3 days in Buenos Aires: a realistic itinerary with prices

Key Takeaways

• One neighbourhood per day. Buenos Aires is bigger than it looks on a map and every cross town move costs you 40 minutes.
• Book the guided parts, walk the rest. The guided parts run US$30 to US$150 per person and the city between them is free.
• Day three is the food day. The cooking class and the asado are three hour commitments, so they need an empty afternoon.
• A Sunday in the city changes the plan, because the San Telmo fair takes over Defensa street.
• Budget roughly US$400 per person for three days of experiences, food and transport, not counting the hotel.

3 days in Buenos Aires at a glance

Day	Neighbourhood	Booked	Cost
1	Centro and San Telmo	City centre walking tour + tango show	US$177
2	La Boca and Recoleta	La Boca tour + Recoleta and Retiro tour	US$87
3	Palermo	Yerba mate brunch + empanada class	US$133

That is US$397 each in experiences if you book everything, with two of you sharing the private walks. The section on costs further down runs the same three days at US$230 and at US$800, because the shape holds either way.

Day 1: the historic centre and San Telmo

Morning, 09:30. The city centre walking tour, US$113 for the party, three hours. Meet at the corner of Libertad and Viamonte. The route runs Plaza de Mayo, the Casa Rosada, the Cathedral, the Cabildo, Cafe Tortoni, the Obelisco and the width of 9 de Julio, finishing at Puerto Madero. Do this first, on your first morning, before anything else. Buenos Aires is a grid that is easy to walk and very easy to misread, and three hours with somebody explaining which balcony is which saves you two days of walking past things without knowing what they were.

Lunch, 13:00. San Telmo. Walk south from Plaza de Mayo down Defensa. The Mercado de San Telmo is a covered nineteenth century market with food stalls at one end and antiques at the other, and it is the correct place to eat on this day because you are already there.

Afternoon. San Telmo on foot. Plaza Dorrego, the cobbles, the antique shops, the street tango if the weather is good. The neighbourhood looks the way it does because the wealthy families who lived here left after the 1871 yellow fever epidemic and moved north to Recoleta, which is exactly where day two heads next. If you would rather have this narrated, the San Telmo walking tour covers it in two and a half hours for US$113 for the party, which makes this a long but manageable first day.

Evening, 18:30. Tango. San Telmo’s Casco Historico is where the premium tango experience runs, from US$120, and the geography is the argument for putting it on day one: you are already in the neighbourhood. What you are watching is not a tourist invention: UNESCO inscribed tango on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009. The optional class runs 18:30 to 19:30, dinner at 20:00, the show at 21:30 with a full orchestra, folklore and malambo, finishing around 23:00.

If US$120 is more than you want to spend on your first night, the free version is Plaza Dorrego on a Sunday afternoon. Our guide to tango shows in Buenos Aires explains the difference between the dinner show, a milonga and the street version.

Day 2: La Boca and Recoleta

Morning, 10:00. La Boca, US$60 for the party, two hours. The La Boca neighbourhood walking tour starts at Caminito and covers the conventillos where immigrant families shared a courtyard and a tap, the fileteado lettering, the murals and the streets around La Bombonera.

This is the one walk where the guide is not an upgrade, it is the product. Caminito itself is fine and heavily visited. Four blocks in any direction is a working port neighbourhood that visitors should not be wandering alone, and a guided group solves that.

Lunch. Back to the centre. La Boca is not where you want to linger after the tour ends. Take a ride app back north, about 20 minutes and US$6 to US$10.

Afternoon, 14:30. Recoleta and Retiro, US$113 for the party, three hours. The Recoleta and Retiro walking tour covers Plaza Lavalle, Plaza San Martin, the Alvear and Arroyo palaces, Plaza Francia and a guided visit to Recoleta Cemetery.

One budget note: the cemetery entrance is not included and is charged separately at the gate in pesos, a rate that moves with inflation faster than any guide can print it. Going in with a guide is the difference between finding Eva Peron’s family vault and understanding why a city built streets of marble mausoleums in the first place.

Evening. Football, or dinner in Recoleta. If there is a home fixture while you are in town, this is the night for it. Both the Boca Juniors match experience and the River Plate match experience start from US$150 and run four to five hours, and neither is sold at a ticket window. Our guide to getting Boca Juniors tickets as a tourist explains the member card system.

Fixtures are only confirmed about ten days ahead, so treat this as a night that either exists or does not.

