What to see and do in Buenos Aires

Last Updated on August 2, 2024

Read on for our Globetrottergirls quick guide for our top recommendations what to see and do in Buenos Aires, including many free things to do in Buenos Aires! Scroll down all the way to the end for our essential Buenos Aires tips, including things like the Blue Dollar exchange rate and how to find a cheap apartment.

What to see in Buenos Aires

Plaza de Mayo and Catedral Metropolitana

It would be almost impossible not to end up on the Plaza de Mayo at some point in Buenos Aires, indeed this is where many people start. The square is home to the Casa Rosada (meaning ‘pink house’), which is the seat of government  but more popular to tourists for the balcony where Eva Perón made her famous speech in 1952. The plaza also becomes the beating heart of political protest gatherings, including both the Mothers and the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo who gather every Thursday in a complex tradition relating to their ‘disappeared’ kin during Argentina’s dictatorship. On a lighter note, the Catedral Metropolitana is easy to miss, but has a stunning interior and an all silver altar.

The grandest bookstore of them all: El Ateneo Grand Splendid

The El Ateneo bookstore chain converted a magnificent old theater into what is now its flagship store. As if browsing through books under the ornate ceilings of the El Ateneo Grand Splendid weren’t special enough, you can also take a stack of books into one of the box seats or onto the actual stage, which is a café with tables and couches to relax and read.

The parks and the Botanical Gardens

Buenos Aires has plenty of green spaces, and especially in the spring and summer time, they make for great places for a picnic or just a stroll. We loved the Bosques de Palermo, the green spaces around the Floralis Generica sculpture (which, sadly, got pretty damaged during a storm in 2023 and is now a sad shadow of its former glorious self), and Plaza San Martin. Our favorite green space though was the Botanical Garden, which is free and, much to Dani’s excitement, filled with cats looking for cuddles.

Visit Recoleta and Chacarita Cemetery

Recoleta Cemetery is on every visitor’s list and not only because it is regularly named one of the top ten most beautiful cemeteries in the world. The famous Evita is buried here, in one of the more underwhelming mausoleums, belonging to the family that rejected her in her youth. The story of her eventual burial here is fascinating, as is the architecture and art within the cemetery, and to learn more about it, it pays off to book a tour (BA Free Tours offers a cheap US$10 / ARS13,000 walking tour of Recoleta). The cemetery used to be free to visit, but the city started to charge an admission fee for Recoleta Cemetery in 2022. It is currently around US$5, but I recommend double-checking the current price due to the rapid inflation in the country.

Tip:If you have the time, we recommend heading out to visit Chacarita cemetery, which has equally beautiful mausoleums, just loads and loads more of them on a much bigger property, all without the groups of cruise ships tourists you get at Recoleta, and without an admission fee.

Enjoy the views from Palacio Barolo

Palacio Barolo (Avenida de Mayo 1370) is a beautiful palace whose architectural style was inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. It was built in the 1920s by an Italian architect and was divided in the same three parts as the poem: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.

It stands 100 meters tall (one meter for each of the cantos of the poem), has 22 floors (one for each stanza) and nine entryways (for the doors to hell)  – and there’s a lot more to discover, but I don’t want to spoil it all. It was the tallest building in all of South America when it was completed in 1923 and even though it’s no longer the tallest building, it still is one of the most impressive buildings in Buenos Aires!

The cupola of the building is a lighthouse, and from there, you have splendid 360-degree views over the city. To get up there you have to take a guided tour though – there are several tours per day, they are 90 minutes long. Afterwards, you can enjoy a glass of wine at the rooftop bar of the Palacio. There are guided tours in English and Spanish on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Reservations can be made here, and tours are currently ARS23,000 (about US$25).

What to do in Buenos Aires

Tango in Buenos Aires

Tango is everywhere in Buenos Aires, and you can enjoy it in many different ways: private lessons, a night at a milonga (tango bar where locals dance), watching performances on the Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo or at the restaurants at El Caminito, parks have tango nights, like Sunday evenings in Parque Barrancas del Belgrano or you can opt for the big budget, glamorous shows which include steak dinner and wine, or go vegetarian style at La Catedral, a laidback combo of classes and milonga in a converted warehouse with cheap vegetarian food and wine. Unfortunately we ran of time to take part in the famous queer tango in Buenos Aires.

