Travel: 5 very gay places you have to visit in Buenos Aires
The Nomadic Boys, travellers Stefan and Sebastian, review Buenos Aires’ best gay bars.
Buenos Aires is one of our favourite gay destinations in the world with a very active gay scene, particularly across Palermo.
There’s a blur between what constitutes a gay bar, disco, club, café and even restaurant.
One thing’s for certain, they party late here, with places getting busy after midnight.
Sitges is one of the oldest gay bars in Buenos Aires, with some awesome drag shows.
Like most places, though it’s called a “bar” it doesn’t get busy until after midnight when the drag shows start.
Watching their drag show is also the best way to polish up some of your Porteño Spanish slang.
Porteños is the name given to the people of Buenos Aires, which comes from its history as a port town.
Sitges is open every Wednesday to Sunday from 11pm and their most popular evening is the Julepe party on Saturdays.
Contramano is the place to come and meet the Porteño bears.
The atmosphere is extremely friendly and we love the pop/Latino hits they play.
The crowd here is mainly in their 30s and over.
Entry fee includes a free drink: the popular one all the cool kids have is called Speed con vodka. Speed is Argentinian red bull.
Contramano bear night is on Friday to Sunday evenings and as starts from midnight.
3. Glam Disco
Glam Disco is the place to come and party with the young pretty boys of Buenos Aires.
The crowd is younger than Contramano, usually in their 20s/30s.
It has the perfect mix of a cool sexy crowd, electronic/latin pop music, spread over 2 rooms and just a super fun gay atmosphere.
Glam is open only on Thursday and Saturday evening.
4. Pride Cafe
If like us you get tired of the late nights in Buenos Aires and you prefer a day thing, Pride Café in San Telmo is the ideal place to hangout.
Pride is a gay café open daily until 8pm. Although it’s a café, it’s more a place to come for cocktails as well as some killer brownies.
The best time to come is on a Sunday when the nearby San Telmo antiques market is taking place and the disco bunnies from the previous evening come to hangout.
What’s the first thing you think about when you come to Buenos Aires other than Madonna’s Evita? Tango!
At its inception in the 1880s, tango was originally danced between two men in the back alleys of Buenos Aires.
Since the dance became commercialized, the same sex element was lost until 2002 when queer tango schools were set up.
A milonga is a dance hall where people come to dance tango and there are two milongas in Buenos Aires which offer gay tango evenings:
- La Marshall: has a class every Friday evening at 10:30pm with dancing from 11:30pm until late into the night.
- Tango Queer: has classes every Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 8:30pm followed by an evening of dancing into the night. The Tuesday evening takes place at the Maldita.
Nomadic Boys are gay couple Stefan and Sebastien, who have been travelling the world after leaving their ives in London. They are currently travelling around South America and you can read more on their blog.