Day 3: Palermo, and the food day

Morning, 10:30. Yerba mate brunch, US$35, ninety minutes. In a Palermo Hollywood tasting room. You learn the ritual properly, who pours, who drinks first, why you never stir the straw, then drink from your own cup alongside homemade medialunas and sandwiches de miga. Ninety minutes, and it is the cheapest way to understand the single most Argentine thing there is. Book the yerba mate brunch experience, and read how to drink mate in Argentina before you go so the rules are not new.

Midday. Palermo on foot. Palermo Soho for the low houses, the murals and Plaza Armenia. Bosques de Palermo and El Rosedal if the weather is with you, which on a Sunday means half the city on the grass with a thermos under one arm.

Afternoon, 15:00. The empanada cooking class, US$98, three and a half hours. In a Palermo Hollywood atelier, hands on, two classic styles from scratch including the repulgue, the crimped edge that tells you which filling is inside. Snacks and drinks during the class, then everybody eats what they made with Malbec. There is a family format with a minimum of two adults and one child, and a non alcoholic alternative. Book the empanada cooking class.

The swap worth knowing about. If you would rather be fed than cook, the Argentine family asado at US$104 runs three hours in a family home in Palermo Soho, near Plaza Armenia. Grass fed beef, a bottle of wine per two guests, dulce de leche ice cream. Both are three hour commitments in the same neighbourhood, so it is one or the other, not both.

What 3 days in Buenos Aires costs

Three versions of the same shape.

	Lean	Comfortable	Everything
Day 1	City centre tour US$57	City centre tour US$57	Centre + San Telmo tours US$114
Day 1 evening	Street tango, free	Tango show US$120	Tango show US$120
Day 2	La Boca US$30	La Boca US$30 + Recoleta US$57	La Boca + Recoleta US$87
Day 2 evening	Dinner out	Dinner out	Football from US$150
Day 3	Mate brunch US$35	Empanada class US$98	Mate brunch + asado US$139
Experiences	US$122	US$362	US$610
Food and drink	US$90	US$120	US$150
Local transport	US$20	US$30	US$40
Cemetery entrance	Paid at the gate, in pesos	Paid at the gate, in pesos	Paid at the gate, in pesos
Three day total	US$232	US$512	US$800

Hotels are not in that table because the range is too wide to be useful. The comfortable column is what most visitors actually spend.

If you want to stay under the hundred a day line, our list of things to do in Buenos Aires under US$100 has nine bookable experiences plus eight things that cost nothing.

Where to stay for 3 days in Buenos Aires

Palermo if you want restaurants, bars and green space, and do not mind a taxi to the centre. It is where most visitors end up and it makes day three walkable.

Recoleta if you want to be closer to the middle and quieter at night. Day two becomes walkable.

San Telmo if the historic city is what you came for, and you are comfortable with a neighbourhood that is beautiful and rougher after dark.

Not the microcentro. It empties completely after office hours.

Getting around in three days

Ride apps work well and are cheap by international standards, roughly US$5 to US$12 for a cross town trip. The Subte is faster at rush hour and needs a SUBE card, which is also what buses take, sold and topped up at kiosks across the city.

Pay for tours and experiences in US dollars, where the price is locked, and keep pesos for coffee, taxis, markets and the cemetery ticket. Our guide to paying in Argentina explains the practical side.

How to adapt this itinerary

If one of your days is a Sunday. Make it day one and go to San Telmo in the morning instead of the afternoon, because the Feria takes over Defensa from Plaza de Mayo to Plaza Dorrego and it is the best day in the city. Move the centre walk to the afternoon.

If it rains. Swap the La Boca morning for the Teatro Colon, which is entirely indoors, and keep La Boca for a dry slot.

If you are travelling with children. Replace the empanada class with the mate and paint experience at US$57, which runs Monday to Friday with a 16:00 pick up and sends everybody home with a wooden cup they painted.

If you have a fourth day. Take it out of the city. A day trip to an estancia in the pampas, the Tigre Delta, or the ferry across to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay.

Before you book

The mistake that ruins three days here is treating the map as flat. People book a morning in La Boca, an afternoon in Palermo and dinner in San Telmo, and spend two hours of a three day trip in the back of a car.

One neighbourhood per day, the guided part booked, the rest walked. For the longer version, our itineraries for five days add a day trip out of the city, and the guide to Buenos Aires walking tours compares the four routes in detail.