Buenos Aires Has Become an Underrated Destination
Plus, RyanAir's spat with Spain gets nasty, Santorini volcanic activity, a Barragan restoration, and BILT's first cafe.
Few cities were as hyped as Buenos Aires when I visited a decade ago. A remote megalopolis, it was sold to me as a fever dream of romantic architecture, culture, and exhilarating nightlife. It was a favored destination of some of the most worldly people I knew.
On my recent trip for a long weekend at the height of tourist season, I found the city shockingly uncrowded. When I popped by some of the most touristy spots—Recoleta, Guerrin, El Ateneo Grand Splendid, etc—I saw almost no Americans. It’s a sensation almost impossible to imagine in 2025 when Americans seem to be everywhere and in overwhelming numbers.
But it all sort of clicked into place for me—I rarely hear any more about exciting new hotels or hospitality concepts happening in Buenos Aires. (Not because they aren’t happening, but there really is a direct relationship between what most people are interested in and what gets covered.) While I’m grateful to everybody who sent me their recommendations on social media, it was mostly the same dozen places that everybody else recommended. All had been around for ages.
Cities that people frequently go to rarely are like that.
The map for typical travel in Latin America has also expanded since a decade ago. Back then Medellin was seen as somewhere only an adventurous traveler would try out. It’s now one of the most popular cities to visit. While Americans have always loved Rio, Sao Paulo didn’t garner much interest. Now, it’s just as likely to be a part of an exciting trip to Brazil as any other part of the country.
For decades, American chauvinism was a source of limited exploration in Latin America. Now, my sense is that we've fallen in love with exploring all of these incredible countries.
Another way of looking at Buenos Aires’ decreasing popularity is that you don’t hear complaints or read many news stories about the ill effects of too many tourists in Buenos Aires.
And the numbers pretty much back that up—at least for Americans. At the end of 2024, tourists from the U.S. and Canada to Argentina dropped by double digits compared to the prior year.1 It’s a situation almost unheard of for any other major country in the current travel scene. According to Argentina’s national statistics institute (Indec), international visitors in 2024 dropped 18.5% compared to 2023, to a paltry 10.93 million, of which only 6.2 million were tourists.
A lot of that is attributed to the increased strength of the Argentine currency. That would certainly explain the massive drop in more price-conscious tourists from neighboring Latin American countries. But it doesn’t explain the U.S. It’s still pretty reasonable for us. And while affordability can entice Americans (see: Japan in 2024), it doesn’t really deter us as we by and large aren’t a price-sensitive travel group. This is why tourism organizations expend a lot of effort marketing to Americans. We spend a lot. (We are safety-sensitive, though.)
My hunch is just a simple one—Buenos Aires isn’t that exciting for us anymore.
Whereas its crumbling and overblown Old World architecture was something we found enchanting before, Americans now get plenty of Europe stuff by going en masse to Europe. A decade ago, Buenos Aires was just different enough. Now, what draws are the unique aspects of a place. Rio and Mexico City aren’t facsimiles of anywhere else.
This isn’t to hate on Buenos Aires. I think it creates an incredible opportunity. Because while everybody is recommending the same handful of places, so much is opening and happening here. Take the brand new Bar Acuario. It just opened a month ago in the restored Casa Bonet building in the city center. It is one of the earliest modernist works in the city and was designed by Antoni Bonet i Castellana. And the bar is so chic and cool with a really fun wine list and filled with interesting artistic types.
While there I met the journalist Vanessa Bell, who also runs tours focused on architecture, design, art, fashion, and food. We spent a fair chunk of time just pulling up all these odd and fascinating buildings throughout the city on Google Images that I now have to go back to see. All were ones that would give you a much stronger sense of Buenos Aires as unique and not some failed copy. The city is ripe for talented writers and creators to explore and showcase different sides of it.
All this is to say that one of the world’s most underrated cities right now is Buenos Aires.
DEPARTMENT OF GRIEVANCES
I don’t have much to say yet about the horrific plane crash at DCA this past week as so much information is still coming in. But I will say that aviation is an industry filled with experts with very specific expertise, and to trust them rather than some armchair one on Twitter.
