Originally Posted by
stan1162
As frequent visitors to Argentina in general, and BA in particular, what we notice that we still hardly ever hear English or meet other Americans. The only other "tourists" we meet are in El Chalten. And those are mostly German or Dutch. Cheap or expensive, it still seems that it is not a destination on tourists radar. And we are here for months at a time. This trip we will be in BA, Cordoba, Calafate, El Chalten, and will be able to count on one hand how many tourists we will encounter outside of El Chalten. Argentina is one of our favorite places and bargain or not, we will come back. If we wanted only a destination becasue it's cheap, we would go back to Albania.
My general impression is that Argentina is twice as expensive as it was in December 2023. The saving grace is accommodation cost, which is still low. I don't know about BA (where I use a small amount of Wyndham points, the same as in 2023). But when I travel around the country, I use booking.com and Airbnb and average less than US$50/night for very comfortable accommodations. They'd be 3x the cost in the US, easily. But everyone I talk to, including many expats, complains how expensive Argentina is now. Frankly, I think they exaggerate. But the country does feel more expensive than it should be. Like they are ridiculously taxing foreigners to visit the national parks, charging like 45,000 pesos a day for Perito Moreno. And, honestly, Argentina is not a fully developed country. This is not America or Western Europe -- or even many Asian nations that, a few years ago, I might consider equivalent on the development scale. So I would naturally expect Argentina to get a bit cheaper again, unless Milei truly transforms the economy. For value, now is probably not the best time for foreigners to come. I have seen this cost cycle now for more than 35 years, and it goes up and down repeatedly in Argentina.