Spain · Canary Islands
Lanzarote
Europe's strangest holiday island: a national park of live volcanic ground, and one artist's vision imposed on everything else you can see.
Lanzarote is the most volcanic-looking of the Canary Islands, a low landscape of black and ochre cinder cones, lava fields and whitewashed cube villages. Timanfaya National Park is the centrepiece, where a road winds through eruptions that ran for six years in the 1730s and the ground is still hot enough to cook over. The island's other signature is the artist César Manrique, whose lava-tube auditorium, clifftop lookouts and cactus garden set the rules everyone else builds by: no high-rise, no billboards, white walls.
Suggested stay
4–7 days
Language
Spanish
Currency
EUR
Timezone
UTC+1
Why you'll love Lanzarote
Timanfaya A coach road threads a landscape left by the 1730s eruptions, where guides fire dry brush from a pit and pour water down a borehole to raise a jet of steam.
Manrique everywhere The island's lookouts, gardens and lava-tube concert hall are all one artist's work, and the low white architecture around them is his doing too.
Wine from ash In La Geria vines grow one to a hollow scooped in black lapilli, each ringed by a crescent of dry stone against the trade winds.
Beaches and wind Sheltered south-coast sand at Papagayo, and on the north coast the huge cliff-backed strand at Famara where the surf schools and kiters go.
Best time to visit
all year
22-30° days
28.963° N, 13.548° W
UTC+1 · Atlantic/Canary
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Weather & when to go to Lanzarote
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best all year
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Lanzarote
No bad season: this is one of the mildest year-round climates in Europe, and the catch is wind rather than weather. The trades blow most days and hardest in summer, when exposed north-coast beaches sandblast, and the Atlantic stays bracing to swim in all year. Occasional calima days turn the sky milky with Saharan dust, and Timanfaya's queues are longest at midday in the winter holidays.
Top things to do in Lanzarote
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Timanfaya National Park - the Ruta de los Volcanes
scenic nature wildlife 👍 PopularThe park's own coaches run the only road across the Montañas del Fuego, a slow loop through lava fields left by eruptions that lasted from 1730 to 1736. At the visitor centre guides drop brush into a pit to watch it catch and pour water into a borehole to raise a geyser of steam.
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Jameos del Agua - Manrique inside a lava tube
culture arts nature wildlife 👍 PopularA collapsed section of the Corona lava tube turned into gardens, a white pool and a concert auditorium in the rock. In the dark saltwater lagoon live tiny blind albino crabs found nowhere else on earth.
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Cueva de los Verdes - walk the raw lava tube
nature wildlife history ⭐ Highly recommendedThe same tube further up the flow, left unlit and rough: a guided walk through chambers where islanders hid from Barbary raiders, ending at an illusion that has fooled visitors for decades. Wear proper shoes.
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Fundación César Manrique - the house in the lava bubbles
culture arts history ⭐ Highly recommendedManrique's own home at Tahíche sits on a lava flow with its lower rooms inside five volcanic bubbles, linked by tunnels and lit through openings in the roof. Upstairs holds his paintings and the plans that shaped the island.
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La Geria - vines in volcanic hollows
food scenic 👍 PopularThe hillsides here are pitted with thousands of hollows dug into black lapilli, each holding a single Malvasía vine behind a crescent of dry stone. The bodegas along the road pour the wine that comes of it.
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Mirador del Río - the cliff-edge lookout
scenic culture artsManrique cut a viewing room into the top of the Famara cliffs, invisible from outside, with curved windows over the salt pans of the Río channel and the low island of La Graciosa beyond.
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Playa de Papagayo - the sheltered southern coves
scenic nature wildlifeA string of pale, cliff-backed coves inside the Los Ajaches protected area, reached by a dusty track east of Playa Blanca. The water is calm and clear, facilities are minimal, and the sand is the best on the island.
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Famara - the cliff-backed surf beach
surfing windsportsA vast sweep of sand under the Famara massif on the north coast, where Lanzarote learns to surf and the kites go up in the afternoon. Currents are strong and the beach is wide open to swell, so swim with care.
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El Golfo and Los Hervideros - the west coast lava shore
scenic nature wildlifeA half-sunk crater on the shoreline holds a startling green lagoon behind a black sand bar, and a few minutes up the road the sea explodes through blowholes and caves cut into the lava cliffs at Los Hervideros.
