Argentina

Rising steadily and triumphantly from the ashes, Argentina has proven as colorful, passionate, and enduring as the phoenix.  To be sure, the Argentinean appeal – natural wonders alongside a vibrant and eclectic culture – has lured both visitors and immigrants for centuries, but since the country’s financial disaster in 2001, Argentina has another irresistible weapon to add to its arsenal: it’s cheap.  Its capital city is the child of such stock – European by nature and Latin by nurture, what results is a savory mezcla of the two worlds that pulses with energy through the night: Boho-chic on a budget, if you will. 

Artists, writers, musicians, and dancers have flocked to Buenos Aires to take part in the dynamic cultural scene and cafés, bistros, and bars have sprung up under every Jacaranda-adorned veranda.  If you’re in the city during its winter months (July-August), make sure to attend La Rural in Palermo, the enormously popular, annual agricultural fair, where you’ll meet the sleekest, fattiest, and prettiest of cattle, among other livestock.  You will eat – and you will eat well – while in this fair country: the BBQ is succulent, varied, cheap, and abundant and the empanadas are hot pockets of flavor. 

And as for drink?  Just head to Mendoza, the more exotic and less pretentious Napa-Sonoma of South America.  You can bike from vineyard to vineyard, tasting top-notch wines at affordable prices, and horseback across the Andes.  There, you can attempt to summit the formidable Cerro Aconagua, the highest peak on the American continent.  Visit the breathtaking waterfalls of Iguazu, the swampy Esteros del Ibera teeming with diversity, and the Perito Moreno glacer in Patagonia, the southernmost end of South America, where the wind is frosty, the ice crystal, and the end of the world just a boat ride away.