Buenos Aires is a lively South American capital that blends European influences and Latin culture. The city’s ties to Europe are visible everywhere, from the Spanish, French, and Italian details in the architecture to the average porteño’s (a.k.a. someone from Buenos Aires) love for pasta and pizza. Buenos Aires is a wonderful place to work remotely, especially to escape the cold in the winter—its location in the southern hemisphere means that seasons are reversed from the United States and Europe. In November, you'll find the the lilac-colored jacaranda trees that line the city’s streets are in full bloom.

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Not without its own Argentine character, Buenos Aires is also the city of tango and sizzling cuts of beef on the grill, where evenings start late and end later. Restaurants stay empty until 9 p.m., and nightclubs are usually deserted until 2 a.m., so be prepared to stay out late. Throughout the city, you'll find that each neighborhood offers a distinct character and lifestyle from the cosmopolitan parks of Palermo to the bookstores and museums of Recoleta.

READ MORE: 5 Ways to Experience Tango in Buenos Aires

Palermo

Palermo is Buenos Aires’ largest and most cosmopolitan neighborhood. It stretches down from the Rio de la Plata coastline and covers the hundreds of acres of parks, flower gardens, and lakes unofficially known as the Bosques de Palermo, as well as enough bars, cafes, and restaurants to keep even the most determined urban explorer busy every day of the week.

Because of its size, Palermo is unofficially divided into several smaller areas: Palermo Soho is known for its shops and bars, especially around Plaza Serrano while neighboring Palermo Hollywood has a fantastic culinary scene and many of the city’s most popular nightclubs, like Niceto Club. Meanwhile, Palermo Chico and Palermo Botanico are quieter and more residential.

Palermo is a mecca for young and entrepreneurial travelers, with more than enough digital nomads and Argentine startups to keep the neighborhood’s many coworking options full. If you’re staying a while, La Maquinita and Deck-co offer monthly memberships at their offices in Palermo Soho and Palermo Hollywood. For shorter stays, AreaTres and Manawa sell day passes. If you’d rather work in a café, Cocu and Café Registrado are both popular spots with great food and coffee, but you’ll find dozens of other places to work all over the neighborhood.

On weekends, people often get together with friends in the parks to play sports or drink mate. This hot drink is typical in Argentina and is usually shared among a group. When you need a break from work, you can stroll through the rose gardens at the rosedal or check out one of Frida Kahlo’s most famous self-portraits at the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (MALBA). Palermo has restaurants for every mood and craving: grab a quick bite at Burger Joint, or sit down for juicy cuts of Argentine steak at Don Julio or La Cabrera. Veggie lovers can try Artemisia, an airy, plant-filled restaurant in Palermo Hollywood.

Near the edge of Palermo along the river, you’ll also find Latin America’s “first religious theme park,” Tierra Santa—where you can see an animatronic rendition of the seven days of creation or watch a 60-feet Jesus statue with an LED heart rise out of the mountain. It’s a surreal and slightly baffling experience worth doing at least once.

Colegiales

Colegiales is a small neighborhood sandwiched between Palermo, Belgrano, and Chacarita. It’s quieter than Palermo and was once very residential, but today, it’s a pretty area with tree-lined streets and old colonial houses, along with great coffee shops and craft beer bars. Buenos Aires has seen an explosion in craft beer in the last five to ten years, and one of the best examples of that is Colegiales’ Strange Brewing, which also serves food. 

Grab a coffee at Altar or La Noire, and don’t miss the Colegiales Flea Market on the border between Colegiales and Palermo. The market sells everything from vinyl records to vintage clothing but specializes in refurbished and antique furniture. For dinner, check out, Anafe, a new-ish venue that opened in 2020 and won the “American Express One To Watch Award” for LATAM in 2021. 

On a nice day, check out Plaza Mafalda, a small park where you can see murals of Mafalda, the Argentine artist Quino’s iconic comic strip character. Fans of architecture should also take a trip to Pasaje General Paz, a private pedestrian alley built by the engineer Pedro Vinent in 1925 that connects Zapato and Cuidad de la Paz streets. From the sidewalk, you can see the alley’s elegant curved balconies and beautiful plants. 

