Buenos Aires or Santiago de Chile?

Right - long story short - I want to live somewhere in South America. Learn Spanish, drink lots of red wines, see some obscure bands sing in some obscure bars etc etc...

So - after some lengthy analysis - I have shortlisted these two cities. I just want to fly in, rent a nice flat, and stay there for 3 months (obviously, drive around, etc etc).

Now - I know there's people from both cities here. Was just wondering - which one would you recommend?

Well, this is the fourth year I've been living in Buenos Aires and I don't know if I'd recommend you to come here to live for a long time, but for three months you'd have a blast: women are hot and there're a lot of bars, also, the night of Buenos Aires is amazing and you have a lot of places to see.

If you want to live for a long time, I wouldn't recommend it: it's overpopulated, we have power outages (people spent weeks without any energy), the subway sometimes doesn't work because of several strikes, the traffic is a chaos and with the economical crysis that we're having right now I wouldn't come to Argentina to start a new life.

Santiago de Chile is more expensive I think, but it's a nice city too.

That is a helpful view. I like the the part starting in your second line. Exactly what I am hoping to do, other than learning Spanish and playing the guitar...so no, not planning to actually do a real job or settle down or anything.

There are a few things that I want a better understanding of...such as:
- Quality of life...renting out a nice flat in the centre of town. How much would that be and is it difficult to get as a foreigner.
- What about flying out to the rest of South America. Easy, difficult, cheap, expensive - do the two cities differ from that perspective? Same for renting a car, taking a train, distances, etc.
- I know food and wines are amazing in Argentina (and in Chile) so that's great either way
- Arts and concerts scene? Which one is better?
- And SPORTS of course...I know I can easily go skiing from Santiago...or to the beach. What is the situation in Buenos Aires?
- Spanish - from what I hear, no one understands the Chileans :P
- And assuming I do want to do something like a bar-tender job (well, pretty much the only thing I'd do cause it's such a good way to meet people). Could I just do it or does it need all kind of complicated bureaucratic authorisation bullshit...

Cheers for this

Sorry about the delay, but I was busy as I had a car crash and then I broke my hand in a bar fight. It wasn't the best start to the year.

I'll try to answer everything:

Well, it depends in the neighborhood you live. The best area to live in my opinion is "Barrio Norte", that it's on Recoleta and Palermo; not only is safe but you have lots of shoppings and shops near and it's really safe, I always go out at night and nothing happenned to me. Also, in Palermo you have most of the bars and nightlife and you'll be near of all the bus stops and the subway.

I live in Recoleta, that it's not more expensive that Palermo but you can find cheaper in the last one. I pay 7000 ARS of rent and it's a pretty big flat, it has two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and two bathrooms; but it's pretty expensive as it's on the Av. Santa Fe that's one of the main streets of the city, what I'd recommend you to do is to rent in the Palermo zone of Barrio Norte but maybe one or two blocks away of the Av. Santa Fe, as I'll be more cheaper and you can find bigger or newer apartments than mine for the same price or less.

If you came here, don't change most of your money to Pesos, only a small part. The official price of the USD Dollar here is 8 ARS, but if you pay in dollars, most of the people will take it at 10 ARS or maybe 12, try to haggle the USD price, people here want foreign currency and you can get better prices because of this.

Travelling in Argentina isn't that expensive, planes to the Patagonia (1200 km away of Buenos Aires), for example, are about 160 USD; the country is really big, the eighth more large I think, so the distances are pretty big. The thing changes when you want to travel outside the country, as the government has lots of taxes on the international flights. In Buenos Aires you're really near of Uruguay, most of the porteños travel there now and then, you take a boat and arrive to Colonia. Also, because of the low price of the peso, it's really expensive for us to travel, but if you have foreign currency, I'd be cheaper for you. I think that in Chile they have less taxes so you could travel outside the country more cheaper, but the distances would be bigger as Buenos Aires is nearer to Uruguay, Brasil and Paraguay.

About the trains, we used to have one of the biggest rail system in the world but in the 90's they were privatized and most of the stations closed. On train you can pretty much travel in the Provincia de Buenos Aires area. Most people here travel inside the country by bus.

About renting a car, I've never done that so I couldn't tell you. But the public transportation is really cheap; for example, the subway is only 3.50 ARS (0.40 USD) and you can travel in most of the city; the Santiago subway is better but more expensive, about 1.30 USD. The difference on buses is pretty much the same.

There're great wines in both countries! But the food is different from country to country, I happen to like more the argentinian food but that might be because I'm more used to it.

I couldn't tell you about the art scene in Santiago as I was there for a few days. In Argentina you have a lot of theatres, museums and there're a lot of places to go.

About the concerts scene, nowadays in Chile they have a lot of festivals and a lot of international gigs. But I think Argentina is one of the best places to go a gig, the crowds are way better in my opinion. Also, Argentina and Brazil are two "classics" when it comes down to concerts, most of the bands go to both of them.

That's something Buenos Aires can't compete with Santiago. If you want to skii, you might need to go to the Patagonia; Bariloche and San Martín de los Andes are in Río Negro and Neuquén, about 1500 km of Buenos Aires. If you want to go to the beach you can be there in about 3 hours by car.

Yes, that's true. The chileans have a really particular accent, you can understand them but it's a little hard; this happens in some provinces of Argentina too, but in Buenos Aires and most of the Patagonia there aren't any particular accents.

You don't need any authorization to work as a bartender, but I think you might need a visa. I'll ask about that and tell you.

Cheers and good luck with this new experience!

Hello there!

I know I know...a ghost from the past!

What Ezearis told you is all pretty spot on and always considering you will spend there only a few months.

I can - however - tell you the day to day comments/complaints I hear from my family/friends constantly. Buenos Aires is NOT cheap anymore. Even people who have been there recently on holiday say that. Just the daily groceries shopping are expensive, not to mention going out and having a nice meal out. You can still find decent restaurant at affordable prices. Another thing is security/safety. I could go on and on but I don't want to sound blah!

I can honestly say it is a lovely country/city, you will definitely find lots of places for clubbing/going to shows/listening to music, nice places to see/visit and nice people (some of them could be as arrogant as hell though) but it is not all "pink colour" (we usually say when we want to describe everything is fine - probably there is an equivalent in English but can't remember it now!).

Hah - cheers Vanessa. No place is - that's why they're awesome. But I've never been to that part of the world so it's time to try it out properly. In a year's time that is :P Before that there's SE Asia, India, Africa and the US :P. So can't wait!