Argentina

by Sandra Bao, Lucas Vidgen, Andy Symington

Nobody knows Argentina like Lonely Planet. Whether you want to tango though the night in Buenos Aires, climb glaciers in Patagonia, gallop with gauchos across the Pampas, sample Malbec in Mendoza or savor the world’s best steak, our unbeatable 7th edition will show you how – and make your journey unforgettable.

Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.

In This Guide:

Inspiring color highlights section introduces the best of Argentina
Stylish city coverage with the best eating, shopping and nightlife
Full-color outdoors chapter with hiking, cycling, skiing and more

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Reference, Collections

668 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1992

Reviews

[Rama Rao]

Last Tango in Argentina

Certain things are uniquely Argentinean; the seductive tango, soccer mania, or the dulce de leche (milk caramel) that is widely used in cooked food. Argentina offers a wide variety of attractions for tourists to enjoy; the best Argentinean wines, unique food, and nightlife in Buenos Aires, hiking, mountaineering and skiing. Walking in front of Mount Fitz Roy in Patagonia's Parque Nacional Los Glaciares is breath-taking: Snow-covered Mountains with blue sky in the background forms a spectacular landscape.

This book provides all the information necessary including web addresses where necessary, and the highlights include; events calendar by month, Buenos Aires Carnival with colorful performance all over the city (end of Feb & early March), country's history, culture, food, and great outdoor activities. Information is also provided for each region of the country. Everything a visitor needs to travel around the city and the countryside.

Buenos Aires is an exciting place with art museums, fascinating neighborhoods, fabulous food, night clubs, and local parilla. Other cities include; Cordoba, Mendoza, and Salta. Places of interests in Northeastern part of the country include, Iguazu falls; the Andean Northwest, Mendoza, and the central Andes, Southern Patagonia, southern most tip of Tierra del Fuego (a step closer to Antarctica), and Uruguay in the Northeast. On pages 277-284, under the title, Miquerida Argentina describes the thoughts of a gaucho (cowboy), a tango teacher, a wine maker, a weaver, and a musician which touches upon the people and culture of the country.

The authors could have provided more pictures of tango dance, nightlife in Buenos Aires, and the countryside.

[Joy]

in Argentina, almost every tourist is carrying this book. This means that you run into LP tourists in almost every place you go suggested by the book!
That said, the book was helpful for planning my 3 week vacation. All the descriptions made everything sound so great - it was sometimes difficult to choose one place over another. THis is the 2005 edition, most prices have doubled since then (now - 2007).

[Tamara]

Our edition was from 2005, but the prices ran about 2 or 3 times what the guide listed for the most part. It was outright wrong about Argentina not observing daylight savings time. Temporal anomalies anyone?

It's intended to be a guide, not a rule book anyway.

The answer to everything seemed to be mostly, "Maybe in Buenos Aries." The people are friendly. We saw some amazing sights. The maps helped out for sure.

[Mark]

The organization of the content made things a snap to find. However, it doesn't have as much information as the Rough Guide, which I would recommend. Both on a trip is perfect because they compliment each other well, but if you take one I'd suggest the RG simply due to its massive wealth of information. Note that prices in the book are already outdated (much lower than what you'll find) due to Argentina's economic recovery.

[J]

Next stop, Argentine.
Don't cry for me, Argentina. LP always handy for a leg up. Not the only resource though but good enough for the starting leg. I usually mix and match WWW resources, Rough Guide and LP depending on the country and my mood. This is another solid LP offering - recommended for your trip and can't wait to put it into action.

[Mads Kamp]

I've used this guide for two months I Argentina now, and it hasn't let me down. I have the 9th edition from 2014. It is written in a quite lavish language, but not as commercial as most other travel guides. Be aware that the inflation in Argentina's economy has rendered the prices listed in the book obsolete (generally you should multiply every price by a least 2).

[jan]

oh boy, oh boy! let me at 'em!

[Marcus]

I took a look at this one and I think we will use it in March!

[Rita]

Great resource before and during my amazing Argentinian adventure. Hotel and restaurant recs were dead-on.

[Sean]

Armchair traveling to Argentina is pretty fun with this book in hand. Now I need to go real traveling to Argentina...

[Lucy]

CANNOT WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Theut]

Utilissima, come tutte le lonely planet, per preparare un viaggio :)

Seconda lettura... per il mio secondo viaggio in Argentina!

