What Travellers to Argentina MUST know: Let me explain you the CHAOS of how to get CASH in ARGENTINA

What Travellers to Argentina MUST know: Let me explain you the CHAOS of how to get CASH in ARGENTINA

Hello everyone and welcome to today’s video! Today  we are going to talk about a very difficult topic.   Very difficult to understand, especially if you  are not from Argentina because we are talking   about the economical situation here in the country.  Argentina has made headlines all over the world  

With its super high inflation rate and I’m going  to try to explain you a little bit about why this   has happened in the past years and also how you  can actually save quite a lot of money if you  

Understand how to get for example cash here in  the country which is harder than I had expected. So I’m hoping that this video is going to help  future travellers here in Argentina to understand   a little bit the situation and also to save money  while traveling through the country. Let’s start to  

Talk about the economy in Argentina. Argentina has  the highest inflation rate worldwide with about   200% which is absolutely  insane. If you think about it in Europe for   example in 2022 we had the highest inflation  rate ever measured in Europe which was around 9%. That was a  

Lot. We were complaining a lot about increasing  prices. Now imagine how it is with an inflation   rate of 200%. The government had a lot of problems  to control this inflation rate in recent years   and different problems have caused this inflation.  For example, Argentina is a country that has a lot  

Of depths and Argentina has faced a lot of problems  with the devaluation of their peso. A devaluation   of money always occurs once the currency loses a  lot more value in comparison to other currencies.   This devaluation of the peso has led to a  lot of problems not only to the high inflation  

But it also has a huge impact on the life  of argentinians. That is simply because a lot of   prices increase, meaning that people are having  troubles to keep paying their bills since the   prices increase way faster than their salary for  example. One small example: I am here since 2 weeks  

Now and if you’ve seen the first video that I made  you may have noticed that I mentioned that I am   taking public transportation here in Buenos Aires  which cost me 56 pesos per ride which was more or less 6  

Cents of a dollar. Now one bus ticket is 92 pesos  which still is less than 10 cents of a dollar,   meaning it won’t have a huge impact on your budget.  But think about it. This is actually a price increase  

Of more or less 45% which is huge. And this is  happening with a lot of things. You will notice   that in a lot of windows you will see prices that  are are handwritten so they can easily erase them  

And change them probably on a monthly basis or  something like that. There are a lot of ways   to get cash here in the country and I’m going  to explain you some that I’ve tried. Some that  

Make me lose money. So make sure to learn from my  mistakes and how you can actually get cash here in   Argentina. We are in the Calle Florida which is  quite a famous street since here on the street you  

Can not only buy a lot of things, there are lots  of stores and so on but also there are a lot of   people here on the street screaming something like  “Cambio, cambio!” which means “change”. So here you can actually  

Exchange your Dollars into Pesos. Let’s walk a  little bit down the street and I will explain   you more about it. One thing that you should  definitely know is this application here. It is   called Dollar Blue Hoy and in this application you  can check the exchange rates for the dollar.

Since these are changing basically on a daily  basis I would definitely recommend you to download   this application here because you will always  have the current exchange rate. There are three   dollar exchange rates that are important for you. As you can see  there are six different dollar types currently but  

Three of them are actually important. So I’m going  to quickly explain you what this means. There is   the dollar oficial which is the exchange rate  that you can find for example on Google. This   is the exchange rate that you would also get if  you exchange your dollars in an official exchange  

Place. The second one that is important for you  would be the dollar MEP. The dollar MEP is made   for people with International credit cards,  meaning whenever you pay with your International   credit card you will get the exchange rate of  the dollar MEP. I tried this with several cards  

That I have and it worked with my debit and credit  card from Germany, with a credit card from Spain, a   credit card from the US and I don’t know why but  it didn’t work with my Revolut which is also an  

International card but somehow I lost a little bit  there. So I would recommend you to try your cards   out and check a little bit the exchange rate  on your bank statement so that you know that  

