Here is the downside: Americans are over-charged.  Plain and simple.  These prices on Craigslist are truly inflated, and as an American renter in Buenos Aires, you will probably end up footing the whole of the rent, while your Argentine roommate or landlord is turning a sweet profit.  Yes, it is frustrating, without a doubt, but it is the way things are done here.  Truly, if you are not fluent in Spanish and do not know friends on the inside in Buenos Aires, there is no other way.  And let’s face it: it is hassle free and a package deal.  You take the good with the bad; you get ripped off, but you pay less than you would in the US, and everything is included.  My advice to you is to rent a shared apartment with an Argentine, as renting a room is far cheaper than renting your own studio or one-bedroom apartment.  Also, if watching your pennies, stay away from Recoletta, Barrio Norte, Puerto Madero, and even Palermo SoHo.  I recommend researching Palermo Viejo, Palermo Hollywood, Caballito, Flores, San Telmo, San Cristobal, and Montserrat.  Out of those more affordable barrios, Caballito and Flores are probably the safest neighborhoods, though a little removed from the hub of the rest of the city.  Once again, these living decisions in Buenos Aires are a balancing act, and you must weigh the decisions.

When weighing these decisions, I recommend renting an apartment in a very safe neighborhood for one month, while deciding on a more long-term decision.  If you pay a little more the first month, it will be a wise investment, as it will buy you time to search high and low for an affordable, secure, and comfortable living situation.  A big plus side to these Buenos Aires renting shenanigans is that Argentines rarely ask you to sign a lease or an agreement to stay beyond one month, sometimes even one week.  The apartment-renting scene is based on verbal agreements and Argentines have come to expect the comings and goings of travelers.  Therefore, it would be rare to find yourself stuck in a living situation not suitable for your tastes or finances.

To give you some idea of the renting scene, let me tell you about my apartment.  I live in San Telmo, a quaint neighborhood that my boyfriend and I love because of its cafes and community atmosphere.  It is very affordable: together we pay $550 a month for a bedroom in a spacious apartment that is covered in windows and is flooded with light on sunny days.  We are a 10 minute walk to a subway station and two blocks from 9 de Julio, the widest boulevard in the world, which is needless to say, littered with cabs and bus stops.  However, with the affordability and accessibility come certain prices—it is not quite as safe as some of the Palermo neighborhoods or Flores or Caballito.  We are aware of this, and take great care to avoid walking alone at night, and we keep English speaking on the street after dark to a minimum, as English conveys American tourism which signals dollars.  We won’t stay in San Telmo forever, but for our first apartment in Buenos Aires, it is perfect, as it allows us to truly taste some of the Buenos Aires flavor and culture, and also to learn some of the ways in which the city moves.  Here are some pictures of our place so you can see what you can get for this price: 

As an American now making pesos as an English teacher in Buenos Aires, and also as an American with a never-ending appetite, I have searched high and low for the cheapest way to culinary delight.  Let’s start with breakfast.  When my boyfriend and I first arrived in Buenos Aires, we had dollars, and were frequenting cafés in the Recoletta, Barrio Norte, and Palermo neighborhoods for café con leche and croissants or fresh fruit.  Soon, though, these rendezvous began to take a toll on our finances; Recoletta and Palermo are chic barrios that are soft on the eyes, but no so soft on the wallet.  Our morning coffees & fruit were beginning to cost us about 30 pesos a day, with the café con leche itself costing 7 pesos each. 

After we moved to San Telmo, we discovered the joy of café con leche for 3 pesos.  These cheap cups of joe can be found at any number of the corner Ma & Pa-run cafés that dot the streets of this barrio, as well as the neighboring Montserrat and San Cristobal neighborhoods.  Often for 4 or 5 pesos, you can get a café con leche, a glass of orange juice and a little chaser of sparkling water, as well as a basket full of medialunas, croissants encased in a sugary glaze.  Delicioso.  And affordable.

A few hours after one’s memorable date with a croissant and coffee, it is already time for another date, this time with lunch.  Lunch at a restaurant gets unexpectedly pricey, as such things as bottled water can be sold for upwards near 7 pesos a pop, with tap water being virtually unattainable in any café.  The most economic way to have lunch in Buenos Aires is to go to a grocery store and plop down with your goods for a picnic, the good old fashioned way.  It is cheap, and a great way to learn the layout of the land, and to do some people watching while you’re at it. 

