Thanks all, this is great stuff.
Rules of the road for Italy are: 1) whomever has the biggest cojones wins, 2) the lines aren’t so much “lane dividers” as “a marker for the middle of the car”. Once you figure that out, it’s not so bad.
In any decent-sized town it’s become common to see locals using their cellphone to look at the map: doing that will draw less attention than a paper map.
Pack light, then take some stuff out. After all, she’ll need to bring gifts and she’ll be in a great place for shopping 
I got a pair of trousers in a street market in Como I liked so much I thought of giving them a funeral when they gave up the ghost; an American coworker who was my exact sizes got three in different colors. If she ends up with too much, the Post may be a good alternative to ship stuff she’s not in a hurry to get home.
I live in Rome. It’s a surprisingly safe city. She’ll be absolutely fine. There are tens of thousands of organised trips in Italy full of children far younger than she, and they do just great.
Things to watch out for (applies to any city in Italy):
While mugging is extremely rare, the greatest concern to the tourist are pickpockets, and yes their prime target is you, particularly on public transport.
They’re artful dodgers. Typical gambits range from the normal to the ingenious:
Having a ‘fight’ or creating some other disturbance on on public transport, while their accomplices rifle your bag.
Bugging you to buy some crap like flowers in the street while their accomplice dips you. There’s a rumor going around that they throw a ‘baby’ (actually a wrapped doll) at you, which creates such shock that you become instantly helpless, but I suspect that one’s a UL.
Tripping and falling on the Metro. While you’re helping the fallen person, their accomplice is dipping your bag or wallet. (Saw this one go horribly wrong for one guy, who made the mistake of taking the wallet of someone who appeared to be Russian ex-military. He got his wallet back very quickly and the guy got a boot in his ass when the doors opened again while his accomplices ran for their lives. Our hero got a round of applause from the rest of the train.)
Following you away from crowded places without your knowledge and dipping while your guard is down (this is how I got my wallet taken - I was in a big crowd at 11am and got paranoid, so I moved my wallet to a zipped pocket of my bag; bad mistake. Two guys saw me do it and followed me to a street where there was nobody around. One of them overtook me then tripped in front of me and while I was avoiding him the other guy, who was walking behind me, unzipped my bag and took my wallet).
The simplest and cleverest one I’ve seen: person A is acting shifty and looks like they’re going to pickpocket you. While you worry about them, person B actually does take your stuff.
I can now identify potential pickpockets just by the way they dress, look and behave: generally they are usually kids or young teens (though you do see adults up to their thirties too), travel in twos or threes, seem to be ‘dusty’ (not sure how else to explain it), and in particular have a nonchalance and familiarity with crowds and public transport that most people don’t have.
The thing to do to guard against them is to be a target that’s not worth bothering with. They’ve only got a couple of seconds to get what they want, and if you look too difficult they just won’t bother with you.
Essential techniques include: 1. Any bag carried in the street or on public transport should be worn across the front of the body, arms held over it, and zipped up. Don’t carry your backpack on your back. 2. If your daughter carries a billfold and/or a cellphone, keep them ONLY in a front jeans pocket. Not a back pocket, not a bag pocket, and not a jacket pocket, even inside. 3. Even though Italian law says foreigners need to carry their passport at all times, don’t bother. Leave it at the hotel. Carry a photocopy instead. Better to spend five minutes sweet-talking a cop out of trouble than waste two days of vacation at the embassy - but that said I’ve been here two years and never been asked for ID. 4. Do NOT wear a fanny-pack. This is mainly because you will look like an asshole.
Traffic is a bit crazy. As even sven said, if you’re stuck, follow a nun or an elderly person - if they’ve survived that long they know how to cross the street. Don’t trust cars on ‘zebra’ crossings. Don’t blindly trust crosswalk traffic lights - 99% of traffic does stop but watch out for that other 1%. When crossing through stopped traffic, look out for ‘motorino’ (scooter) drivers between the cars. One of them might be me.
