband did that for six weeks when we were in our early 20s - mostly campsites, occasional cheap other option. We had the odd dodgy campsite, but we stayed at some great ones, saw a whole other side of the places we went to and had an absolutely wonderful time. We wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Something doesn't sound right about your airfares, i.e. open jaw tickets that are twice the price of a RT. Are you sure you didn't check one way fares instead of "multi-city", which is what an open jaw ticket really is? Usually a multi-city ticket, one that has a return flight from a different city that the arrival point is only modestly more expensive than a round trip ticket.

Texas--that would be interesting, but I don't really want to drag a tent around the whole time.

Jean--we may end up cutting out Spain and perhaps Croatia--although I really just wanted to go see the Golden Horn.

Hazel--Yes, I'm positive I didn't check one-way fares. I may be new to backpacking, but I'm not new to booking flights. In fact, we're doing an open-jaw ticket when we go to Europe in June: flying into London & out of Munich, which was $1400 apiece, but it's also summer. The open-jaw for next year (based on prices for Sept-Oct 2012..yes I know, flight prices change, but it's better than having no idea of prices in the fall) was not into or out of Dublin. We were checking this one out because I had heard Dublin was one of the cheaper places to fly into. In fact, it was $1,400 for a round-trip ticket from Miami to CDG.

It wouldn't surprise me if an open jaw ticket were $1400 if you are flying out of Croatia or some place like that (and September is not that much cheaper than summer). But part of your comparison is the distance and travel which isn't zero if you are comparing flying out of Croatia versus a RT Dublin. So I think that savings of $700 a person for air may not really be spot on in reality, but if Dublin is a cheap place from Miami, it will definitely save something (depending on how you value the time and money to get back there, though).

I'm not clear if you really get that $50 is not 50 euro, it is a big different. So $50 a night for lodging is only about 35 euro. I don't think you can even get a hostel for that in Paris.

I don't eat that much nor do I eat 3 meals a day (but couldn't do without buying coffee or drinks in cafes, that's part of the vacation), but would want at least 40 euro a day per person for food/drinks, etc. 35 at a minimum, so that's about US$45-50.