Why Tourists Love Trying to Escape Buenos Aires

Philip Vuong stands in a meth lab muttering calculations to himself. In front of him, a board hangs on the wall with a math problem, ostensibly disguised as a chemical formula, scribbled across it. On his left, a countdown clock flashes 53:50 in red. Meanwhile, I’m below, scooping up shards of Walter White’s famed “blue ice” and dumping it on a scale, trying to get the weight equal to the number of the formula he just solved. When the exact amount is reached, we pause, holding our breath. A cabinet door springs open revealing our next clue: the next step in finding our way out of this Breaking Bad-themed escape room at Eureka Desafio de Escape.

This is one of 60 escape rooms that Vuong, a math tutor from Palo Alto, California, will attempt to play during a month-long trip to Buenos Aires.

Vuong is an escape room tourist. A growing travel trend, escape room tourism can mostly be categorized in two ways: those who plan trips to destinations specifically to play escape rooms, and those who end up spending a significant amount of time playing escape rooms, regardless of the initial motivation for their trip.

Increasingly, these tourists are making their way to Argentina, which boasts 362 escape rooms, the most of any South American country. And Buenos Aires has a whopping 195 individual escape rooms — the most of any South American city.

Escape games — also known as puzzle rooms — began in the early 2000s in Japan, spread to Europe in the 2010s and then took off globally. Typically, a group of players is locked in a room for at least an hour, where they must solve puzzles and use various kinds of reasoning to open locks to escape the room and win. If the game isn’t solved within the time limit or the team opts to use the emergency exit button, they lose. Themes can range from horror, like the Official Saw Escape in Las Vegas, to fantasy, like the Lord of the Rings-themed escape room in 60 Minutes Escape Room in Bucharest. Other popular themes include prison escapes, laboratories and heists.

Good escape rooms have compelling storylines, innovative puzzles and feel truly immersive. Bad ones can lack complexity, have a lackluster setting or worn props, or have inaccurate puzzle solutions.

Located on six continents and in at least 117 countries, escape rooms are usually located in tourist centers. Escape room tourism researchers at the Universidad de Sevilla found that globally, tourists (both domestic and international) make up 34.8% of escape room patronage.

Given the nature of escape rooms, avid players eventually have to travel — if a city has 20 rooms, it doesn’t take long for a gamer to solve them all. And building new rooms takes time: Each requires a storyline, design and construction.

“My place right now is only five months old, but 20% [of clients] are tourists from other countries, and 20% are tourists from Argentina,” says escape room owner Adrian Bojko, who runs Escape Obligado, located in Buenos Aires’ Microcentro neighborhood. Bojko has a background in electronics and engineering, which he’s utilized to design his escape rooms with names like “The Atomic Reactor” and the “House of Spirits.”

He thinks Buenos Aires is particularly popular because it offers so many third-generation escape games. “First generation was only padlocks and basic games. Second generation was electronics and padlocks. Third was events triggered by something … You can touch something and the lights change, so there are sounds or secret passages, more like a complete experience,” he says. Sensors can also activate sights and scents as well. Bojko describes it as being like magic. “It’s a more complete experience,” he says. Another example: Vuong says the weight-activated lock in the Breaking Bad room was something he’d never seen before. All of these attributes help to immerse players in the game, and invest in the unfolding fantasy that much more.

Vuong isn’t Bojko’s only high-profile gamer. Escape Obligado has also hosted legend Santiago Onel, a patent examiner based in the Netherlands who’s played 600 escape rooms in 14 countries. He’s made seven trips to Buenos Aires, typically staying from a day to a week, playing up to seven games each visit.

So what makes Buenos Aires a hotspot for escape room tourism?

Onel cites the “positive development” he’s experienced in the escape room scene in Buenos Aires. When he first started playing in the city, the rooms had basic decorations and locks — and storylines. But now, he says, all of these aspects have significantly improved. Vuong, who has also played in Uruguay, Chile and Brazil — around 150 escape rooms — agrees: “This is the best city so far I’ve been to for escape rooms. There’s a fanatical love with Argentines and expats [for escape rooms].”

In addition to the sheer quantity of games, another reason Vuong enjoys playing in Buenos Aires is because it’s affordable — thanks to the favorable dollar-to-peso exchange rate. He likes to play in groups of three, and he often pays for the other two players who join him — that can quickly become expensive. “In LA it’s about $200 or $300 for everyone to play. Here you can play for $20 (6,000 pesos) for a group of three,” he says.

Before arriving in a city, Vuong posts in online escape room forums to recruit others to play with him. Generally, one or two people will respond to his posts, but in Buenos Aires, he was overwhelmed with likes and messages. “I’ve never seen this much of a response,” he says.

Word of mouth is also key to a growing scene where “only the fittest survive,” he explains. After arriving in Argentina, he learned that a new room’s success was tied to the approval of the Escapists, a group of local players that drives demand for escape rooms in the city.

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The Escapistas (“Escapists”) are a Facebook group of 6,000 members, comprising players and escape room owners in Buenos Aires, who meet to talk about their shared passion. “Occasionally … groups of 20 people or 10 get together to play escape rooms,” explains Escapista member Vera Cuman, a nanny who’s played 70 escape games since December, and regularly plays with other members of the Escapista Whatsapp group (a smaller, 300-member group comprising the larger group’s most avid players).

These self-described “escape room junkies” are the tastemakers in the Buenos Aires escape room scene, weighing in with opinions on new games. And when group members don’t like a particular game, its existence is often short-lived. It’s a space where hardcore escape room tourists, including Vuong and Onel, find recommendations or other players.

The feedback posted also helps escape room owners make changes or improvements to their rooms. Bojko, for example, is now making provisions for international tourists — like offering English language play.

The city offers up both independent rooms and large chains, many of which, like Juegos Mentales and Escape Games, were pioneers in the escape room scene. The owner of Juegos Mentales pushed a lot and franchised, Bojko explains, and the owner of Escape Games created a lot of franchises.

The scene continues to thrive — with myriad games to choose from, a low price tag and a community of enthusiastic players. “[Argentina] is the only country where there’s no shortage of people who are interested in playing … and there’s no shortage of rooms,” Vuong says. He enjoyed his time playing escape rooms in Buenos Aires so much that he nearly decided to stay for another month.

Do you enjoy playing escape rooms? Tell us about your favorite game or room.