Visiting Ba Next Week, From Austin, Texas

[camel]

Hi everyone,

I introduced myself here recently, and now I'll be visiting Buenos Aires between roughly September 10 and 23. I'll be travelling light, with my usual 28L backpack. I'm bringing clothes, laptop, USD and bitcoins. I plan to stay somewhere around Palermo or Recoleta, using AirBNB or something similar. I realize it's much cooler than here in Austin (100 degrees F / 38 C), so I'll be bringing cool weather clothes. Is there any general advice, or anything else small & light that I should really bring? The main purpose of my trip is to check it out in person, because I plan to move there as early as this year.

For mobile coverage, I have AT&T, and I'm planning on adding their world data plan for the trip. I know it's not the cheapest option, but it's easy and it worked well in Europe. I assume the 3G works okay in BA? (for the places that don't have Wifi)

If there's a meetup or anything, I'd love to come by and meet some of y'all in person.

 

[internationalguy]

Mobile coverage will work more or less OK. It works decently when it actually works. You randomly lose 3G signal and sometimes it dies for no apparent reason.

Expect lows in the 50s and highs in the high 70s. Don't be unprepared for sudden changes though. Last week we went from 40s to 70s almost overnight. You don't need anything in particular for only 13 days. You'll be fine. All I can think of is a power plug adapter but the hotel might have you covered. Even if it doesn't you can find them for around 50 pesos on Florida St.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Hi everyone,

I introduced myself here recently, and now I'll be visiting Buenos Aires between roughly September 10 and 23. I'll be travelling light, with my usual 28L backpack. I'm bringing clothes, laptop, USD and bitcoins. I plan to stay somewhere around Palermo or Recoleta, using AirBNB or something similar. I realize it's much cooler than here in Austin (100 degrees F / 38 C), so I'll be bringing cool weather clothes. Is there any general advice, or anything else small & light that I should really bring? The main purpose of my trip is to check it out in person, because I plan to move there as early as this year.

For mobile coverage, I have AT&T, and I'm planning on adding their world data plan for the trip. I know it's not the cheapest option, but it's easy and it worked well in Europe. I assume the 3G works okay in BA? (for the places that don't have Wifi)

If there's a meetup or anything, I'd love to come by and meet some of y'all in person.

Your "bitcoins" will be worthless. Bring US dollars.

 

[jade2108]

Take care and be careful where you´re going, they dont hesitate to rob the foreigners. And yes, bring US dollars but take care where you change them. they give you counterfeit money even at the banks nowadays. Good luck and have fun!

 

[shoush]

Take care and be careful where you´re going, they dont hesitate to rob the foreigners. And yes, bring US dollars but take care where you change them. they give you counterfeit money even at the banks nowadays. Good luck and have fun!

really? you've got counterfeit money at a bank? I'm interested to hear what happened!

 

[germano]

For mobile coverage, I have AT&T, and I'm planning on adding their world data plan for the trip. I know it's not the cheapest option, but it's easy and it worked well in Europe. I assume the 3G works okay in BA? (for the places that don't have Wifi)

For mobile coverage I would just get a SIM/3G Modem from here. They have prepaid cars that are easy to get. I have used Personal and Claro and both worked OK (not great). I currently use Personal for my 3G modem and Claro for my Android.
The 3G modem packages have up to 1GB per day: With Personal you need to activate a "bolsa" for Internet usage (2 days, 2 GB traffic $19 pesos) via web or by sending an SMS. After the 2 days or when you used almost all the 2GB you need to activate a new "bolsa"). With Claro it works automatically (as soon as you access the Internet) and they charge you $9 per day. But they only give you 256 MB after that they limit downstream to 128 kbit for the rest of the day.

For mobile phone the packages are $1-1.95 peso per day but give you only around 10-20MB and then limit speed to 64kb downstream. Works for mail, whatsapp, mobile websites ...