3 Airbnbs, 1 Study Base: How We Chose Where to Stay for a Spanish Course in Buenos Aires

TL;DR

• What a study base needs: 2-3 blocks to school, a real desk and rolling chair, a sofa for a power nap, a hood and heating in every room you use.
• Why 700 meters was too far: Twice a day, with traffic lights, rain and a Buenos Aires winter, “close” wasn’t close enough.
• Your address sets your routine: We google mapped the supermarkets, fruterías, carnicerías and our potential lunch spots before booking.
• The 2-3 day test stay: Book until Sunday, live it like a school week, then extend.
• First 24 hours checklist: Desk, heating, drafts, kitchen, drainage, noise, Wi-Fi and mattress.
• Reading Airbnb listings: A “Dedicated Workspace” tag often just means a dining table with a wooden or plastic chair, and a 4.9 rating doesn’t mean study-friendly.
• The wrong move: Our study base flat was booked by someone else, so we needed a temporary flat to bridge the gap. The charming one we picked had no desk and no heater, and cost us 1.5 cold weeks and a productivity hit.
• Weekly vs monthly discounts: At 28 nights, our nightly rate dropped by roughly 20-22% vs the short-stay rate.
• Budget for 1 forced move: The best flats get booked fast, and every move resets your routine, costing you mental bandwidth.
• What we’d do again: 2 cuadras from school, test stays ending on a Sunday, lock in the base, extend 1 week at a time.
• What we’d do differently: Stick to the spec, ask about heating upfront, ask about other units early, test a second option.

Where You Sleep Decides How You Learn

Our test apartment on arrival: New skyscraper, modern flat, high floor with a spectacular view. We were sure we’d book it for a month. Then we walked to class and decided otherwise.

We took a 10-week intensive Spanish course in Buenos Aires during the second trimester. Over those 10 weeks we stayed in 3 different Airbnbs and moved 3 times. One flat became our study base. The first one (we thought “that must be it”) was too far and didn’t pass our “work-friendly” test. Another one we mostly just tolerated, until we moved back to base.

We treat housing like any other structural choice: Define the spec, test before committing, keep a fallback. This post shows how, and ends with what we would do differently. It is for anyone taking a language course for a few weeks, or testing a city as a regular base (e.g. working digital nomads or people living on trifecta) on a short stay.

What a Study Base Needs (And Many Airbnbs Lack)

Most Airbnbs are built for a weekend of sightseeing, not for digital nomads working 8h a day or in our case 10 weeks of grammar. A flat that photographs well can still fail as a place to study. We came up with these specs:

Requirement	Why it matters
2-3 blocks from school	You walk it at least twice a day, every day. Close means no planning & no weather exposure.
A real desk and ideally a rolling office chair; “work-friendly”	Homework happens daily. A dining table and a wooden/plastic chair hurt our backs after a few hours.
A sofa for daytime rest	A power nap after class without moving to the bed, and a second place to relax.
A cooktop with an extractor hood	If you cook most meals, smoke and smell stay out of the bed and the sofa.
Heating in every room you use	Most split ACs can heat. In a studio, 1 is enough. In a 1-bedroom, you want one in each room.

If a flat has no hood and you cook a lot, at least check for a window next to the stove. Otherwise ask yourself: “Can you tolerate the smoke drifting across the living room and the bed before it finds its way out?”

Why 700 Meters Was Too Far

Our first Airbnb was a short test stay about 700 meters from the school. On paper, that is a 7-minute walk. In practice, there is more to it.

You walk it at least twice a day, every day. There are traffic lights every few blocks. Not wanting to sound picky, but once it rains, every red light feels twice as long. We arrived in the Buenos Aires winter. Walking 200 meters in the cold is fine. Walking 3 times that distance is a different experience. And with a pregnancy, we didn’t know whether walking would get harder over the following weeks.

At 2 cuadras from school, going home to drop off our school things before lunch was a no-brainer. From 700 meters, we would have carried them to lunch instead.

At 2-3 blocks, the walk stops being a decision. You don’t mind it at all, because it is barely one.

Your Address Sets Your Routine

Wherever you stay will dictate your daily routine. So why leave it to chance?

Even after shortlisting flats within 2-3 cuadras (blocks) of the school, the exact address still matters. Before booking, we opened Google Maps and checked what was within walking distance:

• Grocery stores, especially Carrefour Express and Día, which carry most of what you need
• A frutería, ideally one that also sells meat
• A carnicería (butcher)
• Cafés and lunch places (tip: browse the menus/pictures of potential restaurants you may eat multiple times a week)
• A gym, if training is part of your routine (SmartFit was very good; has Technogym equipment)

We shopped at 2-3 different places to cook at home. We also carried water, 6-liter bottles of it. If you can reach a carnicería or a grocery store at 150 meters, why pick the flat where it is 350 meters? Per trip it sounds like nothing. Multiplied by every round-trip, every week, it isn’t.

