never ever use a card in Argentina I know a way for you to get double your money while you're
here in Argentina here's how much a normal tourist would get for a hundred dollars and
here's how much you can get if you follow our advice hey I'm Emily and I've been traveling
for four years with my partner Danny my cat graham and my dog sombrita we have gone from
the northernmost part in Alaska all the way down here to Argentina when we found out Argentina has
some wild money practices the Argentinian peso has such insecurity with inflation the locals
started buying US dollars to keep their wages safe but once the government found out how much money
is being bought they started making a limit for how many dollars the argentinians can buy every
month as soon as they started doing that a black market emerged I'll go more into this later but
for now let's just find out how to get the best price for your dollar in Argentina before you get
on the plane cross the border or book your bus ticket make sure to get onto Wi-Fi and download
the Western Union app so on the Western Union app you'll have to make an account with your
email and either your credit card which has a high fee which I don't recommend your debit card which
has a lower fee or your banking information which has the lowest fee but could take up to
four days your first transfer is free But after when you use a debit card like we did the fees
Associated will be ten dollars for five hundred dollars and twenty dollars for a thousand once
you're in Argentina you have to find yourself a Western Union location connect to Wi-Fi and
head on to the Western Union app in the Western Union app click menu and then find locations then
you have to enter the city that you're in comma Argentina usually they're post office kiosks or
Western Union offices Google Maps might also work if you have Wi-Fi service or download the
offline map make sure to bring your passport and a copy of your passport to the offices
every time you make a transaction you're basically just sending money from you in the US to you in
Argentina some issues that may occur are they only have a certain amount of pesos or only small bills
like hundreds it's best to get thousands and five hundreds we combat these issues by going to the
office before making the transaction the first time we asked if we could use their Wi-Fi and
also how much money they have in their counter we made the transfer at the office so that we
know that we have the exact amount of pesos that they have but for your first transfer make sure to
take out at least five hundred dollars since it won't have a fee attached to it okay let's make
the transfer click the menu button again then send money enter the amount you want to send cash pick
up and the method of payment this is where you can see what the rate is each day it will advance to
a receiver screen where you enter your name as it is on your passport then you'll choose your
card or bank account it'll ask again for the CVV hit next and you can review what you'll be
sending we didn't record this part because it has our information on it after making sure it looks
correct check the terms and conditions box and hit send the first time they'll ask you for an
address and I just picked a hotel on Google Maps I'm not actually staying there they may ask you
for a copy of your passport and you'll have to sign a receipt the second transfer the app asks
for my passport photo then it had to be verified which took about five to ten minutes to process
after I initiated the transfer if you don't have a car you may want to carry a money belt because
the biggest bill is really only equivalent to about three dollars in U.S so you're gonna have
a whole stack of papers when you're leaving the Western Union which can look crazy and you don't
really want to draw attention to yourself at least a backpack at least bring a backpack to
the Western Union the only place in Argentina this doesn't work as well is El Calafate it's remote it
has less locals than tourists and everything there is expensive don't bank on taking out money there
bring pesos with you or or you may end up standing in this three hour line at the post office so it's
a pretty simple process I know it feels really weird to be carrying around all this money and
always paying in cash but everyone does it it is so much better to be given the appropriate
amount for your money instead of an unrealistic government sanctioned rate the reason why the
black market is called Blue is this is the rate you receive when you trade in a 100 bill with a
blue stripe on it many people call this rate the blue dollar all of these blogs and Vlogs will
tell you to bring thousands of dollars for your trip into Argentina which is not only dangerous
but you're not going to get the same rate that we get at Western Union buying your pesos with your
dollars at a money exchange in a Cueva or on the street is only going to get you around 270 pesos
for your dollar whereas this week on Western Union we received 310 pesos for our dollar
and we did all this without coating the walls of the van with dollar bills either way it's still
better than using a bank ATM which will only give you around 140 pesos for your dollar we did bring
a bit of cash into Argentina because we knew the situation here and it has been really beneficial
if the Western Union is closed or didn't have enough cash for that day we could still pay
at the grocery store or at the ski mountain in cash I've also seen that you can get your money
exchanged at hostels or hotels as well but of course all of these rates are only around 260
pesos for your dollar and if you bring down 20s instead of hundreds even still going to
get a worse rate sometimes we would only get 220 pesos for our dollar we had no idea that this is
a completely different rate for bigger bills as well when citizens in Argentina were sanctioned
by their government to buy only a couple hundred dollars a month they headed to the black market to
buy dollars for twice as much as they're worth and we're buying those pesos the government has tried
so many tactics to try and keep their inflation down and forcing the peso to stay with the dollar
instead of its true value is their current plan knowing all of this I wouldn't say Argentina is
crazy cheap the grocery store and the gas are very inexpensive but if you try and buy anything
imported the price skyrockets and experiences like camping skiing eating out are all the same
as anywhere else in South America don't let the cash and the inflation discourage you this is
an amazing country with very friendly people and great food I hope this helps more travelers make
their way down here to Argentina if you have any questions or like this video let me know in the
comments if you would love some more travel tips make sure to subscribe and ring the bell so that
you can see more of us on your feed thank you so much for watching and we'll see you guys next time
thank you