Spain · Canary Islands
Tenerife
Spain's highest mountain rising straight out of the Atlantic, with laurel-forest wilderness at one end of the island and winter-sun beaches at the other.
Tenerife is the largest of the Canary Islands and carries Spain's highest ground: Mount Teide, a 3,715 m volcano whose summit cone stands above a lava-floored caldera at the island's centre. Around it the island splits in two. The south is dry, sun-certain and lined with resort beaches; the north is green and cloudier, with banana terraces, laurel forest and balconied old towns at La Orotava and La Laguna. The coast runs from black-sand coves to the sheer cliffs at Los Gigantes.
Suggested stay
4–7 days
Language
Spanish
Currency
EUR
Timezone
UTC+1
Why you'll love Tenerife
Teide A cable car lifts you to just below the summit of a volcano that dwarfs the island, over a caldera of lava flows and rock spires that looks nothing like Europe.
The green north Laurel forest on the Anaga ridges, banana terraces and wine towns with carved wooden balconies - an older, wetter Tenerife most package flights never see.
No closed season Subtropical and steady all year, so the beaches, the trails and the whale boats keep working whichever month you book.
The strait Resident pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins live in the water off the southwest coast, close enough in that boats find them most days.
Best time to visit
all year
23-29° days
28.087° N, 16.736° W
UTC+1 · Atlantic/Canary
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Weather & when to go to Tenerife
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best all year
Watch for Jun-Nov cyclones & hurricanes risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Tenerife
No bad season: this is year-round winter-sun territory. The quirks are geographic rather than seasonal - the north often sits under the panza de burro cloud lid while the south stays clear, and a calima blows Saharan dust across the island for a few days at a time. Teide is a climate of its own: freezing, sometimes snowbound, and the cable car closes in high wind.
Top things to do in Tenerife
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Mount Teide - ride the cable car up the volcano
hiking scenic 👍 PopularThe cable car climbs from the caldera floor to a station a short way below the peak, where three walkways lead out to viewpoints over the crater rim and the sea of cloud. Standing on the actual summit needs a permit booked well ahead; the walkways do not. High wind shuts the lift with little warning.
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Roques de García - the caldera loop under Teide
hiking scenic ⭐ Highly recommendedA short circuit from the parador past the Roque Cinchado, the leaning rock finger that once stood on the old peseta note, then down into the lava fields of the Llano de Ucanca. The park is a certified dark-sky reserve and the observatory sits on the ridge above, so the drive back after nightfall is half the point.
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Anaga Rural Park - laurel forest on the northeast ridges
hiking nature wildlife off beaten path ⭐ Highly recommendedA biosphere reserve of knife-edge ridges wrapped in laurisilva, the mossy cloud forest that covered southern Europe before the ice ages. Trails run from the Cruz del Carmen visitor centre down old paths to hamlets like Chamorga and Taganana, and the road ends at Benijo, a black beach under stacks.
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Masca - the village in the ravine
hiking scenicA cluster of stone houses on a spur deep in the Teno massif, reached by one of the island's most wound-up roads. The walk down the barranco to the sea is capped and pre-booked, with a helmet and a boat pickup at the bottom; the viewpoints above the village are open to anyone and are worth the drive alone.
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Los Gigantes - pilot whales beneath the cliffs
nature wildlife scenic 👍 PopularBasalt walls drop hundreds of metres straight into the water on the west coast, and the sheltered strait between Tenerife and La Gomera holds a resident population of short-finned pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins. Boats out of Los Gigantes and Puerto Colón sail under the cliffs and find them on most days.
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La Laguna - the grid that colonial America copied
history culture artsThe old island capital inland from Santa Cruz, a UNESCO-listed university town laid out in 1500 as the first unwalled colonial grid, a plan later exported across the Americas. Pastel townhouses with wooden balconies and courtyards, a serious student bar scene, and a tram down to the capital.
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El Médano - windsurf and kitesurf under Montaña Roja
windsports adventureThe trade winds funnel round the southeast corner and make this one of Europe's most reliable wind spots, with flatter water on the town beach and the wave break at El Cabezo alongside. A low-key, tanned little town of board racks and beach bars sitting under a red volcanic cone.
