Practical info about Argentina

We have set out below the main doubts and questions for you. Please use the filter to get to your question quicker. Is your question not in the list? Please contact us and let us know your inquiery.

Nationals of the USA, Canada, most Western European countries, Australia and New Zealand do not need visas to visit Argentina, you can get into Argentina with a valid passport. The stamp you get allows you to stay up to 90 days for tourism or business. You can check your countries visa requirements here: Argentinean Migrations.

Note that Australian, Canadian and U.S. citizens are requiered to pay a reciprocity fee prior to enter Argentina. This is not a visa, since a visa is not required for US business and tourist visitors. It is a fee based upon the fees that Argentinian citizens pay for a visa to the United States. The fee amount will be subject to change. Read more about the reciprocity fee here.

Border crossing between Argentina and Brasil are fairly relaxed – authorities assume most people are on a day trip across the border.

European Union passport holders do not normally need a visa to enter Brazil for tourism. You basically get a stamp on a page of your passport signaling that the Brazilian authorities endorsed your day visit to their country.

US passport holders require a visa (aprox. US$160) to visit the Brazilian side of the falls which is NOT issued at the border, it should be issues at a local Brazilian consulate back home. Before you travel off, you’d better check the visa requirements of your country.

In general Argentina can be travelled through without any vaccines, only the Iguazu area requires vaccines. Many foreign health offices advice some basis vaccines for Argentina as well. A short list to give you an idea, but make sure to ask for advice at your local health office:

  • Yellow Fever: Recommended for the northern and northeastern forested areas of Argentina bordering Brazil and Paraguay, including Corrientes. Vaccination is also recommended for travelers visiting Iguassu Falls. For Chaco (Bermejo), Formosa (all departments), Jujuy (Ledesma, San Pedro, Santa Bárbara, Valle Grande), and Salta (Anta, General José de San Martín, Oran, Rivadavia), recommended only for those at risk for a large number of mosquito bites. Not recommended for areas greater than 2300 m in elevation and all provinces and departments not listed above.
  • Hepatitis A: you can get this through contaminated food or water.
  • Typhoid: you can get this through contaminated food or water. 
  • Hepatitis B: you only need this if you might have sex with a new partner, get a tattoo or piercing, or have any medical procedure
  • Rabies: you can get this from animal bites, so you only need this if your trip includes some intensive animal contact (think of adventure travel and caving, wildlife profesionals, researchers etc)

You can drink tap water in Buenos without a problem, however the taste is not very nice. Argentineans basically always buy bottled water and only use the tap water for hot beverages. In the rest of the country you are not recommended to drink the tap water, however flushing your mouth with it should not cause any problems.

There is so much you should not miss during your trip through Argentina, but a lot depends of the areas you visit or specific interests youmight have. Make sure  to contact us so we can help you make a great trip! Contact us >

The entrance values for adult foreign (not mercosur) visitors are today (june 2013):

  • Iguazu Argentina: 170 ars (USD $32)
  • Iguazu Brasil: 41,60 r$ (USD $19)
  • Los Cardones (Salta): no entrance price
  • Talampaya: 50 ars (USD $9.5). In the park you are requiered to take an excursion, values start at 165 ars (USD $30). Find out more about the excursions here.
  • Ischigualasto/Valle de la Luna: 35 ars (USD $6.5). This includes a guided tour. Find out more here (in Spanish only).
  • Peninsula Valdes: 130 ars (USD $25)
  • Punta Tombo: 78 ars
  • Lobería Punta Loma: 50 ars (USD $15)
  • Estancia San Lorenzo (Peninsula Valdes): USD $58. This includes a guided tour.
  • Nahuel Huapi (Bariloche): 50 ars (USD $10)
  • Los Glaciares: USD $29 . This entrance has to be paid per day, so if you go to the Perito Moreno on the first day and go on the Todo Glaciares navigation the next day, you have to pay the entrance price twice. The trekkings in the National Park that start in El Chalten have no entrance cost.
  • Tierra del Fuego: USD $22
  • Estancia Harberton (Tierra del Fuego): USD $15
  • Torres del Paine (Chile): $ 18.000 (USD $38) in high season, $ 5000 (USD $10,5) in low season. The lenght of your stay does not influence on the value of the entrance price.

