Why You Should Add Buenos Aires to Your RTW Trip

Round the world routes usually run east or west through the northern hemisphere, because that is where the airline alliances have their networks. South America is the continent people cut when the fare gets tight, and Buenos Aires is the stop that makes keeping it worthwhile.

It is a city you can live in, not just see

Most round the world stops are three or four nights. Buenos Aires is the rare one where travellers arrive for a week and leave after a month, and it is worth understanding why before you book a short stay.

It is a huge European-style city with cheap food, cheap wine, a serious cultural life and barrios with real differences between them. It has bookshops that stay open past midnight and a theatre scene second only to a handful of cities anywhere. It is also the best value big city on most round the world routes.

If you are travelling long term and want somewhere to stop moving for a few weeks, this is one of the two or three best candidates on the planet.

What it costs, honestly

The money situation changed completely in 2025 and most of what you will read is wrong.

For a decade the story was currency controls and the blue dollar: bring clean US hundreds, change them informally, get double the official rate. Argentina lifted those controls in April 2025 under an IMF agreement, and the gap between official, blue and MEP rates is now under two percent.

So use your card. Foreign cards get the MEP rate, and when a terminal offers pesos or your home currency, take pesos.

The city is still good value, particularly for eating and drinking: a full steak dinner with wine at a parrilla runs in the region of 15,000 to 25,000 pesos a head as of 2026. It is no longer the astonishing bargain of a few years ago, and inflation means any peso figure ages quickly.

Where it puts you

This is the routing argument. Buenos Aires is the best connected city in the southern cone.

Iguazú is under two hours by air. Mendoza and the Andes the same. Patagonia, El Calafate and Ushuaia, runs south from here. Montevideo is a ferry across the River Plate, about two and a half hours by fast boat, which is one of the easiest country-count additions on any trip. Santiago is two hours over the mountains and Rio and São Paulo are three.

The long-distance buses are excellent and cheap, with near-flat cama seats and overnight runs, so you can cover the continent without spending flights from your ticket.

Fitting it to a round the world fare

South America usually needs a deliberate decision, because the classic eastbound and westbound circuits do not pass through it. That means either a fare that includes a southern hemisphere leg, or accepting an open jaw and a separate flight.

The useful pairing is with Africa or Australasia: Buenos Aires to Johannesburg or to Auckland via Santiago are both real routings that keep the circuit moving in one direction rather than doubling back.

When

October to December and March to May. The southern summer, January and February, is hot and humid and the city partly empties for the holidays, which is either a drawback or the appeal depending on your temperament.

Winter, June to August, is mild by northern standards, around ten to fifteen degrees, and is the cheapest time to be there.