[David]

It's a guide book. I want to go to Argentine. I'm not sure when I'll get there and the true test of a guide is using it on the spot. If COVID chills out a bit I might be able to go to Buenos Ares sometime in 2021. I would live to taka motorcycle trip to Tierra del Fuego, but don't have a month to do it. Argentina is bigger than I thought and I appreciated the bus transit times. I thought i could just pop over to Iguazu falls, but I'll probably need to fly.

[Catherine Woodman]

I had an e-copy of this on my recent trip to Argentina and found it to be just okay for helping plan our day to day activities. We were in the Northwest for half the trip and it is very sparse on information—although there are routes offered in the beginning that are helpful for the country as a whole, the details are lacking. This could be a part of planning a trip but it is not enough as a stand alone source, at least for us and what we wanted to do.

[Ag]

Not current

A lot of the information in this has not been updated to be current with 2018. Most of the restaurant recs were misses a few are now closed. This js mostly for the Patagonia region and also Buenos Aires. The opinions in this book are also not consistent with other information available in other guide books and online

[Joshua H]

Good overview of a massive country. skips over certain bits surprisingly and potentially focuses a bit too much onto high life. There are beautiful little towns that LP suggests to skip. which we found the best places to visit.

[maygod]

Really bad edition. There are mistakes everywhere, they couldn’t even put the maps in the correct order. Terrible experience.

[Laurie Byro]

LP always delivers, a good general guide and even if the hotel prices change, it gives good tips on sightseeing etc. These guides are much loved by this former travel agent.

[Giselle Smith]

I didn’t read the entire book, just the parts that we will be visiting on our cruise.

[Melissa]

[2010.10.16] Used 2008 6th Edition to plan the Argentina portion of our Fall 2010 South America trip (approx 10 days in Argentina). Bought and printed out parts of the e-book pdf version of the 2010 7th Edition to bring with us. Sections used: Buenos Aires, Iguazu, Uruguay. For these sections, this book is one of the better ones out of all the LP books we've used. Can't say much about the accommodations because the places we stayed at were not from the book. Information about getting around, neighborhoods, sightseeing, maps, etc. were mostly accurate. Opening and museum tour hours should always be checked either during planning or on arrival at tourist information booths. Despite traveling a month after the 2010 book was published, prices in the book were still not to be trusted.

[Aisha Samsara]

If you're thinking that this guide will let you know all the details and a lot of tips, and information concerning transportation to and from one place to another (like you can find in older editions of lonely planet guides) you are going to be disappointed, this guide is about good photos, some advices off course... but a lot of empty spaces with no writing on it, which for me (I have like 8/9 "older" guides of LP) is bizarre. At the end of the chapters of which city/region there is NO list of hotels, NO list of restaurants and NO travel details. So for me this is rubbish with nice coloring. Just warning. I'm truly unhappy with these changes, now I have to find other ways of getting the information I need to.
This is the edition published on May.2024

[Facundo Martin]

Welp, this guide probably deserves four stars (there are some minor mistakes in the language section). Other than that, it's extremely useful and covers many things that even I, as a local, had no idea about. (I was also curious about what some of the experiences in the country where I was born and raised would read like in English :P, and Lonely Planet has the best style as far as travel guides go, imo).

I actually gave the five stars to the experience of travelling around Argentina; at the end of the day, after the metaphorical journey of reading, travelling is my favourite thing to do.

[Milan/zzz]

I have found this guide surprisingly helpful. I say "surprisingly" because I usually combine two guides when traveling. But this time LP was more than sufficient and not only that, it was way better than everything else I had (and I had a lot of material). The only thing are prices but they stated at the beginning this might be a problem because of never-stopping inflation in Argentina (some prices are doubled and I was traveling only 5 months after this edition is published).
Really good guide!

[Meghan Sullivan]

Not as good as Rick Steve’s structure for guide books (I missed his maps), but was helpful for planning a ~9 day trip to Argentina. I wish they went a little deeper into regions, it felt a bit too broad at times

[Carly]

Whooo hoooo!

[Alex Davidov]

Very helpful, but so outdated. Some of the hostels listed there don't even exist anymore (7th edition).

[Tamara]

Great guide - relied on it heavily when travelling through the country.

[Ariadna73]

I liked the maps of the cities; and the recommendations of not going where there is nothing to look for. I felt as though I were there already. Even the food I could taste! Great book!

[Sharlene]

not really sure one can finish a guide book, but i'm done with it until my next trip. :)

[Randolph Breschini]

A very helpful travel book, especially the "Understand Argentina" section..