Argentina, and especially Buenos Aires, is a place where you should be aware of what is going on around you. When you pay attention to the people around you and when you never loose sight of your belongings a lot of robberies can be prevented. A few tips:

  • Always make sure you use your handbag on the front side of your body, do not hang it to the backside
  • If you wear a backpack make sure that things of value are not in the front pocket, or you might choose to use a small lock to walk the streets without worrying
  • Do not wave around your smartphone or ipad, don’t take pictures with your ipad on the street. These goods are not accesible for many argentineans because they are simply to expensive, therefore they are an interesting object to rob
  • Use your photocamera wisely; use the strap of your camera and put it around your neck or wrist and when you do not use the camera put it into your pocket or bag
  • When travelling with public transport put your bag in front of your body always
  • In a taxi you might consider locking the doors
  • Do not carry a lot of cash around
  • Make sure you always have one credit card or ATM card back in your hotel in case you get robbed, like that you still have payment methods for the rest of your trip
  • Carry a copy of your passport on you, leave the original in the hotel

The tourist police station can be found on a small square on Corrientes Avenue 436 ( Tel: 4346-5748 / 0800-9995000).  This Tourist Police Station has about 30 policemen who speak different languages like Japanese, English, French, Italian and Ucranian so as to render the tourist a quick response in case he/she suffer some theft, common law crime or any other eventuality like loosing identity cards or passports.

ATM machines can be found almost everywhere in Argentina, so a ATM card will be very helpful during your trip. Also credit cards are widely accepted in tourist areas, however in the local small businesses you will be asked to pay cash.

Cash USD or Euros may be interesting depending on the currency exchange. In Argentina there is a ‘blue’  market besides the official change market where you get a better exchange rate than in the official banks. Note that this is a ‘blue’  market, which indicated that it is not legal however widely accepted and therefor it is not a ‘black’  market either.

Traveller cheques may be interesting if you don’t want to carry around cash money, however if you bring your ATM card there is no added value to traveller cheques.

You can change money in banks or in official money exchange offices. Many of them can be found on and around the street ‘Florida’  in the city center. You will find many people on the street saying ‘cambio cambio’  or  ‘money exchange’, note that these people work in the ‘blue’  exchange market which is not legal however widely accepted. Their exchange rates are in general better than the official one.

You can use all ATM machines in Argentina, but take into account that they will charge you ARS 19 (06-2013) transaction cost per ARS 1000 that you get out of the ATM. The only exception is the Citi bank; they charge you ARS 19 per ARS 3000 that you get. Be aware that you can only get pesos and no USD from the machines even though the machines ask you if you want Pesos or USD.

Per day you can get about ARS 3000 from the ATM machines. In most banks you can get ARS 1000 max per time that you use the machine, however they do you let you make 3 transactions of ARS 1000. Take into account that the banks charge ARS 19 per transaction. The only exception to this rule is the Citi bank; at the Citi bank you can get ARS 3000 in one transactions and they only charge you the ARS 19 for it.

Ofcourse if the limit you have with your bank is lower, the ATM machine will respect the limit you have with your bank.

Yes, in all cities ATMs can be found, however if you travel off to smaller villages always make sure you get some cash money in the bigger city before your departure. Sometimes in small villages banks can be found however they won’t have any money left in the ATM machines.

Some general touristic places where you should make sure you have cash money on you are El Chalten and the villages of the Quebrada de Humahuaca in the north of Argentina.

Yes, credit cards are widely accepted and used a lot by Argentineans. Only smaller businesses and restaurants and neighborhood businesses usually do not accept credit cards. In smaller villages it might be more difficult as well, make sure you always have some cash on you.

Yes you can but always make sure you stop a so called ‘radio taxi’. This is a taxi that is part of a bigger company which means you have a place to call when you encounter a problem with your driver/taxi/service. You can recognize the radio taxis by the phone numbers on the roof.

When you take a taxi in the summer pay attention to the following: if the windows are open it means that this taxi has no airco! you might better wait for a taxi to pass by with the windows closed because a refreshing taxi drive can be a relieve from the hot streets.

The Metro in Buenos Aires is called ‘Subte’  and has about 6 different lines. The ones you will use most are the B (red), D (green) and A (blue). You can get a ticket only at the subway stations. They sell tickets of 1,5 or 10 trips. Each trips costs about ARS 2,50 (06/2013)

There are an enourmous amount of city busses that you can take to move around Buenos Aires. The big question is which one you should take. Luckily there is a page where you can enter you start & end location and it will tell you what the fastest way is to get from A to B. This page has also an App available for your mobile phone.

Make sure you go to the start location and find the busstop, and when you see the bus comming you raise your arm and it will stop.

You buy the bus ticket on the bus itself. While you will see locals use cards to pay, these are not available for visitors. The only way you can pay for your ticket is with coins.  The minimum pay is 3 pesos, this will cover about 3km of busride. Prices go up 4,75 pesos for 27km rides. When you get onto the bus you have to let the chofer know where you will get off ór you just say the value of the ticket that you need (tres pesos). It is probably best to say the end location to the busdriver so he can let you know when you have to get off (‘me avisa cuando tengo que bajar?’ / Will you let me know when I have to get off?)

Just as during the rest of your stay in Buenos Aires: make sure you take care of your belongings.

