From my own perspective, an American that has been living in Buenos Aires for the past 6 years, as well as the opinions of the 27 Americans I interviewed for my master’s thesis on Americans living in Buenos Aires. P.S. Check out my Top 10 best here. 

THE 10 WORST THINGS ABOUT LIVING IN BUENOS AIRES

1. Inflation and economic instability

2. Customer service and general unreliability of services

3. Lack of healthy and organic options at supermarkets

4. General uncleanliness: litter, dog poop, pollution. I’ll add in noise pollution here too.

5. Crime, unfortunately.

6. Shopping- for clothes, for electronics, for furniture, for cosmetics…options are limited, often poor-quality, and usually over-priced (especially imported goods). I have to do all my shopping in the U.S. when I visit.

7. Renting apartments as a foreigner. For most unfurnished long-term apartments you need a “garantía” which is a co-signer that owns property in Buenos Aires. If you don’t have one, you usually have to pay months of rent in advance, or just suck it up and rent apartments geared towards foreigners, with foreigner prices.

8. Local salaries…life can be tough when you earn pesos.

9. Dangerous drivers. I feel just as unsafe in a car as I do as a pedestrian.

10. Closed social circles. Myself and other Americans I’ve interviewed have all experienced this reality- even if you’re fluent in the language, and lucky enough to find local “porteño” friends, if you didn’t grow up here you’ll never truly be completely accepted as one of them.