Buenos Aires Travel Guide: Grand Boulevards, Tango and the Best Steak of Your Life

Buenos Aires announces itself through its streets more than through any landmark. In Palermo, jacaranda trees drop violet petals onto cafe tables tended by tuxedoed waiters as conversations stretch long past any reasonable hour; in San Telmo, tango dancers claim the cobblestones on Sunday afternoons as though the city were built for it. Buenos Aires, or BA to locals, is like the whirling of the tango dance that originated here. Like the passionate dance to a warbling, nostalgic music, it combines seemingly incongruous faded European grandeur with a bewitching Latin passion and lust for life. This city will get under your skin. Buenos Aires was my first glimpse of South America, a continent that I would spend 10 more months in, and I still reminisce on my three-weeks in BA. The living culture from pop-up indie rock gigs in cobbled San Telmo, dancing the tango to a boombox in Plaza Congreso or Sunday asados with Argentine friends kept me in the city far longer than I bargained for. I would go so far as to say that if I had to live in a Latin American city, I would choose Buenos Aires. Best picks to fit in your itinerary Editor’s favorites, beyond the checklist↓ First, let’s solve the...