argentina

Travel Tips

Visitor Information

All major cities and most smaller tourist destinations have tourist offices that can provide maps as well as information on accommodation and sightseeing. The quality of these offices varies according to local funding, but employees are usually friendly and helpful. The city of Buenos Aires has tourist information booths around the city. Its extensive website includes downloadable maps, free MP3 walking tours, and insightful articles on porteño culture, though at this writing, all information was available in Spanish only.

Each Argentine province also operates a tourist office in Buenos Aires, usually called the "Casa de [Province Name] en Buenos Aires." The government umbrella organization for all regional and city-based tourist offices is the Secretaría de Turismo (Secretariat of Tourism). Their no-frills website has links and addresses to these offices, and other practical information.

Limited tourist information is also available at Argentina's embassy and consulates in the United States.

Contacts

Argentine Secretariat of Tourism. 800/555–0016www.turismo.gov.ar.

Embassy of Argentina. www.embassyofargentina.us.

Turismo Buenos Aires. 0800/999–2838www.turismo.buenosaires.gob.ar.

Online Resources

The like-minded travelers on the Travel Talk Forums at Fodors.com are eager to answer questions and swap travel tales. The regional information and downloadable maps on the government-run Argentina Travel website are a great pre-trip planning resource. Welcome Argentina has good overviews of Argentina's different regions.

The website of the Buenos Aires Herald, the city's English-language daily, gives a conservative take on major local news stories. The website of English-language monthly newspaper The Argentina Independent has traveler-oriented news and cultural information. Run by American expats, What's Up Buenos Aires is a slick bilingual guide to contemporary culture and partying in the city.

The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes contains the world's biggest digital collection of Argentine art and has lots of background on Argentine artists. Todo Tango is a comprehensive bilingual tango site with lyrics, history, and free downloads.

Wines of Argentina is overflowing with information about Argentina's best beverage. For insight into local cooking, restaurants, and ingredients, head to Saltshaker, the blog of American food writer Dan Perlman. Another food-obsessed American, Allie Lazar, is the sassy voice behind the unflinchingly detailed—and usually hilarious—restaurant and bar reviews at Pick Up the Fork.

All About Argentina

Argentina Travel. www.argentina.travel.

Argentine Secretariat of Tourism. www.turismo.gob.ar.

Embassy of Argentina. www.embassyofargentina.us.

Fodors.com. www.fodors.com/community.

Welcome Argentina. www.welcomeargentina.com.

Culture and Entertainment

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. www.mnba.gob.ar.

Todo Tango. www.todotango.com.ar.

What's Up Buenos Aires. www.whatsupbuenosaires.com.

Food and Drink

Pick Up the Fork. www.pickupthefork.com.

Saltshaker. www.saltshaker.net.

Wines of Argentina. www.winesofargentina.org.

Media

The Argentina Independent. www.argentinaindependent.com.

Buenos Aires Herald. www.buenosairesherald.com.

Great Reads Sample the work of Argentina's greatest writers with Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings and Julio Cortázar's Blow-Up and Other Stories. Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia is the classic piece of travel writing on Argentina. Delve deeper into the lives of two (in)famous Argentineans with Tomás Eloy Martínez's Santa Evita, a fictional look at Eva Perón's life and death, and Jon Lee Anderson's excellent biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life.

On-screen Juan José Campanella's Oscar-winning thriller The Secret in Their Eyes is set in the politically troubled Buenos Aires of the early 1970s. A remorse-struck gaucho is the stormy star of Fernando Spiner’s Aballay, an arty Argentine Western filmed in Tucumán Province. A hapless traveling salesman is the unlikely hero of Carlos Sorín's Patagonian road movie Intimate Stories. Lucrecia Martel's The Holy Girl is an oppressive but brilliantly made film about a Catholic schoolgirl in Salta. Bariloche is the backdrop to Fabián Bielinsky's eerie psychological drama The Aura.

Ready for the trip of a lifetime to Argentina?