How Many Days in Buenos Aires? — Trip Planner

What first-timers get wrong in Buenos Aires

Buses take no cash whatsoever, so a SUBE card is required for every colectivo, subte and commuter train and is sold at kiosks and stations. Inflation makes any peso price you read online stale within weeks, so budget in dollars and convert once you arrive. Foreign cards now settle at a favourable official rate for most tourist spending. Tips of roughly ten percent are given in cash.

What's actually worth your time in Buenos Aires

Recoleta Cemetery is a city of marble mausoleums where Eva Peron lies in the Duarte vault, and foreigners now pay to enter. The Teatro Colon guided tour is the one ticket nobody regrets, since the horseshoe hall is among the best-sounding rooms anywhere. El Ateneo Grand Splendid, a 1919 theatre turned bookshop, costs nothing. Caminito in La Boca is three painted blocks, and you should not wander past them.

Buenos Aires's museums, and which one to pick

MALBA in Palermo holds Frida Kahlo's Autorretrato con chango y loro alongside Berni and Xul Solar, and it closes on Tuesdays. The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes charges nothing and hangs nineteenth-century Argentine painting next to Rodin and Van Gogh. Fundacion Proa sits on the Riachuelo in La Boca. Museo Evita occupies a house that once sheltered women and children under her foundation.

Buenos Aires with kids, realistically

The Bosques de Palermo give paddle boats, a rose garden and the Jardin Japones within one walk. The Planetario Galileo Galilei is a 1960s concrete saucer still running dome shows. Argentine restaurants genuinely welcome children at hours that would raise eyebrows elsewhere. The Subte is cheap but stair-heavy and short on lifts, so a carrier beats a pram on Line D at rush hour.

When the weather turns in Buenos Aires

A sudestada can flood the streets within minutes and drain almost as quickly. Porteno practice is simply to sit it out: a long coffee at Cafe Tortoni, an afternoon among El Ateneo's stalls beneath the painted theatre ceiling, MALBA or the free Bellas Artes, or the frescoed arcade of Galerias Pacifico. A Teatro Colon tour fills ninety minutes entirely under cover.

When to go to Buenos Aires

The month to avoid is July — around 14°C (57°F) with roughly 6 rain days. Prices and crowds track the weather here: September is the sweet spot, July the month most people skip.

Pack for peak season: Layers — t-shirts under a light jacket or sweater, Comfortable walking shoes — every guide on this site assumes you'll use them.