South America
Tango, steak, and Latin Europe with a broken heart.
Argentina is a vast, passionate country of Andean peaks, Patagonian wilds, glaciers and pampas — but its soul is Buenos Aires, the elegant, faded-grand capital on the River Plate. A city of leafy boulevards and Belle Époque palaces, of tango in the streets, the best steak on earth, all-night nightlife and a melancholy European romance, it feels like Paris and Madrid transplanted to South America and left to smoulder. Cultured, sultry and endlessly seductive.
What things cost: Argentina's economy is famously volatile, but for visitors it's usually excellent value — a world-class steak dinner with Malbec, a taxi, or a tango show all cost a fraction of European prices. Carrying some US dollars in cash, which stretch far, helps. When a zone below says 'low', that means low for Buenos Aires, which is affordable.
Sometimes the event picks the city for you.
Buenos Aires does Carnaval its own way — not Rio's glitter but the raucous, drumming 'murgas', neighbourhood troupes in bright costumes who parade and dance through the barrios on February weekends, dousing the crowd in foam. Free, local and joyous; catch a corso (street parade) in San Telmo or the outer barrios.
Buenos Aires · Barrios citywide
The South American edition of the giant music festival — three days of global headliners and Latin acts across multiple stages at the Hipódromo de San Isidro on the city's edge. One of the biggest events on the Argentine calendar, drawing huge, passionate crowds; book tickets and beds ahead.
Buenos Aires · Hipódromo de San Isidro
The world's greatest celebration of tango — two weeks of free concerts, classes, milongas and shows across the city, climaxing in the Tango Dance World Championship, where couples from across the globe compete. An extraordinary, romantic time to be in the city where the dance was born.
Buenos Aires · Venues citywide
