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Has anyone here lived/worked in Buenos Aires? I've been considering it as a place to check out for an extended period of time in 2018.

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I've lived in Buenos Aires all my life. This is my biased pros/cons list: - It's a beautiful city with a lot of art and beautiful places. - Food is great - Most of the people is nice and open minded (same sex marriage is accepted here) - We have a lot of good IT professionals and great entrepreneurial ecosystem (including cryptocurrencies) - Argentina is a beautiful country to do some tourism - Our timezone is great, we are close to NYC time for example

Cons: - Prices. I've been travelling a lot this past years and I found Buenos Aires might be as expensive as other big cities. - Inflation, it's really hard to deal everyday with it. I've lost sense of prices to be honest - Some places are really insecure. Also, you might have problems on safe areas too. I live in a good neighborhood and someone broke into my apartment when I was out.

I moved away from Argentina 5 years ago (wow, time flies) and I agree with all the points above.

Many people in the First World assume that Buenos Aires is a cheap place because it is in South America, but many places in South America have actually higher costs of living than Europe/North America, with lower incomes. An apartment in a nice neighborhood with a reasonable size is ~USD1000[1], while local income for a Sr Software Engineer is around ~USD27K[2] (sounds low even for BsAs standards, but not outrageously so) and taxes are outrageously high (over 50%[3] for an individual, 137.4%(!) of the profits for companies[4]).

[1]: http://inmuebles.mercadolibre.com.ar/departamentos/alquiler/...

[2]: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/2003950-cuanto-ganaba-un-programa...

[3]: https://es.panampost.com/antonella-marty/2017/06/21/en-argen...

[4]: http://www.infobae.com/economia/2017/03/07/argentina-continu...

> 137.4%(!) of the profits for companies

How on Earth does that work? Companies have to pay all of their profit + more in taxes? Or is it some misleading figure which compares expenses like employment taxes to the profits?

It's a great question. It seems like at least since 2005[1] the amount taxes owed after deductions have been >100% of profits, which might partly explain the prevalence of off-the-books earnings in the country. It seems to be the second highest tax rate of commercial profits in the world, at 106% for 2016[2].

From the breakdown of that rate[3] it seems the three highest contributors to that rate are

- Turnover tax by City of Buenos Aires of 3% (Total tax rate (% of profit) 53.21%)

- Employer paid - Social security contributions of 23% (Total tax rate (% of profit) 25.94%)

- Tax on financial (check) transactions of 0.6% (Total tax rate (% of profit) 17.25%)

Keep in mind that the last one affects every transaction, so you can _easily_ pay more tax than what you earn just by moving money back and forth.

[1]: https://tradingeconomics.com/argentina/total-tax-rate-percen...

[2]: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.TAX.TOTL.CP.ZS?year_h...

[3]: http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/argentina...

For every 10 pesos they make, they pay 14 pesos to the state (thats how to read that %).

Also of note regarding Buenos Aires: the city is quite dirty. Even it air is pretty bad. Most of the non-residential areas are very very noisy.

Regarding the pros, I think they's been properly enumerated.

I looked into moving to Argentina recently but found some complaints on forums about the speed and reliability of the Internet. What are your experiences with the Internet in Argentina?

Well. Sadly I don't have any benchmark (or some serious analysis) to share with you but I can tell you this:

- I pay about 40usd for a non symmetric 12Mbps connection. It works ok - at least for me - I can stream music or watch something on Netflix without any problems.

- My ISP has a max of 50Mbps (non symmetric)

- You can find some corporate symmetric connections (I'm not aware if you can have those at home) but I suspect they are like a regular connection in some other more advanced countries

In some zones you have symmetric fiberoptic lines. To your house too if you want to pay that premium (I do).

Besides Iplan, is there another alternative? Can you share how much does it cost to you?

iPlan perhaps doesn't even use it's own fiber, apparently there are more companies offering it. But it's legal to call your company FiberTel in Argentina and then sell cable not fiber, so the situation is pretty opaque to me.

The full price is 1200 pesos, around 75 bucks. So not cheap. But to have something that works reliably up and down it's peanuts, the cheaper options are not as reliable and have asymmetric speeds. Stable videoconferencing is a must.

One (perhaps non-representative) data point: I have teammates who live in Villa La Angostura and Cordoba and I chat with them using Google hangouts every day. Their bandwidth has never been an issue for video chat.

I have an iPlan fiberoptic line 10/10 and it's a really stable 10/10. I don't need big downloads all of the time just a reliable connection for (video)conference. Other parts have 100/100 or 50/50.

I just left, after having lived there most of my life. I'm not impartial, but my opinion is that it's a fantastic place to live if your income doesn't depend on the country's current position in the wealth/poverty pendulum it's been swinging on since the 30's. AMA.

I've been considering hanging out in the Southern Cone while doing business remotely in the US as my main source of income. Is Buenos Aires/Cordoba/Mar del Plata worth considering or should I be really looking more into Uruguay or Chile?

It depends. What are you looking for when deciding for a place to live? What's important to you?

Decent internet that would allow me to stream every so often, reasonable variety of food/things to do, milder weather, LGBT friendliness, and cheapness (in relation to living in, say a large city in the American West coast). Also safety to some extent.

I could hop to/explore the EU, where I would feel completely comfortable and I could absolutely do with some minor bureaucratic hassle but I would be concerned about being able to working with a US job if I have that marked a difference in time zone (I don't know if that's actually a reasonable concern).

I think you can find everything you have just mentioned in Buenos Aires, for sure. if you will be earning in USD you will be more than comfortable.

