BUENOS AIRES · ARGENTINA
Tango, beef and a city that stays up late.
Tango halls and parrilla dinners, the colour of La Boca and the calm of Recoleta, a roaring afternoon at the football and the river towns out past the city. Every great Buenos Aires day, in one place.
Only in Buenos Aires
Three nights this city does best.
City tours and river cruises exist everywhere. Tango the way it is danced where it was born, an asado cooked the Argentine way, and the blue-and-yellow roar of La Bombonera do not.
Born in the port barrios
A night at a tango show
Tango was invented in this city, in the tenements and dance halls down by the river, and it never left. A night out runs from grand theatre stages with a live orquesta and a steak dinner to small, smoky milongas where locals dance until three. Either way it is the most Buenos Aires evening you can have.
- 1 Buenos Aires: Piazzolla Tango Show with Optional Dinner
- 2 La Ventana Tango Show in Buenos Aires
- 3 Tango Porteño: The Best Tango Night in Buenos Aires
Fire, beef and time
A proper Argentine asado
Argentina eats more beef than almost anywhere, and the asado is the ritual around it: cuts cooked slow over wood and embers, chorizo and morcilla first, the parrillero in no hurry at all. Book a steakhouse table or a hands-on grill class and you understand the country in one long, unhurried lunch.
- 1 Buenos Aires: 9-Course Argentine Meat Tasting at Fogón Asado
- 2 Buenos Aires: Authentic Argentine Asado BBQ with Live Music
- 3 Buenos Aires Food Tour: Local Dishes, Steak, Empanada & More
La Bombonera, La Boca
Matchday with Boca Juniors
Argentine football is a religion and La Bombonera is its loudest church, a steep blue-and-yellow bowl that shakes when Boca score. Stadium tours walk you onto the pitch and through the museum on quiet days; a matchday ticket with a local drops you into the noise of the most famous club in the country.
- 1 Buenos Aires: Tickets to Boca Juniors Museum & Stadium
- 2 Soccer Match in Buenos Aires with Transfers and Local Guide
- 3 Buenos Aires: Boca Juniors and River Plate Football Tour
Start here
If you only book one thing.
Of everything in the city, this is where most first trips begin. A confident, easy introduction to Buenos Aires, and the one to lock in before you land.
The big-hitters
Buenos Aires’s Most Popular Tours & Tickets
Tango dinners, city drives, the football and the river. The handful of bookings almost every first trip is built around.
Where to start
The Buenos Aires a first trip is built around.
Tango and asado, the colour of La Boca and the calm of Recoleta, the delta upstream and a day with the gauchos. The handful of experiences most visits are planned around, and the best way to do each.
Beyond the city
Which way out of town?
Some of the best days near Buenos Aires are out past it: upstream into the delta, out across the pampas, or over the river into Uruguay. Three directions, each an easy day return.
After dark
The night starts late here.
Porteños sit down to dinner at ten and the night only warms up after midnight. Steak houses that fill at eleven, dinner with a live tango orquesta, and the milongas and Palermo bars that keep going until the city’s famous all-night cafés open for breakfast.
Dinner shows & evening tables →The bottle
This is Malbec country.
The vineyards are out in Mendoza, but the city pours their best. Sit-down tastings that walk you from Salta torrontés to high-altitude Malbec, sommelier-led flights paired with cheese and steak, and the neighbourhood wine bars where a great bottle costs less than you expect.
Wine tastings & Malbec flights →In colour
The street where tango was born.
Down by the old port, the dock workers of La Boca painted their tin houses with whatever ship’s paint was left over, and Caminito has been a riot of colour ever since. Dancers turn on the cobbles, the football ground looms two streets away, and the whole barrio feels like the city’s beating, painted heart.
La Boca & Caminito tours →In the open air
A city that paints its walls.
Buenos Aires has some of the most open, ambitious street art anywhere: whole gable ends in Palermo and Colegiales given over to muralists, much of it legal and commissioned. Guides who know the artists walk you between the big pieces and the hidden ones, and tell you who painted what and why.
- 1 Palermo: Graffiti and Street Art Guided Tour in English
- 2 Buenos Aires: Empanada & Alfajor Cooking Lesson in Palermo
- 3 BA: Empanadas and Alfajores Cooking Experience in Palermo
Day one
Get your bearings first.
Buenos Aires is enormous and spread across dozens of barrios, so most people start with a half-day city tour that strings the big ones together: the Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada, Recoleta, San Telmo and La Boca, with a guide to join the dots. The fastest way to work out where you want to come back to.
See all 53 city tours →By barrio
Pick a corner of the city.
Each barrio is its own day. La Boca for colour and tango. San Telmo for cobblestones and the Sunday fair. Palermo for parks and the nights out. Recoleta for grand avenues. The Colón for the opera, La Bombonera for the football.
By type
Or pick how you want to spend a day.
On foot through the old barrios. Across the parks by bike. Up the delta by boat. Around a parrilla table, rolling empanadas, swirling a Malbec, or learning the eight-count of a tango.
Plan it
Three perfect days in Buenos Aires.
First time in the city? Here is a long weekend that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
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