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Garachico - swim the El Caletón lava pools
history nature wildlifeThe 1706 eruption ran into the sea here and buried the island's main harbour; what it left is a maze of rock pools now railed and stepped for swimming, flushed by the Atlantic. Behind them sits the handsome old town the lava spared, with a small fort on the waterfront.
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Siam Park and Loro Parque - the two big parks
nature wildlife 👍 PopularSiam Park, above Costa Adeje, is a Thai-themed water park routinely voted the best in the world, built around a near-vertical drop slide and a wave pool. Loro Parque, at Puerto de la Cruz, began as a parrot collection and is now the north's main family day out.
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Guachinches - eat where the wine is made
food off beaten pathIn the Orotava valley, growers open their houses for the season to sell their own wine with a handful of dishes: papas arrugadas with red and green mojo, grilled cherne, rabbit in salmorejo, gofio. Rough, seasonal and local, and a different island from the resort strip.
Best areas to stay in Tenerife
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Costa Adeje
Sun and comfort $$$Polished southern resort with sheltered beaches
Explore hotels in Costa Adeje →
Los Cristianos
Easy walkable base $$Older southern town around a working harbour
Explore hotels in Los Cristianos →
Puerto de la Cruz
Character and touring $$Historic north-coast town below banana terraces
Explore hotels in Puerto de la Cruz →
Santa Cruz and La Laguna
City life $$Capital city and its UNESCO university twin
Explore hotels in Santa Cruz and La Laguna →
El Médano
Wind and surf $Windy, low-rise board town in the south
Explore hotels in El Médano →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Tenerife
Getting to & around Tenerife
Getting there
Fly into TFS in the south for the resorts, or TFN above La Laguna for the north and inter-island hops.
Flight
Tenerife South Airport (Aeropuerto Tenerife Sur - Reina Sofía) (TFS)
The southern airport sits on the dry coast beside El Médano, about 20 minutes by motorway from Los Cristianos and Costa Adeje and roughly an hour from Santa Cruz. TITSA buses leave the terminal for the resorts and the capital, and taxis and hire desks are at the door. Tenerife North, the older airport above La Laguna, is the closer arrival for Puerto de la Cruz.
Ferry
Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Inter-island ferries from Gran Canaria, La Palma and Lanzarote, plus the long mainland crossing from Cádiz and Huelva.
Ferry
Los Cristianos
The western hub, with frequent fast ferries to La Gomera and onward sailings to La Palma and El Hierro.
Cruise
Santa Cruz de Tenerife
A standard Atlantic and transatlantic call; the terminal is a short walk from the city centre.
Getting around
Hire car
Effectively necessary for Teide, Anaga and Teno; the motorways are quick, the mountain roads slow and tightly wound.
TBC
TITSA bus (guagua)
The island-wide green network, linking both airports, the southern resorts, Santa Cruz and the north coast towns.
TBC
Tram
Two lines connecting Santa Cruz with La Laguna, frequent and the easiest way between the two centres.
TBC
Taxi
Metered, easy to find outside resort hotels and at the ranks in both cities; the standard way to move at night.
TBC
Walk
La Laguna's old grid, the Puerto de la Cruz seafront and the Los Cristianos promenade are all best on foot.
Free
Day trips from Tenerife
Teide National Park
Full dayVolcano and caldera
The drive up through pine forest and out onto the caldera floor is the island's set piece: lava fields, the Roques de García, the cable car and, on the far side, the old parador. Book the cable car and any summit permit before you leave.
Getting there
car | bus | tour
About 1 hr 15 from the south coast or Puerto de la Cruz by car, bus or coach tour
Masca and the Teno massif
Full dayRavine village drive
Switchbacks over the oldest massif on the island to a stone hamlet on a spur above a gorge, with viewpoints at every bend. Carry on to Punta de Teno for the lighthouse and the view back along the Los Gigantes cliffs.
Getting there
car | tour
Roughly 1 hr from Costa Adeje by car, or a coach tour
Anaga Rural Park and Las Teresitas
Full dayCloud forest ridges
Ridge road into laurel forest, walks down to Taganana and the black beaches at Benijo, then back along the coast to Las Teresitas, the palm-lined golden bay outside the capital that was built with sand shipped from the Sahara.
