Its refreshing to hear specific questions instead of 'how much do you need to live semi-baller" and "how much Spanish do you need to get laid".

All of Palermo, Recoleta, Belgrano and Puerto Madero are safe at any time of the day (if you wanna nit it up, then yeah, no where is safe, ever). All of the city (where you will find apartment listings) is safe during the day. It's just that the likelihood of some 'freak' incident might be higher in neighborhoods like Centro, San Telmo, Congreso, Almagro, Abasto, Caballito, Villa Crespo, and many others. I think there are very few barrios in the city were I would feel uncomfortable with my wife walking alone between 6AM and 10PM.

That's not true.

But this is.

where specifically do you not feel safe, Spike?

Mostly below 25 de Mayo and Perito Moreno highways.

Past Juan B Justo (heading north), Palermo is not as safe as real estate agencies love to say.

Recoleta is kinda tricky the closer you get to Retiro.

I would avoid any barrio next to General Paz and the ones past Curapaligüe Av (heading west).

As for the rest, every ****ing neighbourhood in the City has safe and troublesome areas. Caballito, Almagro, Abasto, Villa Crespo, Congreso, Once, Montserrat, San Nicolas, Parque Patricios, Paternal, Villa del Parque, Boedo...

Not that I feel unsafe everywhere I mentioned. I can walk safely in Parque Chacabuco, San Telmo or Flores, for example. You know, when you get used to a place, you learn where to walk, which spots to avoid, etc. But, as a complete stranger, it gets tougher.

It's much better to describe smaller areas as safe or unsafe rather than entire neighbourhoods.

wait, you don't think Palermo Hollywood is safe? seriously?

Some places, not the whole area. At night, of course.

having essentially lived there for a year and a half, i wouldn't agree at all.

Evan, can you give us some advice on getting Portenas to marry you?

These apartments are $1900/$2300 respectively?!

Price is listed in pesos

What's wrong with Nuñez???? Technically Vicente Lopez is another city, but nothing wrong there also and next to GP.

And past Curapaligue you are headed into probably the most dangerous part of the city (Bajo Flores) so you are right there.

When you grab a cab, you can bet the driver doesn't spend more than 400$/week to feed his 4 ppl family. Probably not more than 300$.

People here also know where to shop and what to buy. Coming cold to a city, it takes a while to learn how to save money in certain spots. Besides, do you really want to come from Canada and eat like a Argentine taxi driver and his family?

No, I wouldn't, but reading his post it seems that he would do fine with 400$/week. I don't know about his diet, but as long as he doesn't want to eat salmon and good wine every day he should do fine. 50$/day should be ok for 3ppl imo.

2 bottles of mineral water = 8
1/2kg carrots = 2
package of italian pasta = 8
some lettuce = 3
1/2 kg beef = 15
milk bottle = 4
1kg bananas= 5
1/2 kg apples = 5
----------------------
$50

so eating like that is 350$/week, add some bread, eggs, cookies for the kid, whatever, and with 400$ he should do ok if he is frugal by nature.

Thanks for all of the replies. I also found a site http://exposebuenosaires.com/cost-of...-buenos-aires/ that has quite a bit of info, though it is from Oct 2009 so I imagine things have changed by 10%+ since inflation is so high.

This isn't much of a daily diet to be split between two adults and a kid. But I mean whatever, if he wants to do that, up to him.

Looking at the current CAD/USD to ARS rates, if I had $150 per week wouldn't that equal 600 pesos per week to use, not 400 pesos? I'm getting a little confused now

Another poster said that 600 pesos was more than enough and that 400 peso would be really high. I just pointed out thats 400 a week = 6.8 pesos per meal. Arguments ensued :/

Gotcha thanks for clarification

$1000/month for a 2br place is scraping the bottom of the barrel. You can get them, but you do so with the understanding that they are generally going to be small, have cheap furnishings, etc.

All of Palermo is probably relatively safe but some of the parts towards the western/northwestern edge seem sorta crappy, and aren't really all that different than their neighboring barrios that people would agree are not first-tier locations.

Food prices can be sorta tricky because some things cost about the same here as in the US while some things are far cheaper so it's not like you can just look at your current expenditures and cut it by a set percentage. It looks like you're willing to spend almost 100 pesos per day on food. That should be more than enough. Buy a huge package of ground beef for 5 pesos and then you can splurge on the rest. =p

Another question:

Do any of you use Skype (voice not video) to call North America from Buenos Aires? If so what has been your experience with it as far as call quality?

The only experience I've had with it was from Seoul to Canada probably 4 years ago, so that doesn't really apply I don't think. At that time from Seoul the quality was fine but there was usually a 1-2 second lag, which wasn't a big deal once you got used to it.

it's not exactly the same as a real phone line, but it's pretty good.

I would rate it as being pretty good especially considering the price (to the US at least). I have problems with drops, occasional bad sound quality and sometimes I hear feedback. I don't ever remember having problems with lag. God, 1-2 seconds I think would be unbearable.

ran a search through thread but didnt find what i was looking for.. quick question, are there many women in Argentina with the big Kim Kardashian/J-lo type booty? clearly there WILL be some anywhere you go but just wondering if anyone noticed a fair amount to the point where it somewhat stood out at them as it would in say Brazil..

no. girls here are skinny.