Thoughts On Year In El Bolson, Bariloche, Or San Martin?

[Chad]

Hi everyone! I'm new to the forum. Thanks for the great resource.

My wife and our 2 girls (5, 3) are planning to live in Argentina for a year or more beginning January of 2017. We love visiting big cities (love BA and have friends there), but laid back, outdoorsy, active smaller towns and cities are more our style for settling in. So we are considering San Martin de los Andes, Bariloche, and El Bolson. El Bolson is probably our preference for now.

We have lots of other questions, of course, but we were wondering if you could help us think about our choices.

Some background:
- our girls enrolling in school, becoming fluent in Spanish, and making friends is top consideration. Public or private may be OK, as long as we feel comfortable.
- my wife teaches Spanish in the States and is fluent. I get by and need practice, so i would love classes or intercambios.
- I will work remotely some, mainly through email and occasional Skype. My wife is interested in volunteering at colegio, perhaps, or teaching English.
- we are not hard core, but we like to eat healthy, plenty of fresh greens and fruit, and love craft beer (attracted us to El Bolson)
- we hoped to go without a car, but not sure that is possible in those locations.

Thanks for any thoughts, tips, or advice you can give. School options and neighborhoods/cities particularly are something we are hoping to learn more about.

Gracias!

 

[mmoon]

Hi Chad,
I've recently been back to all three places, and one question I would ask you is whether you want to be in a more central place with some qualities of a city, or something that feels more remote. Although I'm not a huge fan of Bariloche (the way they developed the downtown is so surprisingly ugly), you will find that it has enough things going on that you won't feel bored. Good skiing, live music, nice restaurants, etc. There is a good airport there with connections all over Argentina. El Bolson has a lot of expats, and the vibe is more crafty, DIY hippie, which is cool in its own way. However, it is quite a haul to get there, and the roads do get closed at times during the winter. San Martin is lovely, but again, quite isolated. If you are accustomed to living in an out of the way environment, maybe it won't bother you. For me, I would go stir crazy after several days and feel hemmed in.
We have Argentine friends in Bariloche who send their kids to an English school...not sure if that's what you're looking for?
In response to your other questions...
Your girls will definitely become fluent, although it will be harder for you of course. Find a tutor and hang out with friends who don't speak English.
I was interested in volunteering at our child's school in BA, and was surprised that they aren't really interested in parent involvement. Would be curious if it's different out of CABA.
In Bariloche and environs, no problem with healthy food and arguably the best craft beer in the country.
IMO, anywhere outside of BA, you will want a car.
Suerte!

 

[camel]

You should contact the user "Patagone"... he's an expat/immigrant, lives in San Martin, has kids there, he can probably give you a good idea of what daily life is like there.

 

[Chad]

Great response, mmoon. Thank you!

I think we would prefer an all Spanish school for put girls, but bilingual may be OK. The isolation vs connected issue may be a deciding factor. But I think we may have to get there and see how it feels. Bariloche sounds like it has a lot to offer.

The thought of getting our own car there seems a little intimidating. But we will be selling one car here before leaving, so maybe we can use that money to get one there.

Thanks again.

 

[Tilda]

Buying a car here is more expensive. Although I don't know how much...

The far end of Bariloche is greener and less windy. The Llao Llao side.

If you aren't going to have a car I would choose San Martin de los Andes and find a house in the centre. The centre is a tidy grid, with lots of restaurants and entertainment, playgrounds and a proper beach...
There is an airport a bit from San Martin with flights to Buenos Aires. CPC.

I can also recommend Villa la Angostura, although it is easy to be isolate here... But the location is wonderful. And if I can lure enough expats here there will also have a vibrant expat community, something it is clearly missing at the moment.

 

[Patagone]

Hi Chad,

as Camel said, we have been living in San Martin de los Andes now for 5 years and have 2 kids (2 & 4, both born here). We have visited Bariloche numerous times and El Bolson as well. No way would I move to Bariloche, it is a noisy, dirty and dangerous place, with beautiful surroundings. But normally you don't spend all day in the surroundings...

El Bolson has disappointed me every time we went there. I love the several places where they grow fruits and there are some nice hikes, but the town (again, where you will spend the most of your time) is worn down, mostly unpaved, crappy houses and an overload of fake hippies, i.e. backpackers without any means to keep on moving. The central fair with nice but expensive smoothies and handicraps looses its charm quickly (same in San Martin though).