This actually works for your card. The third one  that you should know about is the dollar blue and   the dollar blue is the exchange rate that you will  get if you decide to exchange your dollars on the   streets for example here on the calle Florida.  Those exchange rates are different. The worst  

One that you can get would be the dollar oficial.  So I would recommend you to try to avoid that.   The best ones are the dollar MEP and the dollar  blue. Both are quite similar by now. There used to  

Be a huge difference and the dollar blue used to  be the better option. Nowadays sometimes the dollar blue   is the better option, sometimes the dollar MEP  but really the difference is not that big. Let’s   dive into how to exchange money on the streets.  I’m not sure if you can hear the voices in  

The background but as I told you before there  are people on this street that constantly call   “Cambio” so with those people you can exchange your  dollar bills into Pesos. One very important thing   here is that you actually have to bring a dollar  bill of $100. Everything that is smaller won’t get  

Exchanged for the same rate. I’m not sure what  is the reason behind that but it is what it is.   Make sure to bring $100 bills. I exchanged that  once and one other important hint here is to ask  

Several people about the rate. First check it on  the application of course but then also ask a   few different people here on the street because  there might be a little difference of the exchange   rate. If you decide to exchange dollars I also  recommend you to not exchange all the dollars you  

Brought due to the inflation. I have for example  exchanged $100 for an exchange rate of 1.000 pesos   when I came here. By now the exchange rate would be  1.200 pesos, meaning I kind of lost 200 pesos but   that is how it is. Always exchange whatever  you need and then exchange it little by  

Little. You can also exchange Euros but I noticed  that often the exchange rate is actually the   same as the exchange rate for Dollars which means  you would be losing a little bit of money because  

The euro is worth a little bit more than $1. Anyway, that  is also an option. Also same rule here: if you want   to exchange euros bring €100 bills. If you decide to  do this on the street you would talk to a person  

They would tell you the exchange rate and then  once you agree you would go into one of those   buildings that you see here and there’s  a tiny office where they actually exchange the   dollar bill you gave them into Pesos and you will  get a lot of pesos. $100 for example is currently  

Around $1.200 pesos and since the biggest peso  bill is 2.000 pesos that means that you will   get a huge staple of money. Now you might think:  why do you even have to exchange money if you   can pay everything with card for more or less the  same exchange rate? Well, there’s one reason: because  

You will save money. Actually there are a lot of  hotels especially in the touristic regions that   will ask you to either pay in cash or with card.  But whenever you pay with card you will pay about  

12 to 15% more. Actually one time I wanted to rent  a car and there was a price increase   of 30% which is a huge difference. So there are  things that are definitely worth to pay with cash  

Although this is quite unhandy because again, if  you for example want to pay a hotel for like three   nights or you want to rent a car for 3 or 4 days  you will have to bring a lot of cash and  

They also have to count it which is not that  easy and takes a lot of time and patience.   For me personally it was a little bit unhandy  to bring a lot of dollars into the country which  

Is why I decided to just bring a few dollars to  exchange them on the street and then I thought I   can always get cash from the bank, right? I wish it  would have worked that way, but no, it is a little  

Bit more complicated here in Argentina and I’m  going to show you why. Obviously an ATM has only   a limited amount of space, right? So there is still  the same amount of bills in the ATM as it used to  

Be 10 years ago. But the problem is with  the high inflation the money has a lower value,   meaning that the same amounts of bills that are  in that ATM value way less. So that is why actually  

Today you can only withdraw a very limited amount  of cash at an ATM. If you want to withdraw an   amount that is higher than 15.000 Pesos the ATM  won’t let you. It will say that the amount that  

You can withdraw in one day has been exceeded.  15.000 Pesos today is less than $15. Now you can   see the problem… With $15 you won’t get that far. Of  course you can withdraw it but they will actually  

Charge you a fee of 8.000 pesos which is again  almost $8. Does it make sense to pay $8 for $15   of cash? Not really that is why I do not recommend  you at all to withdraw money at an ATM it just  