Finally, the drinking age in Italy was raised to 18 last year, but like so much else here the laws are rarely enforced. A lot of American kids go hog-wild when they get here, and sometimes it’s inevitable, so a collective sense of being responsible for each other even when intoxicated is a good thing to emphasize. Finally, the Campo di Fiori area is particularly notorious for sleazebags hitting on drunk foreign women, so warn her about it. Don’t go off with strangers or accept drinks or food from them, and always eat with at least one fellow-traveler.
I know I’ve written a lot of negative things here, but this shouldn’t make you worried - you could write such a list about anywhere. The pickpockets are really the only thing to be concerned about, and even if you’re a victim of them, it’s just a major inconvenience, not a serious problem.
She’s going to love it - Italy’s an amazing place for a tourist.
We lived in Utah when my daughter and her high school French class went to France. Well, in Utah there is a dominant religion that is down on drinking. Saying goodbyes at the airport, I told the chaperone that my daughter occasionally drinks wine with dinner and I had no problem with that. They allowed that, and my daughter has a super time!
Nothing wrong per se with having your backpack on your back (it’s where mine goes), but your wallet, cards and ID should NEVER be in its outside pockets or in a space that can be easily reachable after slicing the outer layer with a razor. So, an inner pocket one of whose sides is the pack’s “skin” is no-go.
Another one, to avoid the kind of thieves called descuideros in Spanish (“carelessness pickers”): when you sit down or take your handbag/backpack off (in a terrace, when you arrive to the hotel, in public transportation), place it in such a way that it will not be easy to pull a grab’n’run. For example, in a bar, pick an inside corner and stick all bags and jackets in the corner seat with the group covering access to them; if you take your bag off in a terrace, don’t hang it from the back of your seat (I put mine on the floor and thread a leg through it).
We did just this with our 13-year-old last year. School trip, bunch of kids of differing ages and so forth. It was a museum tour and they hit Milan, Florance, Venice and Rome for 10-12 days.
In terms of prep? Get to know the teacher who’s going along. Make sure that s/he has the spending money and the passport. After that, trust the kid. If the kid is good, you’ll be fine.
Ours came back fine, though exhausted as all hell.
Another caution on traffic: scooters and mopeds are everywhere and often unlicensed. When walking on back streets, she should keep an ear open for the buzz of the engines, as they drive the alleyways like most people drive the freeways. It’s easy to get clipped, if one is inattentive.
I fully endorse the gelati (note the plural) on a daily basis notion. For restaurants, wander back streets and try most any trattoria she comes across; it’s hard to go wrong, really. She should carry one of those small pocket dictionaries to be able to look up menu items. I could never get past the antipasti and pasti courses without foundering.
Pacsafe makes backpacks, and my favorite messenger bag. My beloved messenger bag lies absolutely flat on the body, is both steel meshed bodied and steel cbled strapped, and can be clipped or locked with a little lock. It has 2 compartments, and one pocket inside is RF shielded. Combine the pacsafe backpack, and messenger bag and perhaps add the around the neck under the clothing neck pouch for a passport and money/credit cards and she will be good to go.
Always keep yourr money in 2 parts, about 20$US in a pockeet for spending money to pay for lunch or whatever, and the rest in the neckpouch. Some people keep a public wallet with crap in it and the real one elsewhere so if someone mugs you directly you give them the crap wallet with the public $20 in local cash, a subway rewards card and some random gift card either mastrcard or visa with a nominal $10US on it to make them think they got the goods.
After all my warnings, I decided to share a positive tip around the “eat gelati every day”.
How to spot good gelato: look at the banana.
Gelati should be made the morning you buy them, in the gelateria in ‘artigianale’ style, which means made by craftsmen on the premises, in a ‘laboratorio’ out the back, using only fresh ingredients. This is the stuff that people rave about when they’re not in Italy (and that I can’t get enough of, even though I don’t normally like ice cream).
However there are some chains in Rome that use factory-made stuff, or they only use the laboratorio to rehydrate an ice cream mix and call it ‘fresh’. One particular crappy chain to avoid is called Blue Ice; their stuff is no better than no-name ice cream from the supermarket.
Generally, stores with the fancy displays with baroque flows of gelato burgeoning over the tops of the trays are much less likely to be the good stuff. To get that (admittedly beautiful) effect they whip air into it, so you get less bang for your buck. By contrast the good stuff is denser, and hence usually looks a little boring.