Feria de Mataderos (on Sundays)

The Feria de Mataderos is a weekly street fair that takes place in Mataderos, a western suburb. You can see gauchos (cowboys) in a horse riding competition, folk dancing, live music and market stalls sell cowboy handicrafts and farm products. The Feria is nothing like the rest of Buenos Aires and offers you a glimpse of Argentina’s gaucho culture.

San Telmo Street Fair (on Sunday)

The Feria de Antigüedade (Antiques Fair) is the city’s most popular market and is held every Sunday, stretching from Plaza Dorrego, San Telmo’s main square all the way down La Defensa street to the Plaza de Mayo. Not exclusively an antiques market, you can also pick up loads of souvenirs, food and mate, and there are always musicians, street performers and tango dancers around to entertain the crowds.

While you’re in San Telmo, don’t miss San Telmo market, an indoor market that has dozens of food stalls, fruits and vegetable vendors, some antiques and other interesting shops. The market hall itself, which dates back to 1897, is worth seeing, and if you’re visiting San Telmo NOT on a Sunday, you’ll be happy to hear that San Telmo market is open seven days a week.

The best neighborhoods to visit in Buenos Aires

San Telmo

San Telmo is the oldest barrio in Buenos Aires, dating back to the 17^th century. The neighborhood is filled with grand mansions and colonial buildings, some beautifully restored, others slowly fading. You’ll find plenty of antiques stores and little independent shops, cafes and restaurants along the sleepy cobblestone streets any day of the week but Sunday, when the whole neighborhood turns into a big street party during the San Telmo Antiques Market.

Plaza Dorrego is the heart of the ‘hood, but people watching is best in the Parque Lezama, a little park in the south of the barrio. On the north side of the park is the first Russian-Orthodox church in all of South America, the Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa de la Santísima Trinidad.

La Recoleta

Instantly recognizable as home to its famous cemetery, this exquisite residential neighborhood is well worth exploring, if only for its Parisian-style architecture. The ornate buildings are constructed with materials all imported from Europe – the marble, the tiles, sweeping chandeliers and street lamps along entire avenues, plus street signs and fountains.

Tip: The Fine Arts Museum in Recoleta has free admission.

Puerto Madero

This area was home to a short-lived port which then became a deserted industrial area for years before renovations in the last couple of decades converted Puerto Madero into one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the city. This is Buenos Aires’ only attempt at a skyscraper skyline, and the waterfront itself is lined with fine dining restaurants and bars in converted warehouses. Even if you are on a budget, just strolling along the docks with an ice cream in hand, or stopping for a glass of wine at sunset feels great.

Palermo

Easily the trendiest of all Buenos Aires barrios, Palermo is a sprawling amalgamation of several smaller nabes like Palermo Soho and Palermo Hollywood, and rumor has it that bordering Chacarita, decidedly grittier, is on the road to being usurped into the Palermo bubble and will be known as Palermo Brooklyn. Palermo is where you will find the Lacoste shops and fine dining experiences, but it is also home to the Plaza Serrano bohemian market surrounded by cheapie bars, a large concentration of street art, creative indie cafes and bars that make hanging out here during the afternoon or late into the night so much fun.

La Boca

Home to gritty shipyards and the Italian immigrant population who worked there in the late 19^th century, La Boca was left in shambles when the shipyard was moved away. A painter in the 1960s began painting the houses, subsequently reviving the area. El Caminito (‘the little way’) is a pedestrianized area with Italian taverns, tango bars and those signature colorful houses. It is a tourist attraction, and maybe too touristy for some, but  it is a popular stop, especially on weekends with a popular crafts fair and streets lined with tango dancers and buskers.

The Best Tours in Buenos Aires

Walking Tours

We toured the bejesus out of BA, and one of our top picks was with BA Free Tour company who offer two different free walking tours, the City Tour in the morning and the Aristocratic Tour in the afternoon. Both lasting over two hours, these free tours offer invaluable information about history, culture and life in the city. We took the Aristocratic Tour and, like many others, enjoyed it so much that we went on the City Tour as well.

