BA City Guide offers customized, private tours for individuals, couples, families and small groups that cover every part of the city and beyond, providing tours that range from two hours to a full day. While tours include the major sites, they are more about experiencing daily life: dropping into corner cafés, wine bars, having lunch in a typical bodegón, riding public transportation, checking out old bookstores, artisan shops, visiting artist studios … you name it.
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For groups of up to four people, the flat rate for custom tours is USD 60 per hour, which includes costs for public transportation and the occasional taxi.
The Recoleta Cemetery, which is very much worth visiting and is included on several tours, has an independent entrance fee that is paid directly to the Cemetery when we go there. In general, the tours are walking tours, taking public transportation and taxis as needed, but if there is a need or preference for hiring a car service or van, we can do this for an extra fee for the driver.
Following is a list of eight tours with descriptions and rates, but if you want to talk to me about designing a specific tour tailored to your interests, think of this as an a la carte menu with a chef who has a city full of ingredients!
Intro Tour
Cruise Ship Tour
Full Day Immersion Tour
Jewish Buenos Aires Tour
A Literary History of Buenos Aires
Old City Tour
Tango: More than a Dance Tour
Photography Tour
INTRO TOUR – A three and a half hour introduction to Buenos Aires (and Argentina) in which we start at the famous Plaza de Mayo where Argentines formed their first democratic government, Evita and Juan Domingo Perón spoke on the famous balcony of the Casa Rosada, and the late Pope Francis served for 15 years as Archbishop of Buenos Aires in the Cathedral.
This is followed by a stroll along the Avenida de Mayo where Buenos Aires earned the name “the Paris of South America“, crossing the Nueve de Julio, arguably the widest avenue in the world. Then a walk into the old city including, of course, a visit to one of the historical cafés. Along with discussing history and culture, the tour will also orient visitors on practical matters for exploring the city on their own!
This tour can also be rearranged to replace the old city area with the Recoleta Cemetery.
Discount promotional rate of USD 190 for a group of up to four people.
To book a tour contact us at: BACityGuide@gmail.com
CRUISE SHIP TOUR – This is a seven hour tour geared specifically for visitors who are only here for a day of shore leave and want a whirlwind tour that does not feel like a whirlwind! With a pick up at the port terminal, we start at the nearby Recoleta Cemetery, internationally famous as the final resting place of Evita Peron, but really a fascinating glimpse into the culture of power of Argentina: the cemetery contains 5,000 mausoleums including the tombs of presidents, founding fathers, Nobel Prize winning scientists and doctors, literary figures and more than a few stories about Argentine attitudes towards death and a bid for immortality. We follow this with a coffee break at the upper crust Café La Biela.
We then stroll into the downtown dropping by a number of stunning architectural sites including the Palace of Running Water and the Ateneo bookstore, a theater from the 1920s that was preserved and retooled as a bookstore, considered one of the most aesthetically impressive bookstores in the world. From there we work our way down the Avenida de Mayo – the Champs Elysees of Buenos Aires with its European style buildings -, to the Plaza de Mayo, where the Spanish founded the city in 1580. The plaza includes the presidential palace (the Casa Rosada) famous internationally because of THE balcony (as in Evita) and the Cathedral where Pope Francis served as Archbishop of Buenos Aires for 15 years, as well as the Cabildo where the Argentines formed their first democratic body under Spanish colonial rule.
For the last part of our day, we head into the “Historical Quarter” of the city for lunch, exploring the Old Market constructed in 1897 and a look at inside a number of buildings that give us a glimpse of what Buenos Aires was like in the colonial period before becoming a modern metropolis in the early 20th century.
This tour has a discount promotional rate of USD 370 for a group of up to four people.
To book a tour contact us at: BACityGuide@gmail.com
FULL DAY IMMERSION TOUR –
This is a seven and a half hour tour, similar to the Cruise Ship tour (see just above), but with a lot more flexibility to explore. Major sites we cover: the Recoleta Cemetery and the mansions of Recoleta to learn about the history of Argentine aristocracy, the Plaza de Mayo and the Avenida de Mayo for the birth of the nation and the development of Buenos Aires as a modern “European” city, the old port of La Boca with its colorful houses, the Historic Quarters of San Telmo and Monserrat to get a look at colonial Buenos Aires, and the redeveloped Puerto Madero, once the glorious port of the city, now a luxury waterfront development famous for the elegant rotating footbridge by Spanish architect Calatrava.
To make the most of this tour, we will discuss beforehand your group’s priorities and preferences to pick and choose the sites, so we can also have time to go off the tourist track and explore typical neighborhoods that are rarely visited by foreigners.
With the flexibility that can only be offered by a private tour, we will take a deep dive into the city covering a lot of ground at a relaxed pace, experiencing day to day life in cafés, public buses, and plazas, while making sure we see and talk about the historic sites that define Argentine society and culture.
This tour has a rate of USD 390 for a group of up to four people.
To book a tour contact us at: BACityGuide@gmail.com
SPECIALIZED TOURS!
JEWISH BUENOS AIRES TOUR
With the largest Jewish population in Latin America, and the eighth largest population in the world, Buenos Aires is a very Jewish city. In this tour, we look at the Jewish experience within the context of Catholic Argentina, and how it has shaped what it means to be an Argentine Jew.