Which is where looking at the banana flavor comes in: if you make gelato with fresh bananas, the color is a kind of unappetizing dirty gray. If you’re in a gelateria and the banana flavor gelato is bright yellow, it’s almost certainly fake. So go for gelaterie with the gray banana.
The next thing to know: gelato is a regulated industry and thus there are very low fixed prices for take-away or ‘eat at the bar’ tubs, with three prescribed sizes of tubs, and various ‘rights’ as a consumer such as you must be able to have two flavors with the smallest tub, three with the next one up, and whipped cream must always be available and free (I’m not making this up!). This applies everywhere, even at the most popular tourist spots.
How do the really touristy places make the big bucks to pay their vast rents then? Well, if you sit down at their tables to eat it, or get the gelato in a cone, they can charge whatever the hell they like. Piazza Navona is particularly bad for this sort of rip-off.
My personal recommendations. The best places I’ve had gelato in Rome are all genuinely ‘artigianali’, and are as follows:
Honorable mention for being a decent artigianale gelateria right in the middle of the city goes to:
Cremeria Monteforte, Via della Rotonda 22 (just to the right of the Pantheon).
Very cool place (pun intended) with the ‘laboratorio’ visible through a window in the store. They use the ‘warm’ process which gives a different flavor and an added richness. Just a stroll across the river from Trastevere in a super-trendy ‘foodie’ neighborhood:
BriVidO, Via Giovan Batista, Testaccio.
Another good one on usual tourist trail:
Fior di Luna, Via della Lungaretta 96, Trastevere.
But finally, hands-down the best gelateria I’ve ever been to in Italy, with a great environment, incredibly friendly staff, and the kind of flavors that you will spend the rest of your life dreaming about, about a 15-minute tram ride from Termini train station:
Fattori, Via Alberto da Giussano 80, Pigneto.
And 3) car speed = posted speed limit times number of people in the car, provided the car carries more than one person. If the car carries only the driver, the car speed is a random number >20 higher than the posted speed limit.
She’ll be fine, Italy is a safe place and she’ll be safe with her group. Yeah, there are pickpockets. Just be regular-amounts of vigilant. It’s no use ruining the trip by being terrified and hostile towards everyone who walks towards you. If stuff gets stolen it’s still not the end of the world. (On my school trip to Romania last year one of the kids was pickpocketed and her passport was stolen the day before we were flying back. I had to take her to get emergency travel docs, the worst of which was getting up at 5 AM. It’s all perfectly survivable and not really worth too much worry. In ten years of going on that trip that was the first time that happened to our group. In fact, I suspect it was quite a good lesson for the kid. Now she knows what to do when that happens.)
I second getting her a backpack. Perhaps check listings for second-hand backpacks, it’s good to look a little worn and well travelled, it looks less vulnerable.
For packing, again remember not to panic and over pack. Italy, believe it or not, has shops. They have stuff like shampoo and knickers. I always go with: passport and the pill, everything else is not a problem if I forget it.
Always good to have: a copy of your passport in your email or dropbox. Just in case.
It might be nice to have, among her friends, a pact to always step in if one of them is being chatted up/harassed. Italians really are that bad.
Finally, tell her to memorise this phrase: “Grazie, lei è molto gentile!” [Grratzy-eh, lay eh molto jenteel-eh]. She will be adored! 
As a frequent traveler to Italy and Germany, here are my suggestions:
Specific Rome recommendation: pick up a sandwich or pasta or something for lunch at the Conad grocery store at the Termini (Main) train station in the morning as she starts the day. It’s much less expensive than most grocery stores in the touristy areas (for instance 0.30 vs 1.50 for 500ml bottle of water, 3.00 for a good portion of pre-cooked pasta or sandwich). She can carry the food and stop to eat anywhere, such as the edge of a fountain or a shaded park. Get a bottle of water then refill it at the drinking fountains throughout the city. To get to the Conad: In the hall between where the trains arrive and where you buy tickets, there’s a Roadhouse Grill or similar at one end. Take the escalator or stairs down. The Conad is directly on your right. It’s open from 6am to midnight every day.