Grocery stores–supermercadeos or autoservicios in Spanish—come a dime a dozen per street.  No matter which one you choose, it will certainly have logs of salami hanging from the deli counter.  The salami here is scrumptious, juicy and full of spice and flavor.  You must buy one.  Sliced and topped with a hunk of fresh mozzarella cheese makes it a perfect picnic snack.  On your way to check out at the store, grab a bottle of Quilmes to wash down your salami and cheese.  I guarantee a liter will not cost you more than 3 pesos. 

After you’ve got your goods, you will not find any shortages of plazas or small green spaces.  I specifically recommend the river-front in Puerto Madero.  The picnic benches overlooking the water make it a primo-picnic spot on a sunny day.  However, any plaza will do just as well, from Plaza de Mayo to Plaza Italia to Plaza Evita.  Bring out the meat and cheese, crack open the beer, and there you have it, a muy affordable bon appétit.  

After a day like this, of maybe cutting back here and there, it is time to get excited for dinner.  Dinner in Buenos Aires is a late affair, usually taking place around 10 pm.  It is never rushed; this meal is as much for the social aspect as it is for the nutrient aspect.  And the dinner menu in Buenos Aires is truly mouth-watering.

As I’m sure you have heard, the steak in this city is something to write home about.  The city is filled with parillas, or steak restaurants, that serve tender and juicy servings of red meat cooked to perfection.  It would be a crime to visit the Paris of the South without trying a parilla.  Just like the café con leche, parilla lines the city, but the most affordable ones are found in the San Telmo, Montserrat, and San Cristobal areas. 

My other favorite food in Buenos Aires is the pizza. I know, I know, coming from the US you want to try something exotic.  But trust me, the pizza here seems exotic compared to what we are used to.  The mozzarella cheese is softer in Argentina than in the States, which is not always a good thing, but when we are talking about being melted on top of a delicious focaccia-style crust, the softer the better.  Toppings range from green olives to shrimp to thick pieces of salami to fresh leaves of basil.  It is not the cheese soaked, grease drenched pizza of home (that don’t get me wrong, is sometimes just what you need).  In Argentina, it is the barely greasy, fluffy, and delicately flavored pizza pies that must not go uneaten when one is in Buenos Aires.  Please, at my insistence, order a grande and enjoy.

And there you have it, an affordable and highly edible three meals in Buenos Aires.  Remember to top everything off with a glass, or two or three or four, of famous Argentine Malbec, and your day will truly be complete.

I love San Telmo.  All of its quirkiness makes it an inimitable neighborhood.  Its just-around-the-corner local from Microcentro keeps it within walking distance of all the Buenos Aires hot-spots, but its distinct barrio borders separate it from the city-center-hub. Once Calle Florida turns into Calle Peru and thus marks one’s entrance into San Telmo, you notice the architecture fade from modern to colonial, from classy stone and brick facades to muted pink and green building fronts.  The blocks have a feel of Cuba during the Godfather II era, with classic architecture painted in bright Latin flavors.  The shops are old-fashioned, with the merchants standing outside greeting potential patrons, spending hours dusting the storefront windows, meticulously keeping track of their wares.  Artisans who can not afford their own shops spread blankets out on the cobblestone of Calle Peru and sell their hand-woven pashminas, hand-sculpted bracelets, and hand-carved wooden tea cups.  On Sundays the entire avenue of Defensa is taken over by these artisans, and you can find everything from wooden desks to handy kitchen items to beautifully embroidered dresses at this San Telmo craft fair.

The restaurants and cafes, bars and bakeries of San Telmo significantly contribute to my desire to live in no other barrio in Buenos Aires.  Whereas in Recoletta, the best deal on pizza I could find is one mozzarella pizza and six empanadas for 29 pesos, around the corner is a hole-in-the-wall pizza/beer joint offering a liter of Quilmes and a mozzarella pizza for 17 pesos!  On the busiest streets of the business districts, coffees are sold for 7 pesos per cup, whereas the San Telmo diners serve you a glass of espresso and three media-lunas (delicious croissants) for only 4 pesos and 50 centavos.  Not to mention that the wait-staff itself in San Telmo will make you feel right at home, as they will not let you leave without telling them your reasons for being in Buenos Aires, wishing you luck during your visit here, and insisting that you come back again.  Take Gaston for example, waiter and host of Limi-T Wine Bar, which really isn’t a wine bar at all, but rather a dive café located on the corner of Venezuela and Chacabuco.  My boyfriend and I frequented Limi-T once, a dining experience where Gaston brought out 80’s and 90’s rock cd’s along with our coffee orders, asking us to please choose an album for him to play.  We chose David Bowie, and seconds later Limi-T was filled with the sound of Major Tom’s count-down, and Gaston was smiling proudly at us from the bar.  Before leaving, he gave us his business cards and kissed us both on the cheek.  Now, even though we have only eaten there once, every time we walk past the corner of Venezuela and Chacabuco, we always wave through the window, and Gaston flies out to give us a hug and check up on our stay.  He makes us feel as though this is our home, too.  And right now, San Telmo really is a wonderful home.    

