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Buenos Aires seems to be on everyone’s must-visit list these days, for good reason. Seven years and six presidents since the economy last crashed, Argentina’s largest city and capital is experiencing, if not a bona fide renaissance, an exceptionally buzzing, magnetic period. BA (as it’s called by the locals) is a truly multidimensional, modern city, with rich cultural offerings; top-tier dining, shopping and hotel options; a captivating populace, plus things that carry more weight than ever these days: It’s one of the world’s few hot-spot destinations where the American dollar remains relatively strong (at press time, $1 bought 3.16 Argentine pesos) and the residents—including an increasing number of expats from the U.S., U.K., France and Germany, along with neighboring South American countries—continue to provide a friendly, warm and welcoming environment for American travelers.

Much of the port city’s charm lies in its inadvertent juxtapositions. BA is characterized just as much by its 19th-century French aristocratic architecture prevalent in the Recoleta district as by the brightly painted façades in the working-class neighborhood and the artist colony La Boca, across town. On any given block, sophisticated, well-dressed, conservative Argentines of European (mostly German and Italian) descent mix with BA’s ubiquitous punky, artsy teenagers for whom—whether they’re male or female—tight jeans, T-shirts, long hair and mullet haircuts remain in vogue. And as you would expect, there are tango shows to be seen, as well as a tango scene, though the new generation of porteños (“people of the port,” as people of BA call themselves) tend to prefer DJ-spun electronica and techno music over Carlos Gardel. Politics here is particularly unpredictable: a machismo attitude prevails in Argentine culture, yet thanks to Evita’s role during the Perón regime, the country has long been comfortable with the idea of women in power. À la Bill and Hillary Clinton, current president Néstor Kirchner (who himself is eligible for reelection) recently decided to back his wife in the country’s next presidential race. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who ran as the candidate for the left-wing Front for Victory party (a faction of Perónism), just won the election.