Finding spots to work in Colegiales is easy because the neighborhood is full of cafes. It’s also quite small, so walking to nearby Palermo Hollywood or Belgrano to use a coworking space there is an easy commute. If you’re in Belgrano make sure to check out the spectacular coffee at All Saints Cafe, which also has a location downtown.

Villa Crespo

Villa Crespo is a central neighborhood directly south of Palermo. It’s a great spot for shopping—Calle Aguirreis lined with outlet stores, and on Calle Murillo you’ll find all kinds of leather goods including jackets, purses, and shoes.  It's less touristy and overall more laid-back than its neighbor, while still being charming and relatively safe. Villa Crespo is historically a Jewish neighborhood—Jews from mainly Ukraine, Russia, and Poland emigrated here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—and it houses one of the city’s rare traditional Jewish delis: La Crespo.

If you want to grab a bite and coffee while you work, try Malvon or Bilbo Cafe. For lunch or dinner, Sarkis is a neighborhood classic and a family-owned Armenian restaurant that first opened in 1982. Relative newcomer Chuí is a great vegetarian spot with a beautiful outdoor space. If you don’t eat meat, check out Sampa, which describes itself as “99% vegetarian”.  On the weekends, make sure to hit Club Cultural Matienzo which is part music venue, part cultural space, and part nightclub. There are also several art galleries in the area, including Ruth Benzacar and Selvanegra.

Recoleta

Recoleta is an upscale neighborhood known for its Parisian-style architecture and great cultural spaces, including the Recoleta Cultural Center, which hosts exhibits, lectures, and occasional workshops. Recoleta is a good choice if you want to stay in a neighborhood that’s central, quiet, and safe with lots of things to see and do like Recoleta Cemetery where you’ll find the Argentine icon Evita Perón and the Floralis Generica, an 18-ton metal flower sculpture that opens and closes each day in Plaza Naciones Unidas.

Recoleta is also home to the Ateneo Grand Splendid bookstore, which was built in a former opera house and is frequently listed as one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world. The former stage is now a small cafe, and several of the balconies have been converted into reading nooks. Museums worth visiting include the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, and the Palais de Glace. For fans of the artist Xul Solar’s esoteric abstract paintings and imaginary languages, the Xul Solar Museum is housed in the Argentine artist’s former home. 

 There are plenty of coworking options in the area, including Ronda Coworking and OficinaYa. If you like to start your workday with fresh bread, Le Blé is a bakery chain with locations around the city that’s great for remote workers. There are two locations in Recoleta, including one right next to the historic cemetery. Tonico Café is another good option, though the seating is limited. When the weather is nice, the terrace at Como en Casa is also a nice spot to grab a bite and get some work done and you can head to Camping Bar afterward, for drinks and live music. 

San Telmo

San Telmo is the oldest neighborhood in Buenos Aires, and for a while, in the 1850s it was on its way to becoming one of the wealthiest, too—until an outbreak of yellow fever chased all of the rich residents to higher grounds in Recoleta. But once the neighborhood emptied out, artists, immigrants, and tango dancers poured in, and it quickly became the bohemian epicenter of the city. Although it’s become pretty gentrified in recent years, San Telmo has maintained the same creative atmosphere.

One of the neighborhood’s main attractions is the Sunday Feria, a craft market that runs all the way down Defensa street to Plaza Dorrego, where you can browse antique stalls. San Telmo also has several “bares notables,” bars, and cafés that have a special cultural or historical significance for the city. La Poesia was a favorite haunt for poets and writers in the 1960s (and is still a great spot to work from today), and Bar El Federal has old-school porteño vibes, with historic decor and an extensive menu.

Meanwhile, the Mercado de San Telmo is an exciting mix of old and new, with coffee shops, restaurants, vegetable sellers, and vintage bookstores. Further south, Parque Lezama is a great place to take a stroll when the weather is nice. Urban Station is a flexible coworking space with an office in a beautiful building near Plaza Dorrego and there are also several other coworking options around the city, such as Habito Café. Although it’s slightly outside the official San Telmo neighborhood, it’s still a close-enough choice if you’re staying nearby.

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