The cranes remind one of the construction required to make Puerto Madero what it is today.  Built in the 1890’s as the city’s leading port, it was abandoned only a decade after its completion due to the quickly changing shipping industry.  For an entire century, the area was more or less unclaimed, making it a no-man’s-land of decay and degradation.  Finally, in the 1990’s, the city laid claim to Puerto Madero. The old, empty, and decaying warehouses were renovated and remodeled into coveted apartment lofts, raved-about restaurants, classy hotels, and posh office buildings.

Crossing Avenidas Aime Paine, Juana Manso, Olga Cossettini, and Julieta Lanterri will make you wonder at the feminine names of the avenues.  In a machismo metropolis where the streets carry the legacies of the country’s masculine heroes, from Bolivar to San Martin, the gender difference in this barrio is a noticeable one.  And it is all on purpose—Puerto Madero renovation plans included renaming each street after an Argentine feminist.  This barrio really is cutting edge, a model of progress and revitalization.

Passing by all these female-inspired streets will eventually lead you to the Ecological Reserve, a stunning display of the power of nature.  This nature preserve is a peaceful sanctuary of rolling fields wrapped by inlaid hiking and biking trails, flocked with birds, wildflowers, trees, shrubs, and other exotic wildlife that is hard to come by in such an urban and densely populated city.  The reserve itself used to be a concrete junkyard, a graveyard preserving the remains of failed attempts at development.  Years of abandonment let nature walk back in the door, and soon enough, She took over, to the point where the past evidence of development dumping is invisible.  I could walk in the Ecological Reserve every day, never tiring of the fresh air and beautiful views of the estuary. 

As you leave the Ecological Reserve and walk back along the avenues, past the Hotel Madero, past the Universidad Catolica, past the dozens upon dozens of other boutiques, inns, and cafes, you will find it hard to believe that this trendy, clean, and vibrant neighborhood lay in ruins a mere 15 years ago.  It is an amazing feat, and a complete testament to the city of Buenos Aires.

The collectivo is the bus system in Argentina’s capital.  In a city with 14 million people and nearly as many neighborhoods, the collectivo is shall we say, crucial.  However, although its name may suggest otherwise, it is a privatized bus system.  Yes yes, freedom to choose and all of that, but let’s put it this way: there are literally hundreds of bus lines in the city, different companies pulling the strings on different lines, each company with its own idea of a good route.  And each route was unimaginably completely undocumented until the arrival of the GUIA. 

Ten years ago, the GUIA was born, ingeniously invented to document each collectivo route into one guide.  Landing in Buenos Aires and deciphering the collectivos without a GUIA would be virtually impossible if one so choose to also pursue other activities.  This guide lists all of the streets within the city limits of Buenos Aires, from Acassuso to Zuviria, in the first pages of the booklet.  Proceeding the listed avenues comes a map of the city, spread out piece by piece over 36 pages.  Each page, or 1/36th of the entire city map, is further broken down into 24 squares.  Each square is accompanied by a list of buses that frequent that area, which is 5 city blocks.  However the collectivo list does not tell you the exact stopping point of the bus.  Therefore, to find a certain bus, you must walk that square area of 5 blocks, and hope to find a marked spot, or perhaps a queue of public transportation veterans waiting with resigned helplessness at an unmarked but somehow designated point. 

To make things just a little bit more adventurous, the routes are subject to change at any time the various owners of the collectivo lines so choose.  Therefore, the bus that the GUIA points to for your destination square may have changed its route, may have voted your square off the island.  But, the best you can do is hope that doesn’t happen, and wait for it to come.  The good news is that because bus drivers see traffic lanes as suggestions, there’s really no way you could miss a passing bus, as it is usually the only automobile in three lanes. 

Okay, so imagine that you have miraculously found the stop, and the route has not changed, and the bus has arrived.  You hop on as the doors fly open and the bus driver removes his foot from the gas for a generous 20 seconds.  You tell the driver “noventa”, because unless you are going outside of Buenos Aires, it only costs 90 centavos to go anywhere within the city.  The bus driver starts the meter, and you drop your coins in.  And here is where we go back to the aforementioned issue of monedas.

