This is part of Reason's 2025 summer travel issue. Click here to read the rest of the issue.
The suggestion that Argentina could be the home of a self-described libertarian president would have seemed far-fetched, to say the least, only a few years ago. Yet today Javier Milei's Buenos Aires is the city where libertarian history is happening.
Buenos Aires wasn't obviously destined to become a beacon of liberty. The city was abandoned not long after the Spanish founded it in 1536. Only after its resettlement in 1580 did the city slowly develop, but not until the 18th century would it flourish as a trade center.