When researching for our trip I spent a lot of time trying to budget for different locations around the world. Cost of living varies dramatically between each country that we are visiting, however, we still try to set an average daily budget of $75.00 USD. We know if we stay around this amount that we can visit all of the locations we hope to. In this post I am going to break down all of our expenses and answer the question, how much does it cost to travel in Argentina?
*Disclaimer: We are attempting to travel more on the budget side of things so obviously costs can vary dramatically. You can easily spend significantly more or less than what we did depending on your preferences.
We spent 9 nights and 9 days in Argentina. We spent 4 nights in Buenos Aires, 2 nights in El Calafate and 3 nights in El Chaltén.
After visiting Argentina (me for the first time and Nicki for the second) we both highly recommend it! Buenos Aires felt very modern and had so many great food options. El Calafate and El Chaltén, both located in Patagonia, are incredibly beautiful! Everywhere we visited was also very affordable and easy to navigate.
Our total daily costs of traveling in Argentina for 9 days and 9 nights was $657.61. The only thing that this does not include is our flights to and from Patagonia ($321 per person) because we budget for flights separately and the price varies dramatically depending on the time of year that you go as well as location. Our average daily cost was $73.07.
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina and is one of the only cities that has flights to El Calafate so if you are planning to go to the Argentina side of Patagonia you will likely be in Buenos Aires. We really enjoyed our time and honestly wished we had a few extra days! The food was amazing and very cheap and the city was clean and comfortable. While in Buenos Aires for 4 days and 4 nights we spent $258.30, or about $64.58 per day!
Accommodations – $114.55 USD / $28.64 per night
We rented an entire apartment on Airbnb that was fantastic for our stay in Buenos Aires. It was large, had a full kitchen and washing machine, smart TV, and was in a great location all for just over $28 USD per night.
Transportation – $27.66 USD
Our transportation costs only included our shuttle from the Airport to our hostel. The Tienda León shuttle is a very easy way of getting from the main airport to anywhere in the city. You start by taking a large coach bus and then switch into a smaller car to be dropped off wherever you need. It is a little pricey (about $23 USD for the two of us) but is very convenient. In the future we would recommend just using Uber. When we went back to the airport to fly to Patagonia our Uber ride only cost about $4 USD! We didn’t know if Uber was available in Argentina initially but our Airbnb host suggested it so turns out it is widely available and very cheap!
Meals – $70.39 USD
We cooked the majority of our meals while in Argentina so our grocery expenses were a bit higher but we did splurge on one fancy meal. Argentina is known for its outstanding beef so we went to a steakhouse and enjoyed a meal that came out to around $50 USD. Something comparable in the US would have easily been $100-$200+ for what we ordered. Otherwise all of the food was very cheap in Buenos Aires. We would usually have Empanadas for lunch and would often find them for about $0.40 cents each.
Groceries – $45.70 USD
Since our Airbnb had a full kitchen we opted to cook some of our own meals. We tend to do this so we can make things that we used to eat at home, plus it gives us the ability to save a little money by not eating out as much.
Excursions – $0
We explored different neighborhoods of Buenos Aires and a few other things that all happened to be free!
Check out our Travel Guide to Buenos Aires for everything we did!
El Calafate and El Chaltén
El Calafate is a popular town in the Argentinian side of Patagonia. It is where you will likely fly in to from Buenos Aires and is definitely worth spending a few days in. We spent 2 days and 2 nights there including a visit to the Perito Moreno Glacier.
El Chaltén is a town about 3 hours (by bus) away from El Calafate and it is where the famous Fitz Roy mountain is. El Chaltén is one of the best places to stay for hiking and outdoor activities as many well known trails begin there. We spent 5 days in El Calafate and El Chaltén and spent $399.31 USD for an average of $79.86 USD per day.
Accommodations – $138.68 USD / $27.74 per night
We spent 2 nights in El Calafate at a hostel called Folk Hostel and we would HIGHLY recommend it! It even had heated floors which was amazing in the winter! In El Chaltén we stayed in a rented apartment where our hosts even brought us breakfast each evening including homemade muffins. We got all of this for only about $27 USD per night.
Transportation – $131.82 USD
Transportation was a major cost in Patagonia. With the mountains all around getting anywhere can be difficult. Luckily traveling by bus is very easy and convenient. Our transportation costs included bus transport from the airport to our accommodations ($22 for the two of us, round trip), bus to and from the Perito Moreno Glacier ($36 for the two of us, round trip) and bus to and from El Chaltén ($72 for the two of us, round trip).
Meals – $39.43 USD
We did a blend of cooking and eating out while in Patagonia. Since we went in the winter almost all the restaurants in El Chaltén were closed for the season aside from 4-5 so we had more limited options.
Groceries – $53.02 USD
Grocery stores in Patagonia are not quite like what you would expect in other cities. Especially in the winter. The shelves were often on the bare side, and different grocery stores usually had different items. One had 80% drinks and limited food options, the other had all food and only a few expensive bottles of water. Overall we were able to find everything we needed, sometimes it just took going to more than one store.
Excursions – $36.36 USD
When you go to El Calafate one of the most popular things to do is visit the Perito Moreno Glacier. It is incredible to walk around looking at it from different views and watching huge chunks of ice break off and fall into the water every few minutes. However, we felt it was very expensive to visit. The entrance fee cost was about 800 pesos each, or about $18 USD each, but we also had to pay the same amount for the bus to get there. Overall visiting the Perito Moreno Glacier cost us about $72 USD. We think it was definitely worth it but it all depends on your budget! Excursions in El Chaltén were free for us because we went on self guided hikes on all the free trails around the area.
Read More: 5 Day Winter Patagonia Itinerary
Overall
Overall we found both the accommodation and food to be very inexpensive in Argentina! We were able to find nice places to stay without spending too much. Food was also reasonable and in all three places we tried to switch back and forth between cooking and finding inexpensive, local food.
Excursions and transportation were both much higher in Argentina. Visiting the Perito Moreno Glacier was so expensive we had a little bit of sticker shock when we heard the price. But we couldn’t go to Patagonia and not visit this remarkable glacier! Because we went to three different places in Argentina, we also spent more on transportation getting between all of them. Regardless, we would highly recommend Buenos Aires as well as Patagonia, even though so different, we loved our time in Argentina!