Sorting out visiting the various Barragan works in Mexico City has always been a bit of a pain in the ass. (Side note: Argentinian chauvinism is still alive and well. An architect there referred to Barragan’s work as “mere neo-colonialism but with more exciting colors.” It made me laugh but I don’t think he’s entirely off the mark.) One of the more famous, La Cuadra San Cristóbal, was bought last year by the architect Fernando Romero. This week he announced plans to restore the property and add pavilions by the xylophilic Kengo Kuma. I haven’t seen plans yet, so maybe it will be cool. But my first instinct is to ask why the pavilions are necessary rather than just restore the property and leave it like that?
Hat/tip to Ned Russell of Airport Architecture for flagging this: but, ugh, the Brightline West train expansion will not be completed in time for the 2028 Olympics.
As somebody who has to pee constantly, hardly a trip goes by that I don’t breathe a sigh of relief over being a man. There is something so cruel and silly about long lines at women’s bathrooms being an issue at every airport, train station, and stadium, around the world. Has somebody come up with a creative and effective solution? If so, why haven’t we implemented it?!
Speaking of stupidity. Nothing makes one feel more like sheep than when you get to a security or passport line and the retractable barriers are still set up for a big crowd. Going back and forth, back and forth, with the flimsiest of obstacles standing between you and sensibility.
The spat between RyanAir and the Spanish airport authority is getting wild. So juicy. The head of the authority, Maurici Lucena, recently talked about the fight over airport fees and RyanAir cutting flights by saying: "Unfortunately, this is Ryanair's modus operandi. In many European countries, we have seen it for years: threats, half-truths, lies...; but in the case of Spain, I honestly believe that today they have crossed the Rubicon of respect, good faith and the most basic business and institutional courtesy.”
Pretty strong stuff for a bureaucrat. But on Wednesday, RyanAir’s CEO Michael O'Leary (who is not known for shyness) went after Spain’s consumer rights minister which fined the airline over baggage fees. He called him "a crazy communist minister.” To which the minister retorted, “No pressure, no blackmail and no insult will stop me.”
I know gate lice (i.e. crowding the boarding area and trying to board ahead of your group) is now a big no-no in the U.S. Various airlines are putting policies into place to stop it. But, I will just say that it remains the case in Brazil if you’re flying Gol and you’ve got a bad group number you can just slip into one of the better ones and they don’t care.
Skift has a helpful breakdown of the battle brewing over the future of Soho House between the billionaires Dan S. Loeb and Ron Burkle. The somewhat-beleaguered members club has never had a profitable quarter and both believe it needs to go private. But how it does so, how fast it continues to scale, and who ends up owning it are all up in the air.
I’m skeptical, but CLEAR just announced a new technology (EnVe Pods), that it claims makes its process five times faster than before. We’ll see. It wasn’t always the machines that were the issue at CLEAR, but the lack of staff.
Increased volcanic activity has been detected in Santorini, and the 200 (!) earthquakes that have been felt in the last few days prompted the government to close schools on Monday. Yet another reason to Stop Going to Santorini!
TRAVEL INDUSTRY NEWS
BILT, the popular rewards card, opened its first cafe
United squashed the rumor that it’s trying to buy JetBlue
A TikTok-fueled surge of 10,000 tourists in one day overwhelmed a small Italian resort town
Increased volcanic activity detected in Greece’s popular tourist island of Santorini
Osaka, Japan bans outdoor smoking
European travelers increased by a small amount.
Re: women’s bathroom lines, I think the issue is that most buildings have a 1:1 ratio of men’s to women’s bathroom space. But as men experience, the urinals turn over much faster than stalls. And as a father of three daughters I think I can safely say women just need an extra minute or two in the restroom. So modern facilities need a different ratio of restroom space, more like 1.5:1, or 2:1, to provide the same level of service for women they do for men.
I think society “got away with this” in the long past because there was a significant gender imbalance, women were underrepresented in places like offices, stadiums, and airports.
On the positive side, society has recognized the problem and some changes are happening. There have been legal and building code changes, and newer buildings are generally increasing the ratio of facilities for women, so over time this should get better. But it takes a long time and a lot of money to fix mistakes poured in concrete.