Specific Venice warning: Do not eat at a restaurant/cafe in San Marco Square without asking what the “coperto” is. To sit at a table outside, some places charge 40 euros per person, not including food or drinks. San Marco Square’s ambiance isn’t that great.
Specific Florence warnings: The sidewalks away from the main roads are horribly cracked, uneven, and narrow. I always worry about twisting my ankles on them. The Hard Rock Cafe is very very loud and is only a couple of piazzas away from the Duomo.
Public toilets, Italy edition: Many public bathrooms in Italy are, for lack of better words, squatters. Holes in the floor. While every bar (bars sell coffee and alcohol) has to let paying customers use its bathroom, it may be only the squatter. Bathrooms in bigger train stations frequently have toilets. They will be pay toilets.
Public toilets, Germany edition: Public bathrooms are clean, have toilets, and often have a person collecting a tip. Usually it’s 0.50 and you put it on the plate as you exit.
General Italy eating suggestion: Restaurants that have a tourist menu usually have higher prices and lower quality food than others.
Germany and Austria weekend hours: Most places in those countries, other than restaurants and bars, close at 6pm on Saturday night and are closed all day Sunday. Some tourist areas may stay open later, usually until 8pm (Munich’s Marienplatz area). The major train stations may have small grocery stores open on Sunday but it’s not guaranteed.
Sightseeing tip: Have your daughter ask the front desk clerk how to get to where she wants to go. They’ll know the bus, train, subway, tram, trolley, or water taxi (vaporetto in Venice) to get you there.
General travel notice: Ask your daughter not to carry a purse, period. Carry the credit card/ATM card, photocopy of her passport, cash, and lipstick in her front pants pockets. She doesn’t need to bring her driver’s license, pictures of family, school ID, library card, or anything else that necessitates a wallet or purse. Photocopy both sides of each credit and ATM card she’ll be carrying, keeping a copy in the hotel room and one with you. In case they’re lost or stolen, she/you will have an easier time recovering from the loss. While she’s at it, leave all jewelry at home.
Communications suggestions: Pick up a couple AT&T calling cards and a list of the toll-free phone numbers for the countries she’ll be traveling in or through. She should use the cards at pay phones as hotel phones may have hefty surcharges. Should she run out of calling cards, she can call you collect at those same phone numbers; likewise with the “outside the US, call us collect” phone number on the back of her credit card to call the card issuer when the card is declined. Using the 1-800 number will cost more than a euro per minute.
Packing tips: Pack clothes that are ready to be thrown out. Why carry dirty clothes around Central Europe? Throw 'em out to make room for souvenirs and new clothes. Alternatively, put some money in the budget to have clothes cleaned at the hotel. Carrying around 3 sets of good mix-and-match clothing and paying to get them cleaned a couple times minimizes the “pack mule” syndrome when moving every couple of days.
Power recommendation: Should she bring small electronics along, check the power brick for 110-220VAC input voltage. Get a USA to Europlug plug adapter to fit the power brick into the Italian or German electrical outlet. Those expensive monster fits-all-electrical-outlet adapters are overkill. Don’t bring a curling iron or hair dryer.
You got questions, the Dope has answers.
See “Taken” & “Taken 2.”
We used pistachio as our guide. If it’s green it’s the fake stuff, real pistachio is a brownish colour.
Yes, that works. And if the pistacchio is good, the rest usually is too.
/I’ll be heading to Italy next week, thanks for all the good advice.
Jjim, I think we just missed each other at a dopefest in Ireland a couple of years back @ Grogan’s. Pretty sure that was you. You want to try Rome? I’ll be there with a minion June 14,15,16.
That’s good advice. Thanks!
I knew a woman who had her necklace ripped off right around her neck so she said to not wear any necklaces at all.
Let me ask, are “American” restaurants like McDonalds in Europe much different than in the US?
Not really. They will have some local menu items and the setting will be a bit different, but not hugely so.
In Asia you get some interesting differences. In India, McDonalds doesn’t serve beef and has an extensive vegetarian menu. In China, Pizza Hut is an upscale restaurant with waiters and fancy plates.