jjuniper

For her spring semester 2013, my daughter, a junior, is considering Argentina for her study-abroad. Would you recommend Mendoza, Cordoba, or Valparaiso? (Or none of the above?) And why? Thanks!

crellston

I can't comment on Cordoba as I haven't been there and I am from the UK so I am not sure what age a "junior" is. We spent few days in both Valparaiso and Mendoza and, of the two cities, I much prefered Valaparaiso. It is a very scenic town built on a series of hills with, a lot of history and some great restaurants, museums etc. Whilst we had no problems with security at all, there are apparently places where it is not wise to venture. It is on the coast and there are some great beaches a bus ride away.

Mendoza just did not live up to the hype for me. Absolutely nothing wrong with it and fantastic if you are a oenophile but it is a big city. a little too big perhaps. I preferred Salta which seemed more compact and it is surrounded by some of the most amazing scenery I have seen anywhere. Here is a link to our blog with more deatial and photos of the places we visited - South America starts at entry # 56

http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blo...ai/1/tpod.html

Huentetu

If she is choosing somewhere in Argentina, Valparaíso is in Chile. Of the three I would say Cordoba. It is a decent sized city but not mammoth, has lots of easy to get to countryside around it and has plenty of cultural activities.

Fleetsy

I like Mendoza as it has lots to do from adventure activities to culture and is also only 6 hours from Santiago in Chile so she easily visit and Argentina is cheaper! I also like Cordoba!

jjuniper

Thanks very much, everyone!
(Crellston, a college junior is a 3rd-year undergraduate student. The bachelors degree typically takes four years, and a student is often called: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior; or just 1st-yr, 2nd-yr, 3rd-yr, 4th-yr.)

ozontheroad

Links to Spanish schools and instructors in Mendoza (webagents who claim to have schools in Mendoza, but really just advertise and book for the other larger schools, listed in brackets):


Greenfields (aka COINED, aka Andino, aka DonQuijote, aka Cactus, aka languagecourse.net, aka Enforex)
http://www.coined.com.ar/ http://www.coined.com.ar/


ECELA (Chilean chain with branch here, aka Latinimmersion)

http://www.ecela.com/esp/index.php <http://www.ecela.com/esp/index.php&gt;


Intercultural (aka ArgentinaSpanish, aka Patagonia, aka Spanishcourses)
http://www.spanishcourses.com.ar/ <http://www.spanishcourses.com.ar/&gt;


Spanish in Mendoza Argentina (aka SIMA, aka Ana María Troncoso, new website))
http://spanishinmendozaargentina.greenash.net.au/ <http://spanishinmendozaargentina.greenash.net.au/&gt;

For one'on'one or two'on'one more personalized instruction, for more serious students.

For the larger schools, it often depends on the luck of which teacher you end up with. They all have some good teachers, but many stinkers as well. They are more like party schools.


I have worked at (as an English teacher, many of them teach foreign languages to locals as well) and/or studied at all of them. I would strongly recommend SIMA to you (however, Ana is a friend of mine, as are most of the Spanish teachers here in Mendoza)
Good luck on your search!"

For more genuine reviews on anything when you travel, try the Couchsurfing group forums for each community. There is more ownership of the posts there, as most of the people in the groups know or are very familiar with each other.

For example, for the Mendoza forum you could ask questions like this, or search for info. Here is a thread that deals with reviews of Sapnish schools in Mendoza.
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_re...06#gpid2944106

Read more: http://www.frommers.com/community/fo...#ixzz2CmlQyn9V

Read more: http://www.frommers.com/community/fo...#ixzz2CmlJm6lV

ozontheroad

The Couchsurfing site has reorganized their forums to make it more like Twitter, unfortunately, so you can no longer search on them for past info like you can here. This is a pity, as the comments and references there tend to be more reliable and transparent. Also, the thread links have been renumbered.

The thread in my post last month, for various references and comments of language schools and learning Spanish in Mendoza, is now here:

https://www.couchsurfing.org/n/threa...course+2940974