I'm wondering how much should adult travelers budget per day for Rome, excluding the hotel. I've heard Rome is an expensive city but that's kind of vague. What might one budget (per day), for activities that adult tourists might like to partake in (food, admissions, transportation, etc)?

I'm not trying to see Rome as a student might. I'm retirement age and just taking a vacation.

Are you planning on eating in nice restaurants?

If you're eating cheaply.....ahhhhhh my memory's fading. $50-60/day? That should be more than enough to do pretty much everything you can fit in.

Its said Rome is fairly expensive for Italy, and Italy is expensive over the average for Europe.

So, figure on 10 euros a person per meal for low class but edible food, then there are admissions, etc.

If you have an ISIC card, you might be able to cut museum admissions in half in many museums.

If you have a student card, non ISIC, perhaps.

30 to 40 euros a day per person should make you feel comfortable eating cheap food. That translates to 45 dollars to 60 dollars USA, by the way. if you live on ramen noodles and water, you can definitely cut that figure by quite a bit. Rome is pretty walkable, and public transport can be taken, once you know the names of the places you are going, AND get used to the chaos.

That's a bit of a relief, I guess, depending on how current those estimates are.

My wife and I are in our 60s and I'm taking my daughter and her husband (in their late 20s). I was thinking I might expect to need $200 per day (per person), for the 6 days/7 nights (excluding hotel costs and airfare). I don't plan on a lot of high priced dinners. We are there primarily for the sights. We will likely just eat on the run, during the day (or small cafes)... not too sure about dinner though (we will definitely avoid overly priced places). So it looks like $200 per day is an overkill.

I've been to Paris a dozen times or so for business trips, so that is my only recent point of comparison.

Thanks, that's a bit of a relief, since I'm picking up the tab for 4 people.

The most expensive area to eat, is around the Vatican, avoid eating in the Vatican City as it is far more expensive than any where else in Rome.

We found some fairly cheap restaurants up the side streets in the centre of Rome, and the food was excellent.

Rome is much cheaper to eat in than Paris. Just grab pieces of pizza and eat street pistachios, get a gelato and check out wall menus. I found some very reasonably priced and good places without difficulty and I don't speak Italian.

If you'll be staying in Rome the entire time, it might be worth it to buy the 7 day public transport passes. A seven day ticket would cost 16 Euro per person. With this ticket, you can travel on both of the subway lines as well as all of the buses. I found this to be much more economical than taking taxis -- the buses run quite late and will take you to nearly any corner of the city.

I would say that $200 per person per day is more than generous. Figure that a single scoop of gelato is about 2 Euro, the average entrance into a museum is about 14 Euro, an espresso enjoyed at a counter is 1 Euro, and a slice of take-away pizza is about 3 Euro.

In the Trastevere neighborhood I had an entire pizza for 3 euro... Oh, how I love that neighborhood...

And AJV's right about the transportation pass - if you're planning to walk most places, it wouldn't necessarily be worth it. But I don't think I could handle walking everywhere in Rome. The city just wipes me out, and a bus ride is a welcome respite from walking! I wrote a post about transportation in Rome that talks about taxis, buses and the Metro.