My HS Senior's youth orchestra is travelling to Eastern Europe in a month and we are trying to determine the best way to fund her trip.

When my son travelled in '04 I asked about $ and jetlag and received many helpful replies on this thread -

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=311125

Now that it's 3 years later, and the countries are different, I'm wondering if people have different advice for this trip.

Thank you!!

Hmm hard to say.
Here, I can use a Visa/Mastercard anywhere. Usually get good exchange rates from the ATM, and have no problems with use. Plus if its stolen, I'm not labile for charges. AMEX is a bit tougher as many places don't take it like at home. I would imagine one of those re loadable prepaid visas would work fine also, if you can with drawl from an ATM. Cash these days is a hassle to carry around and have and with the card, if she charges everything, she won't really have left over currency that she can't use in other countries.
Of course if you would prefer cash, thats always an option. Best method. Get a debit card to a checking account. They are usually Visa/Mastercard, and usually offer protection against theft, and also you can easily add money to the account. Plus, some banks offer free international withdrawls.
One big negative is banks will charge a convience fee usually somewhere around 2% for the card use and if withdrawing from an ATM a $2 transaction fee. But still I find this easier and safer than cash.

After reading your other thread.
ATMs here in Poland are in English, many people do speak English, or a tad of English. Travelers checks are a pain to use.
Also make sure that before she leaves the credit card comapny knows that she will be traveling around europe to unblock that feature.
In case of cell phones, any GSM phone would work out here. Tmobile, Cingular, ATT. Roaming is expensive $1.00/min or more. Internet cafes here have internet phones which she can use to call home for cheap, something like 5cents/min or so.

I brought couple hundred Euros (bought at a local money exchange) as well as few hundred bucks from the States.

And I used my Visa every now and then when I go out to eat/shopping.

I didn't want to use the ATM because I think Bank of America charges $5 everytime I withdrew $ from the ATM overseas.

This trip will be a little more complex (financially speaking) since there are multiple currencies involved, and your child will be managing a new currency in each country (though in my experience, many places in these countries will accept Euros, though the rate will be set by the merchant).

I would still suggest taking an ATM card, credit card, and approx $50-$100US cash for emergencies. The nice thing about traveling in a group is that should something dire happen (lost ATM card, theft, etc), your child will have people he/she can lean on for a few days until a card is replaced.

I would also talk to your child and develop a strategy - budgeting how much to take out of the ATM in each country based on how long the group will be there, with the goal of minimizing the amount of local currency on hand when they move from one country to another.

There are plenty of ATMs around. Get your money there and have a credit card for other spendings.