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Teguise - the old capital and its Sunday market
history shoppingThe island's capital until the 19th century, a grid of white lanes, convents and one of the oldest churches in the Canaries, with a piracy museum in the castle on the hill above. On Sunday mornings the whole town becomes a market.
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Jardín de Cactus - Manrique's last big work
culture arts scenicRows of cacti from around the world terraced into an old lapilli quarry at Guatiza, with a restored windmill above and volcanic rock shaped into steps and walls. The final project he completed on the island.
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Playa Chica and the Museo Atlántico - diving the south coast
diving culture artsA small bay in Puerto del Carmen drops straight into walls and canyons and is one of the most-dived spots in the Canaries. Off Playa Blanca, an underwater sculpture museum stands on the sea floor, reachable by divers only.
Best areas to stay in Lanzarote
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Puerto del Carmen
First-time visitors $$Long promenade resort with a working harbour
Explore hotels in Puerto del Carmen →
Playa Blanca
Families and couples $$Newer, tidier resort at the south tip
Explore hotels in Playa Blanca →
Costa Teguise
Windsurfers and families $$Low-rise planned resort with windsurf bays
Explore hotels in Costa Teguise →
Arrecife
Town over resort $Working island capital around a tidal lagoon
Explore hotels in Arrecife →
La Caleta de Famara
Surfers $Sand-street surf village under the cliffs
Explore hotels in La Caleta de Famara →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Lanzarote
Getting to & around Lanzarote
Getting there
Fly into Lanzarote Airport between Arrecife and Puerto del Carmen, then it is a short hop by bus, taxi or hire car to any of the resorts.
Flight
Lanzarote Airport (César Manrique-Lanzarote) (ACE)
The terminal sits on the south coast, roughly five kilometres from Arrecife and about the same from Puerto del Carmen. Hire cars are collected on site, guaguas run to both towns in around a quarter of an hour, and Playa Blanca or Costa Teguise are half an hour or so by road.
Ferry
Playa Blanca
Fast ferries cross from Corralejo on Fuerteventura in about half an hour, several times a day.
Ferry
Arrecife
Inter-island ferries connect Gran Canaria and Tenerife, plus a slow mainland crossing from southern Spain.
Cruise
Puerto de los Mármoles
Cruise ships dock at the commercial port just north of Arrecife, a short taxi ride from the capital.
Getting around
Hire car
Effectively essential. The island is small and the roads are quiet, so most of the sights can be strung together in a couple of days.
TBC
Bus (guagua)
Arrecife is the hub and the resort routes are frequent, but the volcanic sights and the north are poorly served.
TBC
Taxi
Easy to find at the airport and in the resorts and metered; fine for short hops, steep for crossing the island.
TBC
Bicycle
A serious road-cycling island with a big winter training scene, and rental bikes everywhere; the wind is the hard part.
TBC
Walking
Resort promenades and the old centre of Teguise are walkable; nothing between towns is.
Free
Day trips from Lanzarote
La Graciosa
Full dayCar-free island
The eighth Canary island has sand streets, no tarmac and one village, Caleta de Sebo. Most people hire a bike or walk out to Playa de las Conchas, which is beautiful and too rough to swim. Bring what you need; the shops are small.
Getting there
ferry | walk
25-30 min by ferry from Órzola, then on foot
Fuerteventura
Full dayNeighbouring island
The Corralejo dunes start a few minutes from the ferry berth, and a car or a bus gets you on to the lagoons at El Cotillo. Small boats also run across to the empty islet of Lobos.
Getting there
ferry | bus | car | tour
About 30 min by ferry from Playa Blanca to Corralejo, then bus, hire car or tour
The southern volcano loop
Full dayVolcanoes and wine
Timanfaya's coach route, then the green lagoon at El Golfo, the blowholes at Los Hervideros and the salt pans at Janubio, finishing among the vine hollows of La Geria. Book the park slot ahead in busy months; the queue at the gate can be long.
