Lati Travel
Prices in US$ WhatsApp an expert WhatsApp
A street lamp on Caminito, with the painted houses behind it

La Boca · Buenos Aires

Caminito

In short

Caminito is a 100-metre pedestrian street of painted corrugated-iron houses in La Boca, Buenos Aires. It takes twenty minutes and it is worth them — but it is a museum street, and the blocks around it are not somewhere to wander alone.

The colours are the accident of a port neighbourhood: dockworkers painted their houses with whatever marine paint was left over in the shipyards, one wall at a time, which is why no two panels match. The painter Benito Quinquela Martín turned the abandoned rail cutting into an open-air street in the 1950s and named it after a tango.

It is small, it is commercial and it will take twenty minutes. Go anyway — nothing else in the city looks like it, and the Quinquela Martín museum two blocks away is genuinely good and almost empty.

La Bombonera is a five-minute walk. Most people do both in the same morning, which is exactly how the neighbourhood should be visited: with a plan and a guide, in daylight.

What Caminito is known for

  • The painted corrugated-iron facades, no two panels alike
  • The Quinquela Martín museum, two blocks away and nearly empty
  • La Bombonera, five minutes on foot
  • Street tango on the corner tables
  • Twenty minutes, and then move on

Practical detail

How long
20 minutes, an hour with the museum
Where
La Boca, southeast Buenos Aires
Best time
Morning, in daylight
Combines with
La Bombonera and San Telmo

What a trip to Caminito costs

Per person, including hotels, transfers and the guided days each trip lists. International flights are never included.

Frequently asked

Is Caminito worth visiting?

For twenty minutes, yes — nothing else in Buenos Aires looks like it. Treat it as one stop on a La Boca morning rather than a destination in itself, and add the Quinquela Martín museum, which almost nobody does.

Is La Boca safe for tourists?

The Caminito strip and the route to La Bombonera are fine in daylight and busy. The surrounding blocks are not a place to wander, which is why the neighbourhood is normally visited with a guide or on a transfer.

How do you get to Caminito?

It is 15 to 20 minutes by taxi from the centre. There is no useful subway line, and arriving by bus means walking through the blocks you would rather not.