Plan Around the Meal You Eat Out

Stability was one of our success factors. Our goal was to learn Spanish and last as long as possible, that’s why we cut out as many daily decisions as we could. Lunch was a major one.

We cooked most meals at home and ate lunch out every day after class. So we planned around it: Not a specific dish, but the ingredients we wanted. For us, that meant meat, mostly pork, since my partner can’t eat beef. A search for shawarma led us to a tacos place 3 blocks from school:

You pick your meat and then a long list of sides: Hummus, baba ganoush, guacamole, cooked berenjena (aubergine) and zanahoria (carrot), salsa criolla, onions, tomato. Plus a spicy house sauce my Thai partner loved.

We went there almost every day. Same meal = same energy in the afternoon. It worked, so we saw no reason to change it. If you’d rather experiment and try something new every day, that’s totally valid. We had a clear goal, so we chose “boring” for predictable focus.

The 2-3 Day Test Stay

Photos and reviews tell you how a flat looks. 2-3 nights tell you how it works. Your priorities might be different from the average tourist. So we never booked a long stay in a flat we hadn’t slept in.

1. Book short, ending on a Sunday. Weekend nights tend to get booked first. If your test stay already covers the weekend, nobody else can book those nights, and you won’t be hunting for a weekend flat at short notice if you can’t extend.
2. Live in it like a school week. Cook a real meal. Sit at the desk for an hour. Walk to class at class time. Then ask yourself: Would you still be productive here in week 4, on a rainy afternoon, with homework due?
3. Decide fast, and book in one go. If it works, extend immediately for as long as it is free. Longer bookings on Airbnb also give you better nightly rates.
4. Keep a second option. If the flat you like is already booked in a few weeks, test another one for 2-3 nights. You end up with 2 options.

How It Played Out for Us

We arrived late in the week and booked the 700-meter flat until Sunday, with the option to extend. When we walked to Vamos Academy to inquire on their classes, we realized it was a bit too far, and cooking without a hood was too much hassle for a long stay. So we moved to a flat 2 blocks from the school. That was our 2nd attempt flat, and we booked 1 week, Sunday to Sunday, to cover our first week of class and avoid hunting for weekend stays.

Within days, it was clear this flat worked. It was still free for another 1.5-2 weeks, so we booked those right away. That covered us until the end of our third week of class.

Good Flats Don’t Wait for You

In our experience, most Airbnbs get booked around 1-2 weeks before the stay. Dates within the next 7 days carry a high risk that someone books them. So by the time your test stay ends, the chance that a good flat is still free for the next 4 weeks straight is low.

Over time, we grew into our study base flat. Now imagine: You decide to extend your Spanish course, and someone has just booked your favorite Airbnb for a few nights. As a long-stay guest, it feels like the flat should be yours. It isn’t. That is the friction you budget for. You will probably have to move at least once.

We also avoided moving in the middle of a study week. It eats into your class, homework and energy. A move on a Sunday is ideal.

What to Check in the First 24 Hours

Here is a list of what we tested on our test stay:

• Desk and chair: Sit and work for an hour. Is the height right? Are you free of backache? Do you like studying/working there?
• Heating: Turn on every AC in heat mode. Does each room you use get warm (or cold if in summer)?
• Windows: Feel for drafts. Old frames leak cold air.
• Kitchen: Cook a full meal. Do they have the appliances to cook your favorite dish? Does the hood pull the smoke out?
• Water and drainage: Run the shower and the sink at the same time. Drain a full bath. Does your bathroom get flooded? 2 of our apartments had this. But we thought the pro’s outweigh this con.
• Noise: Listen at night from the bed. Do you hear street or car noise? Do your neighbors jump around loudly? In our experience, the latter is manageable. My partner turned it into Spanish practice and politely raised it with our neighbor.
• Wi-Fi: Test it on a video call, then stream something in the evening, when the whole building is online.
• The walk: Walk to school and see what’s on the way. Walk to the closest grocery stores, coffee and frutería, etc.
• The mattress: Sleep at least one night before you extend to avoid surprises. Waiting 1 night before extending usually doesn’t cost you the flat.

Fun fact:
Drainage in Buenos Aires flats can be temperamental. In multiple flats, using water from 2 sources at once flooded our bathroom floor, as both drained into the same spot. Once, my partner drained a full bath and the water came back up through the floor drain.