>variety of food/things to do, milder weather, LGBT friendliness

Wrt LGBT, I worked with people from Chile who moved to Argentina because the Chilean culture is very conservative/religious. In that case, Buenos Aires is known to be very LGBT friendly. I think Uruguay is also a good option (liberal/atheist culture), but simply because of the size, you'll have much more options to socialize in BA.

Wrt food, BA has lots of options from all over the world, simply because it's a very cosmopolitan city. Maybe not to the point of NYC (it's hard if you put the bar there) but certainly the city is also known because of the quality of the food, expect to gain some weight.

But of course, everything in life has trade offs, and this is where BA loses some points.. It's not cheap to buy technology there. That's why people who can travel, buy their gadgets and branded clothing in other countries.

Speaking of security, I was born and lived there most of my life, and the only time I was mugged, I was walking at 3am in 2003 (close to the biggest economic crisis in its history) in an insecure neighborhood outside of Buenos Aires (I had a fight with my girlfriend and left her house, and I thought: I'll walk home... This night could not be any worse, anyway... hehehe, I was proven wrong)

So unless you do something stupid, as I did, it should be relatively safe. But even then, you should take some cautions: do not use expensive jewelry or watches, be cautious when walking at night in places you don't know, do not leave unattended items (eg, your laptop at a bar while going to the wc).. Etc, some simple things that I've seen people who go there from other places sometimes omit to their regret.

Uruguay or Chile unless you want an experience of living in a semi-failed state. Also thousands of Argentinians go to Chile on weekends for shopping because goods in their country are overpriced or absent.

Lots of Chileans go to study in Argentina five days per week since in the United States (come on, even the flag looks like Texas!) studying is just too expensive.

But cheap iPhones, for sure.

Uruguay is like a parallel dimension, where somehow Argentinean people didn't screw up their state. Still expensive though.

> Uruguay is like a parallel dimension, where somehow Argentinean people didn't screw up their state.

Lol....best Uruguay definition I've ever read

It's the Texan flag that looks like the Chilean one. Chile got its flag in 1817 and Texas – in 1839, 22 years later.

Not only iPhones, even groceries are cheaper and more diverse than in Argentina.

Yes, education costs are a problem but not for immigrants who work remotely (or don't have kids at all).

I can't swear on the quality of the internet since it's been 5 years and I must go back! Certainly Buenos Aires and Santiago have all the creature comforts and culture of a megacity but you'd be missing out by neglecting the rest of the region.

Are you looking to drift around or settle down for 12 months? It depends what you're looking for. I spent 4 months travelling in ARG/CHL/URU. I didn't visit that far south in Argentina; said to be gorgeous but bloody freezing in winter!

First-world comforts? Santiago. Surfing? Pichelemu. Wine? Mendoza. Beer? Valdivia. Coffee and kuchen (German cake)? Puerto Varas. Serenity? Chiloe. Pacific coast? Valparaiso. Mountains? Salta. Homestyle cooking? Jujuy. Metropolis? Buenos Aires. Art scene? Cordoba. Students? Rosario. Small city feel in a capital city? Montevideo. History? Colonia. Casino? Punta del Este. Relax on the beach? La Pedrera.

If I was wanting a suffocating metropolis, Buenos Aires. For a mixture of culture and seaside I'd pick Valparaiso. For a mellow place to chill out and learn Spanish but close enough to a coastal weekend break, I'd pick Montevideo. Otherwise Santiago, Rosario, Cordoba, Mendoza would all be good choices for a longer stay. But it depends on your personality. I met a British man who'd spent 12 months in Salta La Linda - it's a beautiful place but small enough to do most touristy things in a weekend but what grows on you is the indigenous culture, living at altitude while being at the foot of the Andes and various extraordinary adventures by minibus.

Buenos Aires great cultural life, a huge spectrum of very lively and very quiet/slow neighborhoods, good public transportation(except on peak hours), good internet, very good food and nice people. For a Latin American metropolis, it's quite safe, but there are areas you should avoid at night; it is not Europe. Again by Latin American standards, Buenos Aires is quite LGBT friendly, but it is not San Francisco. In recent years I can think of a couple of high profile events where people were kicked out of restaurants for homosexual behavior, but this has always been met with strong responses from the community.

I have not been to Chile, but I can tell you that Montevideo feels like a more relaxed version of Buenos Aires.

I lived and worked there for a while and would describe it as follows. The people / lifestyle / weather is amazing, by far the best I've experienced anywhere I've been (US and most of Europe). On the other hand, the level of corruption and price inflation and instability / beaurocracy of the system as a whole is very bad compared to EU countries / US.

I'd say if you had a remote job earning dollars or euros and weren't tied to the system itself down there, then it would pretty much be a paradise. But if you have to live tied to the system then I would advise against it unless you are young and single and just want to experience cool new things and don't care about health care, owning property, starting a company, etc.

All in all though a fantastic place and I would definitely recommend it to anyone for at least a couple months or a year or so.

Make sure you earn in dollars or euros. I've got hit by the inflation blow last year as well but lately the euro and dollar are going up again which makes everything a bit more affordable again. There's definitely a gray area now where I exit the bank with my money in euros (this is legal now) to change it in another place where they pay 20% more in pesos.

I don't live in BA but in one of the other large cities. BA was always a bit crazy in terms of travel distances and price of living. People earn about 20% more there just to compensate. Compare it to London.

I really like the city but there's a lot of grey boring areas and/or bad neighborhoods.

I've been there in the beginning of the year, planning to stay longterm. Inviable. The cost of living in Buenos Aires skyrocketed these past 2 years (I have a sister still living there since 2010, moving back next month).

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