Getting there
car | tour
Roughly two hours of driving from any resort, or by coach tour
The north: caves, lookouts and Haría
Full dayCaves and lookouts
Jameos del Agua and Cueva de los Verdes sit on the same lava tube, and the Mirador del Río caps the cliffs above them. Come back through Haría, the valley of a thousand palms, where Manrique's last house is open to visitors.
Getting there
car | tour
About 40 min by car from Arrecife, longer as a loop
Teguise Sunday market
Half dayOld-town market
The old capital's white lanes fill with stalls, crowds and folk music every Sunday morning, and the castle above the town keeps a museum of the piracy that once emptied it. Go early; parking gets hard.
Getting there
car | bus | tour
20-30 min by car or bus from the coastal resorts
A little history of Lanzarote
The first islanders were the Majos, a Berber people who kept goats and lived in low stone houses. A Genoese sailor, Lancelotto Malocello, reached the island early in the 14th century and left it his name; Jean de Béthencourt began the Castilian conquest in 1402. For the next three hundred years Lanzarote was poor, dry and dangerously exposed: Barbary corsairs raided it repeatedly, the capital was set inland at Teguise, and islanders sheltered in the lava tubes.
Then in September 1730 the ground opened west of the villages and kept erupting for six years, burying about a quarter of the island, including its best farmland, under lava and ash. Many families emigrated to the Americas. Those who stayed found that the black lapilli held the dew and let vines and figs grow where nothing had before, which is why the wine country looks the way it does. Fresh eruptions followed in 1824. The modern island was shaped by one man: César Manrique, born in Arrecife in 1919, who came home from New York in the 1960s and persuaded Lanzarote to build low, white and without billboards while he turned its volcanic oddities into public art.
The Genoese navigator Lancelotto Malocello reaches the island, which takes his name.
Jean de Béthencourt lands at Rubicón and begins the Castilian conquest of the Canaries here.
Teguise is established inland as the capital, out of sight of the sea.
A Berber corsair raid sacks Teguise; islanders hide in the Cueva de los Verdes.
Six years of eruptions bury about a quarter of the island and create the Timanfaya badlands.
A final round of eruptions opens new vents in the centre of the island.
César Manrique returns from New York and begins the projects and building rules that define modern Lanzarote.
Timanfaya is declared a national park.
UNESCO designates the whole island a Biosphere Reserve.
Know before you go
Payment
Cards everywhere
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / F
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+34
Mobile network & SIM card
Get an eSIM before you fly
A Spain eSIM installs in minutes and works the moment you switch off flight mode. No SIM swap, no roaming bill.
FAQs about Lanzarote
▸ When is the best time to visit Lanzarote?
Any month. This is one of the mildest year-round climates in Europe and there is no season to avoid. What changes is the wind, which blows hardest through summer, and the Atlantic swell, which arrives in the winter half and is what the surfers come for. The sea is never tropical-warm.
▸ Do I need a hire car?
For all practical purposes, yes. Buses connect Arrecife with the resorts perfectly well, but Timanfaya, the northern lookouts, La Geria and the Papagayo track are awkward or impossible without one. The island is small enough that a car for two or three days covers almost everything.
▸ Can you walk in Timanfaya National Park?
Only in limited ways. The Ruta de los Volcanes is seen from the park's own coach and you cannot wander off it, and the park runs only a small number of guided walks, which must be booked well ahead. For a volcano you can climb yourself, walk the crater rim at Volcán del Cuervo, just outside the boundary.
▸ Who was César Manrique?
A painter and sculptor born in Arrecife in 1919 who spent years in Madrid and New York, then came home and reshaped his island. He designed the lava-tube spaces, the lookouts and the cactus garden, and pushed the rules that keep buildings low and white and the roadsides clear of billboards. He died in a car crash in 1992.
▸ What is a calima?
A hot easterly wind that carries Saharan dust over the Canaries, turning the sky milky, cutting visibility and leaving grit on everything. It can happen in any season, usually passes in a day or three, and is uncomfortable rather than dangerous unless you have a respiratory condition.
▸ Is La Graciosa worth a day?
Yes, if you like emptiness. It is a small island of sand streets, one proper village and beaches with nobody on them, half an hour by ferry from Órzola. Take an early boat and hire a bike or a jeep ride, and note that the best-looking beach, Las Conchas, has currents that make swimming a bad idea.
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