The prevention: Let water out in batches. Expect some friction here, worst case message the host on Airbnb to call the maintenance person.

Reading Airbnb Listings for What They Leave Out

A listing is marketing. Hosts show the view, the balcony and the styled living room.

1. Look for the desk, not the “Dedicated Workspace” tag on Airbnb. Many hosts on Airbnb tick the workspace tag if they have a table. If you don’t see a proper desk and chair in the photos, assume there is none. We skip such listings for long stays if we want to be productive.

Many owners furnish their flats for vacationers. That’s their choice, and I respect it. But a flat that isn’t “laptop-friendly” won’t get my long stays, and long-stay guests are what keep occupancy rates and property yields high.

2. Count the ACs. Check that there is a unit in every room you will use. Sometimes a 1-bedroom unit has only an AC in the living room. In winter, this matters more than the view. You might be freezing at night.

3. Read ratings in context. A 4.9 tells you guests were happy. It doesn’t tell you whether those guests were studying 4 hours a day or sightseeing for 3 nights.

Price as a Signal: Studio vs 1-Bedroom per sqm

We compared prices with an investor’s eye. Rental yields across similar units tend to sit within 10-25% of each other. A 45 m² 1-bedroom is about 28% larger than a 35 m² studio, but it won’t earn 28% more rent. Something like 15-20% more is more realistic.

So when a modern studio with many good reviews was priced only around 10% below a comparable 1-bedroom, we read it as a signal: The unit is in demand and probably a good investment for its owner. Combined with strong photos and reviews, that was a good sign.

Size on paper can also mislead. A 1-bedroom with more square meters (based on pictures) can feel cramped. A well-laid-out studio is 1 open room, and for 2 people studying at home, that can work better. Some monoambientes “zone” the bedroom with wood planks or a wardrobe. Some use a glass-wall, making the room look larger.

The Wrong Move: A Charming Flat, But Not a Study Base

As that stay was coming to an end, someone else booked our base for 1 week. To bridge the gap, we needed another flat for about 1.5 weeks.

We picked a classic old-style apartment with a rating of around 4.9. Guests loved its character. We usually stay in modern places, and we like timeless design, so we wanted to try it.

We knew it had no real desk. The flat looked premium in the photos, so we assumed the dining table would do. It didn’t.

The character came with the age of the building:

• A bathroom with an old bathtub and sink
• Windows that let cold air in around the frames
• Old interior doors and wooden floors that creaked with every step

The bedroom and dining area were one room with a door and 1 AC that could heat. At first it ran weak. After we messaged the host, it warmed up within 15 minutes. The bathroom and kitchen had no heating at all, and with the drafty windows, they were cold. We asked for a portable heater. There wasn’t one available. Apparently, most guests hadn’t needed one.

A couple of days in, the host asked us to open the windows whenever we left, to prevent condensation. We understood she was protecting her property. But in winter, with no heater, it was a tough combination for us.

For many guests, this flat is exactly what they want. For 2 people studying 4 hours a day, one of them pregnant, in winter, it was the wrong fit. A 4.9 rating can’t tell you that.

We stayed the full period and counted the days until we could go back to our base.

Getting Our Study Base Back

We had pre-booked our study base flat for 4 weeks after the other guest’s stay, with a heavy discount for the longer stay. Our idea was to lock in the place another time to reduce Airbnb hunting fatigue, so we could focus on learning Spanish. We also asked the host, a rental management company, whether they could keep us in the flat through the booked gap, so we wouldn’t need the temporary flat at all. They couldn’t. Worth asking anyway. Some hosts will offer a returning guest another unit, or move a booking around for someone who wants to stay long.

The company managed several flats in the building. After a ceiling leak, they offered us a unit on another floor. We declined, and stayed despite the ceiling leak. The Airbnb listing we stayed in had not shown any desk. First of all, we didn’t know whether the one they offered had one, and secondly we didn’t want to pack and move on a gamble. The desk and rolling office chair were a surprise on arrival.

Listings can undersell as much as they oversell.

The irony of our study base

Moving Back on a School Day

The return fell on a school day, with check-out shortly before class. We had pre-booked a luggage storage near the base flat for that morning, dropped our bags on the way, and walked into class on time. Not ideal, but it worked.

Extending 1 Week at a Time

Our original plan ended at 8 weeks. After that, every extension was my partner’s call.

She passed every Friday exam. That is not a given. In our experience, many students drop out around weeks 4-6, when the past tenses arrive. She has a high work ethic, though with a pregnancy on top, I couldn’t predict how far she would get.

