Buenos Aires Bucket List
Dinner at midnight. Tango till dawn. Steak grilled over a wood fire that will ruin all other steak for the rest of your life. Buenos Aires doesn't run on anyone else's clock, and it doesn't apologize for it. The most passionate, opinionated, seductive capital in South America.
Why Buenos Aires belongs on your bucket list
Nothing in Buenos Aires happens when you think it should. You show up for dinner at 8 PM, and you're eating alone. The restaurant fills up at 10. Milongas go past 3 AM on a Tuesday. The emotional spectrum of this city is nuts – one minute it's the heartbreaking sadness of a bandoneon solo, and the next it's 50,000 people going apeshit at La Bombonera. The avenues are Parisian, the buildings are Madrid, but the vibe is straight Porteno: hot-blooded, loud, and impossible to keep at bay. And the steak. Grass-fed, grilled over wood-fired parrillas, and cut thick enough to make you question your own capacity. With the Argentine peso doing what it does best, your cash goes a ridiculous distance here.
When to go
Spring (October-December) and autumn (March-April) are when BA is in full bloom. 20-25 degrees, jacarandas turning purple across the parks, golden leaves lining the sidewalks. January and February are sweltering, muggy, and half-empty – Portenos head to the coast and the city goes into siesta mode. Winter (June-August) is pleasant but cloudy, which sounds like a bummer until you get that it means fewer tourists, more wine bars, and candlelit parrillas with no wait.
Must-visit places in Buenos Aires
San Telmo Market
Sunday is the day. The cobblestone streets are lined with vendors selling antiques, records, leather, and handmade jewelry. The streets are packed, and you just go with it. Inside the covered Mercado de San Telmo (open every day), you'll find some of the city's best empanadas and tiny wine bars tucked away in the iron-columned corridors. At the corner of Defensa and Carlos Calvo, tango dancers dance on the sidewalk, and the crowd spills out into the street. No one minds.
La Boca & Caminito
Those colorful tin houses you've seen all over the city? Originally painted with leftover ship paint by Italian immigrants who couldn't afford real paint. As a last resort, they painted their houses with what they had. Beyond the touristy part of Caminito, La Boca is raw and passionate. La Bombonera stadium is here, where the stands actually shake when Boca Juniors score. If you can get into a game, get into a game. The energy is like nothing you've ever experienced at a sporting event. Just stay in the touristy part of Caminito when walking around.
Recoleta Cemetery
Not a cemetery. A marble city for the dead. More than 6,400 elaborate mausoleums line the avenues like a miniature Paris, with presidents, generals, Nobel Prize winners, and yes, Evita Peron (her mausoleum is the one with fresh flowers). You'll end up spending more time here than you intended. The Recoleta neighborhood surrounding the cemetery is Buenos Aires at its most refined — the MALBA museum and high-end cafes all within walking distance.
Palermo Soho & Hollywood
The largest barrio and the one you'll spend the most time in. Soho has the boutiques, the brunch spots, the street art, and some of the best restaurants in BA packed into tree-lined blocks. Hollywood is the nightlife side – cocktail bars and clubs that keep people out until the sun rises. Honestly, the distinction between the two is irrelevant. Just walk. The barrio will reveal itself to you.
Don Julio
The top steakhouse in South America and one of the top restaurants in the world. The ojo de bife (ribeye) and entraña (skirt steak) are the sort of beef that makes you angry at every other steak you've ever paid for. The wine list goes 1,500 bottles deep, and it's all Argentine wine. The catch: the wait for a table can be two hours if you show up without a reservation. But they give you empanadas and Malbec on the sidewalk while you wait, and that honestly isn't a bad night out either.
La Cabrera
Don Julio is the fancy one. La Cabrera is the generous one. Every steak comes with a procession of small cast-iron pots filled with pumpkin puree, corn, chimichurri, creamed spinach, and more sides than you can shake a stick at. It's all enormous. The noise level is loud and the vibe is completely unpretentious. It's literally right around the corner from Don Julio in Palermo, which makes the nightly "which one?" debate a real problem for anyone who loves beef.
Plaza de Mayo & Casa Rosada
Every big moment in Argentine history has happened here, from revolutions to protests to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo marching every week for their disappeared sons and daughters. The pink Casa Rosada presidential palace dominates the eastern end. That balcony? Evita gave speeches from it. Maradona held up the World Cup from it. The free museum inside is surprisingly great and tells the story of Argentina's fraught political history without sugarcoating anything.
MALBA
The most comprehensive collection of modern and contemporary Latin American art in the Americas. Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Tarsila do Amaral, and Antonio Berni are all here, in a funky angular building in Palermo. The temporary exhibitions are always ambitious and always strong. The cafe overlooking the sculpture garden is the perfect spot to sit and process everything you just saw.
Teatro Colon
Opened in 1908. One of the top five opera houses in the world. The acoustics are legendary, and the seven-story horseshoe interior – gold leaf, red velvet, and all the rest dripping with detail – will leave you agog regardless of how many theaters you've been to. Guided tours are available daily, but the best experience is to attend a performance. Tickets are astonishingly cheap. Seats in the upper tier are just as good as those on the floor for a fraction of the cost.
Puerto Madero
Red-brick docklands transformed along the Rio de la Plata. This is Buenos Aires' most modern, most glamorous district – perfect for a morning jog past the docks lined with yachts or an evening stroll. The Puente de la Mujer footbridge by Santiago Calatrava is particularly photogenic at sunset. The surprise in this area is the Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve, a wild oasis of wetlands reclaimed from the river with bird-watching and park time just a short walk from the high-rise buildings.
Buenos Aires insider tips
- Money: This is a complicated topic, and it's always changing. The "blue dollar" parallel exchange rate means your money will go much further. It's essential to research the current situation before you travel. Bring US dollars in cash. Transfers via Western Union are another popular option.
- Eating schedule: Lunch: 12:30-3 PM. Dinner: 9 PM at the earliest. Many restaurants don't open until 8. If you arrive at 7, you'll be dining alone in an empty restaurant. Get used to it or pay the price.
- Tango: The dinner and tango shows are too expensive and touristy. Attend a milonga instead, such as La Catedral in Almagro or Salon Canning in Palermo. You will get authentic tango, authentic Argentineans, and many of them teach beginner lessons before the dancing begins.
- Transportation: The Subte (metro) is efficient and inexpensive but shuts down early. Uber is available; the driver may ask you to ride in the front seat and pay in cash. Taxis are ubiquitous; use Radio Taxi services.
- Malbec: Ridiculously inexpensive in Argentina. Bottles of wine are available at convenience stores for a few dollars that would be ten times as much elsewhere. For a wine bar experience, try Pain et Vin in Palermo or Aldo's in San Telmo.
- Safety: Very safe for a large city. Be mindful of pickpocketing in tourist districts, avoid displaying your phone, and use Uber or Radio Taxis at night instead of walking.
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