In an act of saving grace, the city of Buenos Aires has decreed that all bus rides within the city are 90 centavos, as I said before.  The buses do not accept bills, only coins.  And there is a coin shortage, to say the least, within the Capital Federal.  When I say there is a coin shortage, I can not adequately convey the off-kilter supply and demand balance without examples.  Take, for instance, a trip to the grocery store.  I gather my groceries into a basket and head to check out.  The cashier tells me the total is $20.80.  I hand her $22.00.  She looks at the money with such a look of disapproval that she barely stops short of wagging her forefinger at me.  “Do you have 80 cents?” she asks me.  Do I have 80 cents?  Just luxuriously jingling in my pocket?  And would I willingly hand it over to a grocery store? ”No,” I say without apologies.  This is getting ridiculous.  I see in the till that there are only a few coins, but enough to give me my 20 cents change.  Let’s just think about that for a second.  She asks me for 80 cents, when she only owes me 20.  Where is the logic?  Just as I am once again asking where the hell are all the monedas, the tiller opens up a locked drawer underneath her register, and I see the sparkling, rolling hills of hundreds of coins.  She sourly hands me two 10 cent pieces, as if parting with these coins is a major infringement on her day.  On my way back home from the grocery store, I take note of the dozens of kiosk and shop store window-fronts that warn customers that they “have no monedas.”  Don’t even try it, they seem to say.

For this shortage, there are various rumors.  One of my favorite explanations is that apparently, the metal that composes the coins is actually more valuable than the monetary value of the coin itself.  Therefore, some shrewd swindlers stash away these coins, melt them down, and sell the metal on the black market.  Perhaps an even more ridiculous, but no less accepted, rumor is that the Chinese mafia—yes, specifically the Chinese mafia—hoards the monedas until there are desperate shortages, at which point the Asian gangsters sell the coins for a hefty profit.  I’m pretty sure that’s the real reason. 

So, as if finding the appropriate bus is not hard enough, the Chinese mafia has now made paying for the bus an equal struggle.  In a city that never sleeps with a subway system that closes at 10 pm, you do what you can to get to a bus, and you do what you have to to pay for it.  When I walk down the street, I can spot the glint of the sun against a dropped coin from yards away.  And I will knock people over to be the first to reach that fallen treasure.  Precious metals and unpredictable routes.  A day in BsAs.  The upside of all this is that taking the bus now is really the only thing I need to do to feel as though I have led an accomplished day.

You won’t find street vendors peddling these delicacies in Microcentro or Recoletta.  No, you have to venture a little off the beaten track for a choripan.  But not far.  The parks are the hot-spots.  Whether it is the lush fields of the Palermo parks to the sun-dried beauty of the Ecological Reserve, once you enter the seclusion of the city’s green zones, you can not miss the gleam of the choripan man’s silver cart.  And once you spot him, I recommend that you approach his booth as quickly as possible, proceed to order at least one choripan, but probably two, especially if it is your first time.  The total cost will be between three and four pesos (roughly one dollar to a dollar and a half). 

Once you are handed your choripan, you will notice the array of sauces on the ledge.  These sauces will be in plastic containers, and will have titles such as salsa golf (a surprisingly good blend of ketchup and mayonnaise), mayonesa aceituna (olive mayonnaise), ketchup (not everything is so exotic), and queso cheddar (a cheesy sauce, a classy version of cheez-whiz).  Remove the top bun of your choripan and start squirting.  Once you finish piling on your condiments, look to either the far-left of the ledge or perhaps the far-right.  You will undoubtedly see a plastic tub of an oily-looking mixture with all different colored spice flakes.  This is chimichurri. It may look unconvincing, but trust me, it is the ultimate clincher to this culinary experience.  Spoon that spicy oil on top of your already-sauce-covered chorizo, and replace your top bun.  Now bite. 

There are times to be gentlemanly or ladylike, respectively, and there are times to throw caution to the wind.  Eating a choripan is one of the latter times.  Forego your table manners, and take no notice of the salsa golf dripping down your chin, or the chimichurri that has managed to run down your arm (how it got all the way to your elbow is still a mystery, but oh well).  Someday I will confess to you of my adventures chomping on choripan outside of some classy discos.  But we will save that for a later day.  For now, try to get your hands on some choripan.