San Martin is the quietest place, but as it is very touristy (2 high seasons: Jan-Feb for summer and July-August for Skiing season, with very few tourists in between), there are still loads of things to do. We don't have the dozens of discoteques filled with noisy stoned and drunk kids from Buenos Aires (most BSAs kids go to BRC to 'celebrate' finishing high school), but we do have our Cinema (including yearly Banff festival), theater, live music, and plenty of bars and restaurants. It is very small, about 15 blocks wide and tall, but that is perfect for us.

No traffic lights and cars actually stop for zebra crossings! Bariloche is a driver's nightmare (with very aggressive driving, probably imported from BsAs. El Bolson is quiet in the quiet streets, but bisected by a very busy highway.
Best part of Bolson is that is closer to the rest of South Patagonia (Los Alerces, Carretera Austral and further south to El Chalten etc), but we can get to El Bolson in 5 hours anyway.

Walk 15 or bike 2 minutes in any direction from SMA center and you are in a forest (or a lake). Even in high season, when SMA has 90-100% occupancy rates, I can still easily get to trails where nobody comes.

We walk everywhere. We arrived by bike (from Alaska), and only got a car when we had kids. We normally use the car 1-2 times per week, maybe a bit more in summer to visit some other beaches (the main beach in town is very nice though) and in winter to get to Chapelco Ski base (you can take a bus as well).

So, in short, for us, Bariloche and El Bolson are nice places to visit every now and then, but a car is mandatory in both. Bariloche is a dirty mess, I always leave with a headache and the nicest part (Cicuito Chico) is one big traffic jam in high and most of normal season. Don't forget winter: normally SMA is about 5-8 degrees celsius warmer than BRC and El Bolson and usually snowfree in town (last year though, we had great snow in Chapelco, while BRC was closed for weeks due to lack of snow)

By the way, everybody on this side of Argentina does all their shopping in Chile, which is easiest reached from SMA as we have 4 crossings within a 2 hours drive. Ity is much harder to get to Chile from El Bolson, from BRC you only have one (good) option.

Oh and there are several craft beers in SMA as well

Let me know if you want to know specifics. What I would do if I you have any doubts is to rent a place in each town for a month (AirbnB, private rentals are very difficult and expensive for a month) and get to know them a bit. You need at least 1-2 weeks in each place to get a bit of a feel for them.

Cheers and be welcome!

 

[RichardP]

I think Patagone summed it up nicely. These are also the big three on my list of places I would potentially live in Argentina. As mentioned, El Bolson is nice on the outside, but has too many parasitic types just hanging around looking for the next party. Bariloche has beautiful surroundings, but is just an average Argentine city with villas and other social ills that detract from its beauty.
San Martin gets my vote but too but as Patagone said, it's a small place and like the old telenovela, "pueblo chico, infierno grande."

 

[Patagone]

Haha, I like the "Small town, big hell ".. Though for me, I liek a bit of social control. Recently the Kirchnerista member of local concejo was caught painting grafiti (Patria o buitres!) on a building. Such things do not go unnoticed or forgotten easily, but I am rather anonymous after 5 years, even with my Euro-gringo face.

Note that SMA is larger than you might think, the Chapelco airport is 20km away, and there is 20-25000 people living in the outskirts (the Vega's and nearby barrios in the mountains, some private, but mostly open), where a car would be necessary, especially to visit the center where most shops, restaurants and activities are. But the center is limited geograhpically, so nicely compact, though with the price tag of a limited space.

Fortunately in SMA they enforced rules regarding zoning, zo most blocks need 50% green and height limit is 9.5m for all new buildings, so no horrendous communist style flats as in Bariloche..

 

[camel]

One thing I noticed about San Martin when I visited (from Buenos Aires), was the shops didn't need all these security bars in the windows and the ugly garage-door-style things that cover up the shop at night, that you see in BA. That says something about the place.

 

[AmandaHess]

Hi Everyone,
This is such a helpful thread! Thank you for all of the information. My husband and I just arrived in SMA last Thursday and have been scrambling to find a place for the summer. Can anyone provide tips on the best ways to find rental properties?

We are looking for a small place in or near the city centre. It seems most places charge per day in the high season but we're hoping to find someone open to cash upfront for the next three months.

Is this common in SMA? It seems uncommon based on our research so far but we think we might just be looking in the wrong places. So far we have talked to real estate agents, searched on alquilamicasa.com.ar and on the Facebook page, Alquileres Permanentes y Temporarios SMA, but nothing has panned out yet.

Any advice you can give would be much appreciated!