San Antonio de Areco, Argentina

Delightful San Antonio de Areco is considered the home of gaucho traditions and hosts the annual Fiesta de la Tradición, the country's most important festival celebrating pampas culture. Despite its modest promotion as a tourist destination, San Antonio has retained a surprisingly genuine feel, augmented by its setting on the banks of a tranquil river, the Río Areco. You may not find the town full of galloping gauchos outside festival week, but you still have a good chance of spotting estancia workers on horseback, sporting traditional berets and rakishly knotted scarves, or of coming across paisanos propping up the bar of a traditional boliche establishment. San Antonio has a prestigious literary connection: the town was the setting for Ricardo Güiraldes' Argentine classic Don Segundo Sombra (1926), a novel that was influential in changing the image of the gaucho from that of an undesirable outlaw to a symbol of national values.