Street art tours

The streets of Buenos Aires are covered in art and we just so happen to be street art junkies. That said, it’s hard to cultivate any sort of knowledge outside of the most famous street artists like Banksy or Shephard Fairey, so we were both ecstatic when we discovered we could go on a street art tour in Buenos Aires for a full-on inside look at the scene in Argentina. Our guide was so passionate about street art, and we learned so much that by the end of tour we could easily recognize the artists of many pieces even outside the Palermo / Chacarita area of the tour.

Bike tours in Buenos Aires

Despite the traffic and the summer heat, Buenos Aires is actually a fairly bike friendly city. There are several bike tours (including a street art bike tour!) and various companies have tours of the city center, the north or the south, or even all the way to Tigre, a popular little river town outside of Buenos Aires which locals use as an escape. Biking Buenos Aires seems to have the largest selection of bike tours, and there’s also BA Bike Explorers, who offer several bike tours around Buenos Aires, including e-bike tours.

Tip: We would recommend booking a bike tour on the weekend, when the population of Buenos Aires practically cuts in half.

Food Tours in Buenos Aires

We love taking cooking classes and try to sign up for one whenever possible. We weren’t sure if Argentina, with its meat culture, was the place to do it, and at first most the tours we found were meat-focused. But then we discovered Teresita’s Culinary Tour.

You can read more about our experience learning how to make empanadas and sampling (quite a few) Argentine wines here. If you are not into cooking, but into food, you could join the BA Food Tour, which is a walking tour during which you will sample some of the typical Argentine dishes and introduces visitors to some of the city’s hidden local restaurants.

What and where to eat in Buenos Aires

Closed-door restaurants

Puertas cerradas, closed-door restaurants, are basically restaurants set up in a person’s private home. You can make a reservation via email, and once your seat is confirmed, you find out the actual address. This kind of restaurant is very popular in Buenos Aires and you can choose between fine dining options like Casa Felix, Asian cuisine at Cocina Sunae or vegetarian food at Jueves a la Mesa. You can find more closed-door restaurants in Buenos Aires here, and we recommend doing a quick Google search before your trip to Buenos Aires for the best puertas cerradas, since some of them come and go quickly.

The best Steak in Buenos Aires

For the omnivores out there, Buenos Aires is synonymous with steak, so you’ll likely spend much of your time in a parrilla (steak house). We can’t personally recommend any, but we have asked around and both La Cabrera and Siga La Vaca get rave reviews.

Pizza in Buenos Aires

Millions of Italians immigrated to Buenos Aires in waves, and the influence is seen in the people’s light European skin, exaggerated hand gestures and pizza. The streets are littered with pizzerias, and though we love Argentina style pizza, we quickly learned that it is only worth eating at the best spots otherwise the very same ingredients of dough and cheese make for less than mediocre pizza.

On the bright side, there are tons of great places and we may or may not have had pizza 15 times in 6 weeks to test this out, and to find the best pizza in Buenos Aires. We highly recommend (though our arteries may disagree) El Cuartito for the best cheesy pizza, Los Inmortales for a sophisticated Argentine chain and the best empanadas and El Guerrin for a quick slice at the stand-up pizza bar.

When in doubt, go for the Napolitana, which is just mozzarella cheese (called muzza in Argentina), thick slices of tomato and topped with olives (as all pizzas are here). Oh, and if you call yourself a true pizza fan and are feeling truly gluttonous, order a dulce de leche pizza a la mode from Bakano, in Palermo.

Argentine Sweet delights

How in the world the Argentines stay so thin is beyond us (though probably has something to do with all the walking they do during all the metro strikes!). They love their sweets, which are not just regular sweet, but more ‘if I take another bite my tooth will disintegrate in the sugar’ type of sweet. This is due to the main ingredient in almost everything, dulce de leche, which is like a super sweet caramel, but don’t call it that or the locals get in a huff.