Getting there
car | bus
About 45 min from Santa Cruz by car, longer by bus
La Gomera
Full dayNeighbouring island
A morning sailing gives you the day on the greenest of the western islands: Garajonay, a UNESCO forest of moss and mist on the plateau, the terraced Valle Gran Rey, and the whistled language of Silbo Gomero still taught in schools.
Getting there
ferry | car | tour
Fast ferry from Los Cristianos, about 50 min, then a hire car or tour bus
Garachico, Icod and the north coast
Full dayOld towns and lava pools
Icod de los Vinos guards the Drago Milenario, a dragon tree of huge age and the island's living emblem, and Garachico below it has the lava rock pools and the old town the 1706 eruption spared. La Orotava's balconied lanes fill out the day.
Getting there
car | bus
About 40 min west of Puerto de la Cruz by car or bus
A little history of Tenerife
Tenerife was settled in the first millennium BCE by Berber people from North Africa, the Guanches, who herded goats, lived partly in caves and by the fifteenth century had divided the island between nine menceyatos, or chiefdoms. It was the last of the Canaries to fall. In 1494 the Guanches destroyed a Castilian column at Acentejo; Alonso Fernández de Lugo returned, won the second battle there in 1495, and took the island in 1496. La Laguna was laid out immediately afterwards as an unwalled grid, a plan copied across Spanish America.
What followed was four centuries of one crop at a time: sugar, then malmsey wine shipped to England, then cochineal for dye, then bananas, each collapsing as a cheaper source appeared. The 1706 Trevejo eruption buried Garachico's harbour and pushed trade to Santa Cruz, which became the archipelago's chief port and later a provincial capital. Teide was made a national park in 1954, and mass tourism arrived in the 1960s and 1970s, building the southern coast almost from nothing.
Berber settlers from North Africa arrive; their descendants are the Guanches.
The Guanches rout a Castilian force at the First Battle of Acentejo.
Tenerife falls to Alonso Fernández de Lugo, the last Canary island conquered.
The Trevejo eruption buries Garachico's port and trade shifts to Santa Cruz.
Nelson's attack on Santa Cruz is beaten off and he loses his right arm.
The archipelago is split into two provinces, with Santa Cruz heading the western one.
Teide National Park is created around the caldera and the volcano.
San Cristóbal de La Laguna is inscribed by UNESCO for its colonial grid.
Teide National Park is inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.
Know before you go
Payment
Cards everywhere
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / F
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+34
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FAQs about Tenerife
▸ When is the best time to visit Tenerife?
Any month. The island has no closed season, which is the whole basis of its winter trade, and the sea stays swimmable year-round. Pick by crowds instead: the southern resorts fill in the northern winter and again in August. The south is reliably sunnier than the north in every month.
▸ Can you walk to the summit of Teide?
Yes, but the final stretch above the cable car station needs a permit from the national park, released in limited numbers and usually gone weeks ahead. Without one you can still ride up and take the three viewpoint walkways, or climb from the caldera floor and stay below the last section.
▸ Do I need a hire car?
For the coast, no: TITSA buses link both airports, the resorts and the cities frequently and cheaply. For Teide, Anaga, Teno and the guachinche country, effectively yes. Those are the parts of the island people remember, and a car turns each of them from a whole day into a morning.
▸ North or south?
South for certain sun, big sandy beaches and resort infrastructure. North for towns with history, better food and the green half of the island, at the cost of more cloud and darker beaches. The island is small enough that either base reaches the other in about an hour.
▸ Is Tenerife just package holidays?
The southern strip genuinely is, and makes no apology for it. But it occupies a fraction of an island holding Spain's highest mountain, a UNESCO cloud forest, a listed colonial city and a working capital. Drive twenty minutes inland and the cliché stops applying.
▸ What are the panza de burro and the calima?
Two local weather words. The panza de burro, the donkey's belly, is the low cloud lid the trade winds park over the northern coast; cross the ridge and it is gone. A calima is a hot, hazy wind carrying Saharan dust, which can dull the light and the views for a few days.
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