Arequipa, Peru.
The country’s second biggest city after Lima. The city’s center is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, although it isn’t quite as impressive as many other of the World Heritage Sites in Latin America in my humble opinion. Main industries are manufacturing, trade and tourism. It’s a fairly developed city by Latin American standards, with a solid healthcare services and decent infrastructure.
POPULATION: 1,000,000
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RENT AN APARTMENT IN AREQUIPA
$500.00 will do just fine. Personally, I wouldn’t want to live here. It’s kind of unremarkable. But if you love Peru and if you find Lima too chaotic but still want a big city atmosphere, Arequipa could work for you.
BEST BARS & NIGHTLIFE IN AREQUIPA
7/10
There are a lot of bars located around Plaza de Armas, where you can easily find a hostel. There are a number of bars and clubs around here; pretty respectable for a city of this size.
Bars that My Latin Life recommends:
Deja Vu: Can’t vouch for this directly because I haven’t been, but it was recommend to me. If anyone reading this happens to go to Arequipa and hits it up, shoot me an email and let me know how it is.
COST OF LIVING IN AREQUIPA
The following data is from Expatistan, a crowdsourced database of prices and cost of living around the world. In our experience, the data tends to underestimate cost of living, so take the following as the minimum you might need to live here.
*Figures are listed in USD
You’ll need a minimum of $644 USD/month to live in Arequipa, Peru
HOW TO GET TO AREQUIPA
Your best bet is to fly from Lima or Cusco. You could take bus from Cusco but that is not for the faint of heart.
IS AREQUIPA SAFE?
Safety in Arequipa is moderate. The main thing you’ll have to watch out for is taxi drivers – several are criminals and will take your stuff or pull an express kidnapping. Mexico City gets a bad wrap but Arequipa is worse. This is a problem they must deal with. Even locals will warn against taking random taxis. It feels safe to walk around during the day/night in centro. Lots of people, lots of police.
FINAL THOUGHTS
If you have several weeks in Peru it is worth checking out. If you’re just backpacking through and are short on time, you can probably give it a miss. Traffic is quite bad and, although the city is nice enough, it’s not something I’d go out of my way to see (Mexico spoiled me with colonial cities, so I wasn’t blown away). I’ll toss it a 6.5/10.
OVERALL RATING: 6.5/10
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