Though Jews have had a presence in Argentina since the early 16th Century when Sephardic merchants escaped the persecution of the Spanish Inquisition and made a small community near the port of Buenos Aires, the dominant culture today is Ashkenazi. The tour focuses largely on the Ashkenazi immigration, the establishment of the current Jewish community which dates back to 1860 and the founding of the Israelita Congregation of the Republic of Argentina (Congregación Israelite de la Republica de Argentina), and the immigration to the rural regions of the provinces of Argentina.
We visit the major landmarks related to Jewish history here, and also look at aspects that are very particular to Argentine Judaism including tango in Jewish culture, the gauchos judios (Jewish cowboys), Jews during the last civic-military dictatorship (1976-83), and the development of Jewish culture within a very Catholic context. This is a four and a half tour (yes, we nosh or at least have a coffee) and includes the historic downtown area, the Tribunales, and the historically Jewish neighborhoods of Once and Villa Crespo (nicknamed “Villa Kreplach”).
If it is a weekday tour we will visit the Jewish Museum / Templo Libertad, which has a 10 dollar entrance fee per person. The total cost of the tour, not including the museum fee, is USD 260 for a group of up to four people.
A LITERARY HISTORY OF BUENOS AIRES
With over 700 book stores serving a population of 2.8 million, Buenos Aires has been declared the book store capital of the world. Not surprising for a city in which the development of literature and poetry has been so central to the identity of its people.
The tour visits places that follow the narrative line of how literature in Argentina developed from its independence from Spain with the gauchesco momevement and the epic poem Martín Fierro, through the immigration waves of the late 19th and early 20th century and into the Latin American Boom of the 50s and 60s. Authors include: José Hernández, Jorge Luis Borges, Alfonsina Storni, Julio Cortazar and Rodolfo Walsh.
In this tour we go from north to south in the city visiting a range of sites including the former library where Jorge Luis Borges served as head librarian, a shopping gallery immortalized in Julio Cortazar’s short story “El otro cielo” (“The Other Sky”) – which is also where the author of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote the novel Night Flight -, and one of the most stunning bookstores in the world, built inside a grand old theater from the 1920s.
The fee for the four hour tour is USD 240 for a group of up to four people.
OLD CITY TOUR
Though founded over 440 years ago, most of Buenos Aires is a modern city that only dates back to the 1880s, with the exception of the old city or “casco historico”. During four hours we explore the oldest parts of Buenos Aires, the neighborhoods of San Telmo, Monserrat, which were the foundation for the colonial city of “Our Lady of Fair Winds” (Nuestra Señora de Buenos Aires), along with the old port neighborhood of La Boca.
This is a tour in which going off the beaten track is a must. We will make sure to visit the famous colored houses of Caminito, the Old Market of San Telmo, and even drop in on some local artists and artesans, but we will also wander the back streets of these neighborhoods where thriving working class communities still live their day to day lives, with friends meeting for drinks in local cafes, kids playing pick up soccer games in plazas, and neighbors hanging out in doorways catching up on the latest gossip or debating the politics of the day.
The fee for the four hour tour is USD 240 for a group of up to four people.
TANGO MORE THAN A DANCE TOUR
Though most foreigners only think of tango as that sexy dance with fedoras and fishnet stockings, tango in all its forms – music, poetry, literature, cinema – is central to the culture of Buenos Aires. To this day, locals use the adjective “tanguero” to refer to someone or something as having a nostalgic feeling that connects to an older Buenos Aires.
In this tour we take a deep dive, immersing ourselves in the poetry and places that define and developed tango. Covering neighborhoods that are rarely visited by foreigners such as Boedo and Nueva Pompeya, as well as San Telmo and Monserrat, we go to the corner immortalized in the tango “Sur” – “Ancient San Juan and Boedo, and the open sky / your hair flowing like a bride, and your name blooming in our farewell.” – and to the bohemian cafés where composers, lyricists and writers met and dreamed a world.
This tour has two versions! A daytime one as described above, as well as a nighttime tour, in which we include visits to a “milonga” where locals still dance tango for their own pleasure.
The day time tour is four hours and the cost is USD 240. The nighttime tour is four and a half hours and the cost is USD 280 and includes entrance fee for the milonga.
PHOTOGRAPHY TOUR
This exclusive photo tour is a unique experience for the traveler who knows that photography can bring you closer to a place. The tour is designed for visitors who want to cover known sites and / or go to parts of the city not normally traveled by foreigners, and dedicate time to getting to know another side of Buenos Aires, and portray that experience through travel photography.
Whether you are an amateur who wants to learn while doing or even an experienced professional photographers (we once had a photographer who ran National Geographic tours in Patagonia) who wants a local photographer to guide them to their interests quickly, we can accommodate you!
I have over thirty years experience as a documentary photographer and filmmaker and photography teacher. The tour will focus on your needs, dedicating time solely to travel photography with the advantage of my knowledge of the streets of Buenos Aires. Further, if you are looking to learn or just want advice or another set of eyes to help you take your street photography to the next level, our photo guide has experience as a photography teacher.This is an opportunity to venture off-the-beaten-track parts of Buenos Aires and capture images that most tourists normally wouldn’t have the chance to.
This tour is charged at an hourly rate of USD 65 / hour for a minimum of three hours. We discuss your interests beforehand to design a tour that meets your photographic needs.
Questions or want to book a tour?
You can write to me at: BACityGuide@gmail.com .
Or you can call me via my US phone number: 1-718-701-1839 .
Or WhatsApp me at: +54 911 5101 4236 .
Buenos Aires Tour Guide 