Itinerary: One Week Solo-Traveling in Buenos Aires

My two month solo trip through South America has officially begun!! I arrived in Buenos Aires a little over a week ago and it has been a whirlwind ever since. Last week in Buenos Aires was so action-packed that I barely had a second to breathe, so I’m writing this post from a super chill little coffee shop in Montevideo.

Buenos Aires was a lot. Coming from New York I’m not easily phased by large cities, but there was something quite overwhelming about Buenos Aires that I can’t quite put my finger on. I think it was a combination of how massive and sprawling it is, and the fact that it was my first time traveling on my own in a new city. One week seemed like plenty of time to see everything, but given how far apart everything in the city is, I think one week is a minimum if you truly want to get to know Buenos Aires. I was determined to see it all, so I’m going to break down the highlights of what I saw/did each day of my week in Buenos Aires below!

Day One: Arrive in Buenos Aires

I took a red eye into Ezeiza, the international airport of Buenos Aires, and landed in the morning. It was mid-afternoon by the time I arrived at my hostel, and I promptly went to sleep for the rest of the day. Buenos Aires is actually only one hour ahead of New York, so I wasn’t really that jet-lagged, but since I barely slept on the 11-hour overnight flight, a long nap was necessary.

It was dinner time when I woke up, so I walked around Palermo Soho (the neighborhood where I was staying, in the Meridiano Hostel) for a bit and had dinner at Urban Jazz Pizza. Given the large Italian population in Buenos Aires, it was no surprise that the pizza was amazing.

I went to bed early that night to make sure I was well rested for the next day. I would definitely recommend giving yourself a day to rest when you arrive in Buenos Aires! Don’t be fooled by the lack of a major time change if you’re coming from the States; that long-haul flight will make you exhausted.

Day 2: Recoleta Cemetery, Teatro Colón, Avenida 9 de Julio

I woke up super refreshed, ready to explore the city! After a cup of tea on the rooftop of my hostel, my roommate and I decided to do a free walking tour of the city so we could get our bearings a bit.

Tip: There are free walking tours offered every day at 10:30 at Plaza Estado del Vaticano, at the corner of Viamonte and Libertad. Take the D line to Tribunales and look for people in neon orange jackets! The tours are in English and Spanish and are tip-based. It’s a great way to introduce yourself to the city and cover a lot of ground without spending much money! Our tour guide was great and I’d highly recommend this!

The tour started next to Teatro Colón, which is an absolute must-see. You can pay for a tour of the inside, which I regret not doing, but the outside is spectacular on its own.

Throughout the next three hours, our tour guide took us across the famous 22-lane Avenida 9 de Julio, to Plaza San Martín, the memorial of the Malvinas/Falklands war, and to the Recoleta Cemetery, among many other places in between. We left off in the Recoleta Cemetery, and I spent awhile wandering through all the narrow streets. Recoleta Cemetery is massive, so give yourself awhile to explore it all! It is completely free to enter which is a huge bonus. Each grave that you see is actually an individual mausoleum, and goes deep underground. This is where many prominent families and politicians are buried, including Eva Perón. Many tourists come to Recoleta Cemetery to just see her grave and then leave, but it is worth exploring more than just this!

Tip: If you are looking for Evita’s grave, don’t look for a big grave that says Eva Perón, look for the black granite grave that says Familia Duarte. It will most likely be covered in flowers! There are no signs for it, so just follow the crowds of tourists.

Day 3: Café Las Violetas, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, El Ateneo

Today I decided to hit some of the main places I had read about online that many people said were “must-sees” in Buenos Aires, and they did not disappoint! I first took the bus to a famous old cafe called Café Las Violetas, located in the Almagro neighborhood. The building was constructed in 1920, and the decor on the inside mirrored this. I had a café con leche y tres medialunas, which are little croissants, and thoroughly enjoyed the ambiance and people watching.

After my coffee, I took the subway up to the Recoleta neighborhood and spent some time in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, which has some really beautiful works of Latin American art. This is a beautiful museum to visit if you have any interest in art or Latin American culture/history! It is walking distance to the Recoleta Cemetery, so it would be easy to do those two things in one day. I went to the museum on a Tuesday and it happened to be free, but I don’t think it is everyday. Regardless, admission looked like it was cheap, and it is definitely worth paying for!

I then made my way to El Ateneo, which I was SO excited to see. It is known as one of the top 10 most beautiful bookstores in the world, and it absolutely lived up to all the hype. It is located in an old theater, and on the stage there is a cute little café. I spent an hour wandering around and just admiring the architecture because it really was that beautiful!

Day 4: Day Trip to Tigre

There are two main day trips that people recommend from Buenos Aires: Tigre and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. I was already planning on stopping in Colonia the following weekend on my way to Montevideo, so I decided on a day trip to Tigre to escape the madness of Buenos Aires for a few hours. This was TOTALLY worth it and I’d highly recommend it for anyone spending a week in the city!

To get to Tigre, I took the D line and transferred to the C line, which took me straight into the Retiro Train Station. I took the Mitre line train, which is the cheapest and most direct way to Tigre from Buenos Aires. The train takes about 45 minutes, and stops in many sweet little pueblos along the way.