Yes there are, but we do not recommend taking them. Although Argentina had a excellent network of trains many years ago, today there is hardly anything left. Those long distance trains that still run lack maintainance and instead of taking you to your destination quicker, they take you to your destination in double of the time as a long distance bus would take you. The only advantage that they have is that they are very cheap.

The long distance buses in Argentina are very comfortable and can be recommended. You can usually choose between various comfort zones in the bus:

  • Semi-cama: chairs recline 120°
  • Cama (Ejecutivo): chairs recline 140°, bigger chairs, usually includes blanket, pillow and breakfast
  • Cama Suite: chairs recline 180°, big chairs, more privacy because of curtains, usually includes blanket, pillow and with full food service

Buses go all over the country and depart from the main trainstation in Buenos Aires: Retiro. Tickets can be bought at the busstation itself or online.

The Tren de la Costa is a tourist train service that runs along the river with as final destination Tigre. It is indeed a very nice ride, with cute train stations along the way where you can get off to have a coffee or to visit local small markets. The train departs from a Train station called ‘Maipu’, this train station can be found just outside of the city of Buenos Aires in the northern suburs. There are several ways to get to this station, you can read more about it here.

Train tickets are bought on the train itself, and the price is 20 pesos per one way ticket.

The Delta of Tigre is one of the best places to spend the day if you just want to escape the big city a bit. The lovely rivers of the Delta, the boats and the market are a delight to the bustling city of Buenos Aires.

There are several ways to get to Tiger:

    • with an excursion: there are more traditiona excursions in w hich a transfer will take you to Tigre, but there are also more active excursions such as bike tours to Tigre or Kayak tours. We can recommend the bike & kayak tours
    • by boat. There is a boat company that offers a boat service from Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires to the Delta of Tigre. There are boat services that are used simply to get from A to B, these services are used by people to get to work in the morning and back home in the afternoon (mind that there are only services early in the morning or late in the afternoon). Besides that there are touristic services which can include lunch or not. Ask us for the possibilities
    • by train. There is a train that leaves from the trainstation Retiro which takes you to Tigre in 45min. Traintickets are cheap, but avoid the rush hours to travel (7-10hs in the morning and 17-20hs in the afternoon). You can buy a ticket on the train station itself, the train line is called ‘Mitre’. The trains leave from platform 1 or 2.
    • by coastal train. A touristic train ride along the river. Please read more about this option in the question ‘Where can I take the coastal train?’.

You might be suprised to find this question in the list, but the supply of oil is not reliable all over the country. While you will basically always find supply in the big cities, it might happen that gas stations along the highway or in little villages run out of gas. Therefore we recommend to always keep your tank full.

The value of gas per liter varies over the country and prices fluctuate quite a bit with the inflation, so all we can do is give you a little indication of the values in april 2013:

  • Buenos Aires average 6,89 peso per liter
  • Mendoza average 6,65 peso per liter
  • Rosario average 7,22 peso per liter
  • Cordoba average 7,4 peso per liter

Unfortunaltely Argentina does not have any budget airlines.

Yes, there are. Aerolineas offers airpasses for Argentina and South America. Also LAN offers a South America airpass. Please check out their sites to find out more.

A little note about the airpasses: although the airpasses really make a price difference, you should take into account that you will be flying on flights that can have not very favourable departure & arrival times. Also, there is only a limited amount of places available in the booking class, so make sure to buy your pass many months before you actually travel, if not you will not find any availability.

Aerolineas Argentinas allows 15kg of Baggage in Economy class for flights within Argentina and 30kg in the more expensice Club Economy class. Read more specifications about the allowance here. Handluggage has 5kg as limit for Economy class tickets and 10kg for Club Economy class, with as max. measure 115cm.

Lan allows the ‘normal’ standards also for flights within Argentina: 8kg for handluggage with as max. measure 115cm, and 23kg for baggage with as max. measure 158cm.

For flights in Argentina itself arriving 1,5hs before the flight will do. If you have done a web check-in you can reduce this time a bit to a minimum of 1hs if you want to leave your baggage. Please take into account though that Buenos Aires has a lot of traffic and that especially in rush hour the ride to the airport can take some time!

For international flights the recommendation is that you arrive 3hs before your flight. Also in this case the time can be reduced with web check-ins.

In general all the airport taxes are included in Argentina. There are however 3 exceptions to the rule:

  • El Calafate airport: 38 pesos
  • Trelew airport: 32 pesos
  • Ushuaia airport: 28 pesos

A good question. In general the explanation that is given is that Argentineans get a discount on their flight to make flying more accesible to them. This makes sense, because the prices of the domestic flights in Argentina are quite high and even with the applied discount flying is still unavailable for a large group of Argentineans.

The only way you can get the local price is if you have an Argentinean ID card or if you are a diplomatic.

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