Won’t get you far. What I do recommend you though  is Western Union, if you have the same problem as   I did. For me it was hard to get cash because as I  mentioned before I didn’t bring that many dollar  

Bills and I needed to pay the hotels and the  car rental and so on. So I sent myself money via   Western Union. That is possible and you will get the  exchange rate of the dollar MEP which is the   dollar that you actually pay for an international  transaction. With Western Union there’s also a  

Little problem because if you want to withdraw  that money you should definitely do that during   the week and as early during the day as possible  because again, they also have a limited amount   of cash obviously and the more cash you want to  get the harder it will be. If you want to  

Withdraw money with Western Union of course you  will pay a small fee which is kind of what you   need to keep in mind to balance it out. You will  want to withdraw enough money to be able to pay  

Your bills but also not too much money in order to  be able to actually receive the money easily. The   more money you want to receive, the harder it will  get to find a Western Union that has so many bills.  

Actually, they told me it’s possible to withdraw up to 1 million pesos  without any problems but I wouldn’t   necessarily trust on that, especially if you are  not in Buenos Aires but further outside in smaller   towns where the possibilities are  not that huge and there aren’t that many Western  

Unions. Nevertheless, Western Union is a really good  chance here to withdraw cash. I know this is   quite a complicated topic, so let me summarize it  a little bit for you. Again, my recommendation is to   download the application Dollar Blue Hoy which  will always give you the current exchange rate.  

Make sure to focus on the dollar MEP and the  dollar blue which are the two more important   exchange rates for you as a foreigner. The best  two options in my opinion are clearly to either  

Exchange money on the streets if you have cash – make sure that it’s a $100 bill – or to simply   pay with card. I did a mixture of cash and cards so  whenever I was able to pay with a card for example  

In restaurants or when I bought things I paid  everything with card. But everything else such as   hotels or a car rental I paid those things in cash.  If you do not feel comfortable with bringing   too many dollar bills with you into the country  make sure to have an account at Western Union  

Because this way you will easily be able to send  yourself some money and get it in an Western Union   office for the exchange rate of the dollar MEP.  I hope this was a little bit helpful for you to   understand the situation here in Argentina today  in January 2024. Things here are changing quickly.  

So in a couple of months it may be a little bit  different but anyway, make sure to inform yourself,   to come here prepared. If there are any open  questions or if you didn’t understand something   make sure to leave me a comment in the comment  section. I always answer all of the comments and  

Also if you found this video helpful and if you  enjoyed it, make sure to drop me a like because you   will support my work a lot by doing this and I am  going to show you more of the country. I will show  

You the most epic places here in Argentina so make  sure to subscribe to my channel to not miss out on   any further videos and you also have the option  to follow me on my social media accounts because  

I am always a little bit delayed with my videos  and on social media you will always see where I’m   currently at. This was it for this video. I hope you  enjoyed it and I hope to see you in the next one!

Argentina is currently living a huge crisis of hyperinflation with the worldwide highest inflation rate. This causes problems that you as a tourist will notice as well, which is why in this video I will explain you the best options on how to withdraw cash in Argentina, so that you will be able to pay with Argentinian pesos whenever needed.

I have made a few mistakes and had some struggles with payments during my trip through Argentina and I am going to share my experience and also the best ways to get cash in Argentina. This is going to help you to save lots of money during your trip and also will prepare you for your trip to Argentina.

#argentinatravel #traveltips #pesoargentino #hyperinflation

——————————————————————————————

✈️ Get a 5% discount for your Travel Insurance: https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1tspb

——————————————————————————————

☕️ Buy me a coffee!
Well, it’s not a coffee date but a way to support my journey ❤️
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/aventuralina

——————————————————————————————

🚨 Subscribe to my NEWSLETTER and download your
FREE How to YOUTUBE GUIDE: https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1tuwc