Visitors to the city can view many of the city’s well preserved buildings dating from the 1600s, though the industrialization period did expose some structures to the affects and interference of modern architecture and construction. Luckily entire blocks are now under preservation and protection and the city continues to retain its beautiful and antique charm.

In additions to the dozens of historic buildings open to the public, there are also numerous museums, some belonging to the colleges and universities that fill the city, and others simply focusing on a specific subject or collection. There are currently museums of modern art, historic Latin American Indian collections, science museums devoted to the prehistory of the continent as well as the other sciences. There are technology museums dedicated to the industrial focus of the city as well as those educating children about technology. The history museums of the city could easily fill a few days’ itineraries and include everything from art history, to coin collections and a review of Cordoba’s fascinating past.

Because the city was built for scholarly pursuits there remain many green and open spaces where the pace and noise of a thriving city can be easily escaped. The two million residents of Cordoba have over twelve large gardens and public parks to visit. Some regularly stage craft or artisan fairs, and some make all sorts of family activities available each weekend.

Additionally, because Cordoba is still a college town it offers fantastic cultural venues both day and night. There are many excellent theaters and clubs, including annual festivals in the theater and cinematic arts. There are some major sporting events held in the stadiums built by some of the universities and regularly scheduled games take place throughout the year.

The governor of the region, Dardo Rocha, decided to create a new city meant to serve the needs of provincial government institutions and a new university. Pedro Benoit was then hired to design the new city. He did so by developing it around an urban center – La Plata has a city center with two main, intersecting avenues that run along a diagonal. All other streets are built along a grid of six blocks by six block patterns which meet at small parks.

Rocha effectively created the design using standards of the day, and to take it even further opened up the architectural design of the main city buildings to an international competition. This is the reason today that the city has such a cosmopolitan appeal – its city hall was won by the German designers, who had their own European influences, and the Governor’s Palace was created by an Italian firm with concepts of their own.

La Plata is the home to some other unique “firsts”. In addition to being the first city on the South American continent designed by urban planners, it was the first city to install electricity throughout the entire town – as early as 1884 the streets of La Plata were lit by electric lighting.

It is also home to the largest church in the country – the Cathedral of La Plata. The city also contains one of the only two buildings designed by Le Corbusier (a Swiss architect known for his contributions to Modern Architecture) in the Americas – the Curutchet House was fully restored in the 1980s and is a national landmark of Argentina.

Clearly, any visitor to La Plata has a great deal to see and do. The many parks are lined with Linden trees, the streets are full of interesting shops and restaurants, and the University is known for its remarkable observatory and paleontology museums.

When planning a visit to the well designed city a traveler can count on a wide range of accommodation choices. In order to enjoy a great deal of savings in time and money visit HotelsCombined.com, where both a room and flight reservations can be made with a few clicks of the mouse!

Many people choose to relocate to the city because of its open minded atmosphere of acceptance, which is one of the reasons the city has such a thriving gay tourism industry, as well as an open and readily accepted gay community.

In addition to its friendly and hospitable atmosphere, Buenos Aires is also one of the finest places in the world for those who like to walk, dine, shop, learn, dance or explore a new city. Buenos Aires is home to some of the largest parks in the country, including the promenade in the Palermo district of the city and the La Boca area of the city which boasts an enormous arts and crafts community.

If a more unique walking experience is desired, braver tourists visit the Cementerio de la Recoleta where the wealthiest residents bury their dead. The crypts are palaces in their own right, and the cemetery is populated by a staggeringly large community of friendly calico cats. A famous resident of the cemetery is Eva Peron, who was considered a leader of the people until her death at the age of thirty three.

The city is also well known for its love of the dance known as the Tango, which is the national dance of Argentina. Most visitors are encouraged to visit a “Milonga” in order to experience a true Tango dance. Traditional Milongas will be advertised in the local media and it is a good idea to plan on attending one, they are held in late in the evenings or during special matinee performances. In general, the population is happy to help teach newcomers some steps and some of the basic guidelines of the Tango, but if more formal training is desired there are an ample number of schools and dance academies available.

The city is also popular with shoppers who come for specialty crafts, such as “gaucho” or cowboy items made from leather, traditional baked goods, Tango shoes, and many other regional products.

When planning a trip to Buenos Aires a great deal of time and money can be saved by a quick visit to HotelsCombined.com. The site offers exclusive combination rates to those who book their airfare and accommodations together. Some of the finest hotels in the city can be found when looking through the listings at the web site.