We just finished a 12 night trip to Argentina and Chile planned using a lot of great tips found here! We used Kayak to book our flights (I had price alerts for about 2 months, total cost ~$1,300, the single most expensive item), Bungolow.com for our hotels (I estimate we saved ~40% on gorgeous hotels), and then just got taxis from the airport stands and arranged any tours directly through the hotel.

We flew into Buenos Aires for our first 6 nights. Our first two nights we stayed in San Telmo and the next 4 in Palermo Soho. We stayed at the Clubhouse which was a very unique super small boutique hotel. So many great food and shopping options I don't know where to begin. La Cabrera and Don Julio had delicious steaks. We loved the lunch at Mott. We went on the Time Out wine tour which was a blast and were able to try things at several restaurants. We also did a bus tour to see the city. I definitely recommend MALBA for great art. Overall we ate and drank like the Portenos and relaxed.

We then flew to Mendoza out of AEP. AEP is so much closer than EZE and cheaper by taxi. We stayed at the InterContinental for 3 nights and was everything we expected from the InterContinental. There is even a small casino on premises where we won enough playing roulette to pay for dinner 1 night! Anna Bistro was our favorite restaurant in town. So cute! We did the wine visits on bike through Mr. Hugo which was fun We also did rafting through Argentina Rafting which was a blast.

Our next stop was Valparaiso for 1 night, which we took the bus from Mendoza to Santiago, and then immediately took a separate bus to Valparaiso. Not the best move as it was a lot of busses, but was worth it. We were debating between staying at Hotel Zero or Hotel 17, and ended up at Hotel Zero and had an amazing water view. We did a lot of hilly walking and went up the funicular. We definitely felt like "Valpo" had a lot of character.

Our last two nights were in Santiago. We decided to make this the shortest portion of the trip given what we had read on the forum. We stayed at Lastarria Boutique Hotel which is a really incredible hotel in the Lastarria neighborhood. We felt perfectly safe in Lastarria, and had a great 3-course lunch at Interludio. We did the bus tour to get a feel for the city and visited the Pablo Nerudo house, and Museum of Remembrance which was remarkable. We also had an amazing seafood dinner at Aqui Esta Coco.

Overall it was a fabulous trip, albeit a bit exhausting! But it was a great primer for our first trip to South America. Next stop, Colombia!