So we kept it flexible. About a week before each check-out, I extended by 1 more week. If she wanted to keep studying, we were covered. If she couldn’t continue, we would simply stay 1-1.5 weeks longer without school.

The only reason not to stay too long without class was the mattress. Decent, not great. Everything else ticked every box: 2 blocks from Vamos, 3 blocks from our daily lunch.

As the course progressed, we repeated this process twice, the same way: Wait until about a week before check-out, then extend by another week. The week after that, someone else had already blocked it. That’s how fast popular Airbnbs become unavailable.

Weekly vs Monthly Discounts: The Price of Flexibility

Many Airbnb hosts set a discount for stays of 7 nights or more, and a bigger one for 28 nights or more. Booking week by week means giving up part of that monthly discount. That is the price of not knowing how long you will stay.

On our favorite study base flat, the nightly rate dropped roughly like this, compared with a short stay:

Booking length	Price per night
Short stay (3-4 nights)	Base rate
1 week	~8% less
2 weeks	~15% less
28 nights	About 20-22% less

These are rough figures from our own bookings. Every host sets their own discount structure, so check the price for each booking length before you commit.

For us, the trade was worth it. Committing to a month we might not use would have cost more (mental friction) than the discount saved. Once we were sure about both the flat and the progress on our Spanish course, we booked the longest block available.

Budget for 1 Forced Move

Short-term rentals give you optionality. The downside: The best flats get booked fast, often by someone else right when you want to extend.

Item	What to budget	What it cost us
Money	A few nights at a higher rate, often at short notice	Short-stay rates instead of our long-stay discount
Time	“Half a day” to pack, move and unpack	2 extra moves: Out of our base, and back in
Logistics	Luggage storage if check-out and check-in don’t line up. Another option: Book the next flat with 1 overlapping night.	An early start on a class day: Check out, store our bags, then straight to school
Study	A weaker week if the temporary flat lacks a desk	1.5 weeks of homework at a dining table. We both also didn’t do the same amount of homework during that stay, which affected our progress and mood swings.
Comfort	No heating in some rooms, and drafty windows	A cold bathroom and kitchen in winter.

We could literally say that we became masters at changing apartments. Within about 5 weeks, we moved 3 times, once on a school morning before class. You start to remember every sequence by heart and you might still forget something.

Every move also resets your routine. You schlepp along everything you bought but haven’t finished yet: Trivial things like peanut butter, oatmeal, chimichurri, the things that last more than a few days. Then you start over: Find the closest supermarket, a frutería, a café, your new walking routes. Just as you’ve settled in, you move again. It costs time, but even more mental bandwidth.

What We Would Do Again

1. 2 cuadras from school. In the morning, the commute took us 5 min door-to-door. After class, dropping our school things at home before lunch was a no-brainer, even in the rain.
2. Test stays ending on a Sunday. The skyscraper flat showed us in 3 nights what a full month would have taught us the hard way. And we never had to hunt for a flat over a weekend. Switching apartments on Sunday also avoids the hassle of doing it on a class day.
3. Map the routine before booking. With a Día/Carrefour Express, a frutería and a carnicería 1-2 blocks away, schlepping 6-liter water bottles was totally manageable. The tacos place 3 blocks from school made lunch one decision less, every day.
4. Lock in the base once it works. Once we knew the flat, we booked 4 weeks in one go, at the long-stay rate. Less Airbnb hunting means more time for topics like the pretérito imperfecto.
5. Extend 1 week at a time. About a week before each check-out, I booked 1 more week (with Sunday as check-out date). My partner’s progress set the pace.

What We Would Do Differently (Or Just Better)

Most of it worked. Some of it we would tighten.

1. Stick to the spec, even for a short gap. We knew the temporary flat had no desk and booked it anyway, trusting the photos and the rating. 1.5 weeks without a proper study setup was harder than expected. A short stay still needs to pass the spec.
2. Ask about heating before booking. In winter, we would now check the photos for an AC in every room we use. If a room has none, we’d ask the host upfront whether a calentador (portable heater) is available. One message would have saved us a cold week and a half.
3. Ask the host about other units early. Our base was run by a management company with several flats in the building. They had even offered us one after the ceiling leak. As soon as we knew we liked our base, we should have asked whether a similar unit was free for the gap early on. Switching to another unit in the same building means no gap at all, and a freshly cleaned flat as a small bonus.
4. Test a second option in parallel. Our gap before returning to base was 1.5 weeks. Instead of 1 temporary flat, we could have tested 2, for 4-5 nights each. It would have diversified our risk (of picking a flat that doesn’t work for us), and we’d have come back with 2 more known options. The cost would simply be 3 moves instead of 2.