Tigre is a small town located on the Panará Delta. It is a common weekend and summer getaway for Porteños, many of whom have summer houses there. Many parts of it can only be accessed by boat, and residents take little boats to get around from their house to town. When you arrive in the Tigre train station, walk straight for about a block and you will come to an area that has many vendors advertising boat trips along the delta. These vary from day trips on massive catamarans to hour-long excursions on a small wooden boat. I chose the latter for money reasons, and paid only 250 pesos for a beautiful boat ride. While I’m sure the large catamarans are a great experience, the smaller boats are able to take you through more of the small rivers the the big boats can’t fit down, which I loved.

After my boat tour was over, I went and had lunch at the first restaurant I could find because I hadn’t eaten anything all day and I was starving. Once I was full from my hamburger, I walked to the famous Puerto de Frutos, which is an old fruit market right on the water that is now more of a craft market. Unfortunately it was pretty dead when I was there, so I didn’t spend too much time walking around. Since it’s only September, it’s not really tourist season yet, meaning the whole town was pretty quiet.

From Puerto de Frutos I walked about 35 minutes along the river to the art museum, which is ABSOLUTELY worth walking to!! The building used to house a social club, but when it shut down it was later turned into an art museum. While the art on the inside was beautiful, it’s really worth going to see the building itself.

At this point I was pretty tired, and satisfied that I had seen what I had set out to see, so I decided to catch the train back to Buenos Aires so I could get home before it got dark out. The trains run extremely frequently from around 5am to 11pm, and it’s super cheap if you use your Subte card. It was so relaxing to escape Buenos Aires for a day, and I can honestly say I’ve never been any place that even closely resembles Tigre. It was absolutely worth spending a day here.

Day 5: Plaza de Mayo and San Telmo

If you only follow one piece of advice from this post, I hope it’s this: GO TO THE PLAZA DE MAYO ON A THURSDAY AT 3:30 TO SEE LAS MADRES. This was hands down the most profound, incredible thing I did in Buenos Aires, and an experience I will never forget.

A very brief, important history: in 1976, the Argentine military overthrew the government of Isabel Perón, beginning what is known as the Dirty War (the Argentine military was backed by US support, btw). It began a period of state-sponsored terrorism against the people of Argentina, and over 30,000 political dissidents and social justice advocates were ‘disappeared’ by the government. They were brutally tortured and murdered, and the government kept no records of their identities. Since their disappearances, their mothers began marching in the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the Casa Rosada, to protest the violence and demand answers about what had happened to their children. Many of the leaders of this group were murdered by the government, but the women continued marching every single Thursday, and they continue to this day. Las Madres wear white scarves on their heads, embroidered with the names of their loved ones.

I arrived in the Plaza at around 3, half an hour before the march started. There were many signs of protest hanging around the plaza, and there was a booth where two of the madres were selling books about los desaparecidos.

When the madres arrived and the march started, it was incredibly emotional. Many marched with pictures of their children, and they sang the names of those who had disappeared. Although they have been doing this every week since the 70s, you could still see fresh pain and emotion in their faces as they marched. To be able to witness this in person was heartbreaking and beautiful and really unforgettable.

After the march ended, I spent some time admiring the Casa Rosada, and then walked down Defensa street to San Telmo. At this point I was starting to feel very sick and I could tell I had a fever, so I barely ended up spending any time in San Telmo. I had planned on going to the famous market even though it wasn’t a Sunday, but instead I just went to a cafe on the corner of Plaza Dorrego and had a cup of tea and then made my way back to my hostel. It was a very cool neighborhood, and had I not had a fever, I would’ve spent much more time here! San Telmo is the best place in the city to see a Tango show, which I would’ve done had I not felt like death. Next time!

Day 6: La Boca

I got really lucky today, because my Aunt who lives in Chicago actually has a Porteña friend who works at the film museum in La Boca, and she was kind enough to pick me up on her drive to work and take me to La Boca, which is a neighborhood that’s a bit out of the way from Palermo (where I was staying). She dropped me off at El Caminito, and told me to not wander beyond that first immediate block because it can be a bit sketchy.

I spent the morning exploring this extremely vibrant, colorful area, and spent some time in the Proa art museum. It has a beautiful cafe on the rooftop with great views of the neighborhood. My Aunt’s friend picked me up for lunch and took me to a famous pizzeria that has been around since 1932, and we had some amazingly delicious pizza with some of her coworkers.

Afterwards she took me to the film museum where she works, and I’d highly recommend a stop here if you are in La Boca! It is super cute and it was so much fun to learn about the history of the Argentinian film scene. Once again, my day ended earlier than I wanted because I was really getting sick, but it was so cool to get to see this famous neighborhood.

Day 7: Travel to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay!

This could be a day trip, but I used this as a weekend trip separating my travels onward to Montevideo. I took an Uber to the Buequebus station, which is one of the three companies that operates ferries between Buenos Aires and Colonia. The station was very nice, and I hung out at the little cafe before going through customs and immigration since I was early. The ferry was huge, and it only took an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Colonia! It was a super easy trip, and can easily be done as a day trip. I’m going to write about my weekend in Colonia in a separate post and leave this one at that!

One week in Buenos Aires is a perfect amount of time to see the highlights of the city. I’d highly recommend doing some planning ahead of time, so that you can organize your days based on which neighborhoods things are in that you want to see. Things are very far apart in Buenos Aires, so you’re not going to want to be going to Palermo, Monserrat, and Retiro all in one day! I hope this itinerary was helpful, and I hope you choose to go to Buenos Aires on your next trip to South America. ¡Ciao amigos!