Bariloche Travel Guide: Essential Bus Routes and Tips for Explorers

Let’s talk about the most significant and headache-inducing daily travel this month. My friend and I chose to rely entirely on public buses in Bariloche for two reasons: one, we have driver’s licenses but don’t dare to drive, and two, renting a car for 30 days is quite expensive. For short-term visits, it’s still highly recommended to rent a car.

The scenic photos are all taken along the bus routes, showing the roads we traveled [Facepalm R]. The last photo is an example of a timetable.
– The SUBE card from Buenos Aires can also be used here, but the fare is extremely high (in November, a trip in Buenos Aires cost over 400 pesos, while the starting price here was over 1600, with some trips even costing more than 3000).

Some buses do not allow you to activate the card (recharging through Mercado Pago is inconvenient), leading to an interesting phenomenon: there are always new passengers who don’t have enough money on their cards and ask seated passengers to swipe their cards and pay in cash. An interesting observation is that the local SUBE card in Bariloche, once registered, offers a resident discount, usually around 700 pesos per ride, while non-residents do not get this discount, so the amount paid after swiping varies.

I’ve seen people give 2000, some only 800, and the person who borrowed my card gave 1000.
– When taking the bus here, you must check the timetable! You can follow Google Maps for the location of the stops, but don’t rely on the frequency of the buses, as the information hasn’t been updated in a long time.

When we first arrived, we saw on Google Maps that there was a bus, but after waiting for over half an hour, it didn’t show up. We finally asked a local, who told us to check the mibus website ourselves (website: https://www.mibus.com.ar/bariloche/servicios/). Since we were staying in a rather remote area, there were only three buses before 8 AM, and the next one wouldn’t come until after 12 PM, which explains why we couldn’t catch a bus [Sigh R].

Additionally, the same bus number may not follow the same route; for example, the 50 bus we often took had services between 8 AM and 12 PM, but it didn’t come to our area during that time.
– The bus stops on the timetable are generally named after large areas, and there are many smaller stops that are not detailed, making it easy to end up at the nearest stop according to Google Maps without knowing the stop name, thus unable to check the timetable.

Besides asking people around, there isn’t a better way. However, there are two main bus stations in the city center, Patagonia Shopping Mall and Moreno, which almost cover all the routes. We often used them as references to estimate the distance.
– The actual times on the timetable can vary significantly, so you need to allow extra time!

If there aren’t many buses near your accommodation, you should arrive at least 10 minutes earlier than the scheduled arrival time.

Buses can get significantly delayed when they’re packed with passengers, and we once found ourselves waiting for a grueling 30 minutes. Additionally, the downtown area of Bariloche is surprisingly compact, with scattered towns and hilly terrain, which makes each bus journey feel like an odyssey. We often spent anywhere from 40 minutes to a full hour on each bus ride. This lengthy commute makes it nearly impossible to maintain a fast-paced lifestyle [Facepalm R].