•  Alfajores – These are genius and must have been invented by children. An Alfajor is essentially two (or sometimes three) cookies with dulce de leche in between, then sometimes dipped in and covered in chocolate. There are hundreds of brands, but we can recommend Cachafaz, Havanna and most fresh ones from bakeries or cafés.
• Medialunas – As you walk around town, you’ll notice almost every local restaurant has a breakfast deal of three medalunas and a café con leche (coffee with milk) for a good deal. Be careful…medialunas are strangely addicting! They are sweet, but not too sweet and it is surprisingly easy to be able to eat three croissants so quickly. We loved the ones at popular café chain Bonafide, at Ditali in the micro-centro and Bicho, a small local coffeeshop in Recolata.
• Gelato – Ah, another great Italian influence! Gelato is so popular here there are almost as many ice cream shops as pizza places. The one you’ll see the most is Freddo, then Volta and Persicco (we both preferred Volta). But the absolute best ice cream places was Rapanui (with some really innovative flavors) – they have a number of locations in Buenos Aires, find the one closest to you. In the never ending mystery of the slim Argentina waistline, it is completely and totally socially acceptable (if not expected!) to buy and eat ice cream by the kilo. We scarfed down plenty of flavors like Dark Chocolate and Banana Split, but it should come as no surprise that most places offer at least 10 different dulce de leche flavors.

Chipas – cheese puffs

We discovered these late in our stay, and even though they are best described as ‘heaven in a ball’, we’re happy we only had a week eating these little cheesy bread rolls. They don’t look like much, and the cheese seems subtle, but when you bite down your mouth is flooded with happiness. Just jump in to any Disco supermarket and pick up a few fresh ones at the bakery and see for yourself.

Vegetarian food in Buenos Aires

For all the junk food we ate while in BA, we were able to offset it completely thanks to the high number of healthy vegetarian restaurants in the city. We were shocked when we did a quick search for restaurants on Foursquare, only to discover 14 vegetarian restaurants within a mile radius of our apartment alone! From vegetarian buffet-style lunch takeaways to entirely vegan restaurants, there was no shortage for us vegetarians. Some of our favorite veggie restaurants included La Esquina de las Flores, Naturaleza Sabia, Artemisia and Bio, a vegan organic restaurant.

Tips for your trip to Buenos Aires

Use public transportation

The subway system is easy to navigate but limited in its reach, however, the buses are outstanding. Check out the ¿Cómo Llego? feature on the Buenos Aires Interactive Map website, where you enter start and end points and it gives you all available options in real time. Our friends at OverYonderlust wrote a step-by-step guide how to navigate ¿Cómo Llego?, even with limited Spanish knowledge.

Use Uber and Cabify for taxis

Uber operates in Buenos Aires, and locals use a taxi app called Cabify. The difference is that with Cabify you pay the driver in cash, while with Uber, you pay via the app. Cabify is usually a bit cheaper, but you’ll have to have cash on hand. If you just want to hail a cab: Only take Radio Taxis, as they are licensed and trustworthy. The words ‘Radio Taxi’ will be visible on the car, so pay attention, as all taxis are black and yellow. Other taxis are unregulated, unlicensed and often times have rigged meters or no meters at all. Also, when paying, don’t let your original bills out of your sight until the transaction is complete, as these sketchy cabbies are known to switch money for counterfeits right under your nose.

Bring U.S. dollar bills for the best exchange rate

Don’t change money with the money changers on Calle Florida. It is the famous place to exchange your dollars (because ATMs and even banks do not do exchanges into US dollars), and the arbolitos, or ‘little trees’ promise you a good rate, but they are known to mix in counterfeit bills or just plain rip you off. Because they are unregulated, there is no real way to protect you or get your money back!

Go to a money exchange or a Western Union instead – they usually offer the “blue dollar” rate. If you’re unsure where to go, ask in one of the many Buenos Aires expats groups on Facebook, and make sure to know the current blue dollar rate before you go exchange money. If they offer you less than what you expect, go somewhere else.

Apartments are cheaper than hotels

If you will be in town for a week or more, why not rent an apartment. Buenos Aires is an expensive city, and while US$20 will get you a double room at a mediocre hostel, it will also pay for a decent apartment with total privacy and kitchen access. For US$25 – 40 a night, you’ll get a fab apartment, often with a gym and even a swimming pool.

Plus, we offset our pizza intake with homemade salads and had healthy breakfasts instead of medialunas and café con leche every day. We booked our apartment through Wimdu.com, a lesser known apartment rental service with better rates on the exact same apartments also listed on more popular vacation rental sites, like Airbnb. But you should also check the Buenos Aires Facebook groups for expats and digital nomads – there are often apartments advertised in them, or you can just post and ask for referrals.

Have you been to Buenos Aires and have other useful tips? We would love it if you shared them in the comments!