Canary Islands · Spain
Spain's highest mountain rises 3,715 m from the Atlantic off the coast of Africa, on an island with laurel rainforest at one end and desert at the other.
Photo: Ingo Mehling · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tenerife is not really in Europe in any geographical sense. The Canary Islands sit about 300 km off the coast of Morocco and 1,000 km from mainland Spain, on the same latitude as the Sahara, in their own time zone an hour behind Madrid. They are volcanic, subtropical, and they have the most stable warm climate of anywhere in the Atlantic — around 20–22°C in the shade in January.
The island is dominated by Mount Teide, which at 3,715 metres is the highest point in Spain and, measured from its base on the ocean floor, the third-tallest volcanic structure on earth. It sits inside Las Cañadas, a caldera 16 kilometres across filled with lava fields, obsidian flows and rock formations in ochre, black and rust. The national park receives around four million visitors a year and is one of the most-visited in the world.
What surprises people is the variation. The northeast corner, the Anaga massif, is laurel rainforest — a relic of forest that covered the Mediterranean before the Ice Age, permanently damp with cloud caught on the ridges. The south is arid and sunny. There is a UNESCO-listed colonial university town, banana plantations, black volcanic beaches and one imported golden one. Tenerife's resort strips are real but, as with Mallorca, they are a small fraction of the island.
Why visit
Tenerife's case rests on two things nowhere else in Europe combines: a reliable winter climate, and a high-altitude volcanic landscape you can reach by cable car in the same day as a swim.
A cable car climbs to 3,555 m in eight minutes, well above the cloud layer that usually sits at 1,500 m. From the top you look down on a sea of cloud with the other Canary Islands rising through it, and the caldera floor is a lava landscape used to film other planets.
Coastal temperatures hover between about 20°C in winter and 27°C in summer, all year. There is no bad season, which is why northern Europe has been coming here since the 19th century for health reasons.
Laurel rainforest in Anaga, pine forest at mid-altitude, high-altitude desert in the caldera, and arid coast in the south. Driving from Santa Cruz to the summit takes ninety minutes and crosses all of them.
A resident population of around 500 short-finned pilot whales and 250 bottlenose dolphins lives in the strait between Tenerife and La Gomera year-round — one of very few places where sightings are close to guaranteed in any month.
The Masca gorge, the Anaga ridges, the caldera rim and the summit routes give the island an unusual range for its size, with marked trails and a well-organised national park network.
Main attractions
The island is about 80 km across and the drives are slower than they look. Group things by region: the caldera, the north, the northeast and the south.
A caldera 16 km wide filled with lava flows, obsidian and eroded rock formations, with the volcano rising from the middle. The cable car climbs from 2,356 m to 3,555 m in eight minutes; the final 200 m to the crater rim requires a separate free permit.
Tip The summit permit is free but must be booked online weeks or months ahead — it is capped at 200 people a day. Without it you can still reach 3,555 m and walk two marked viewpoint trails.
A cluster of eroded rock pillars on the caldera floor, including the Roque Cinchado that appeared on the old 1,000-peseta note. A three-kilometre circular walk goes around and below them.
Tip The car park fills by 10:00. Go at opening or in the last two hours of light, when the rock colour is at its best.
The island's former capital and a UNESCO World Heritage site — an unwalled colonial grid town from the 1490s whose street plan became the template for Spanish cities across the Americas. Coloured facades, courtyard houses and a university.
Tip Twenty minutes from Santa Cruz by tram. Frequently cloudy and cool, which is why almost nobody staying in the south bothers — go anyway.
The northeastern peninsula, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve of laurel rainforest on knife-edge ridges, permanently misty, with tiny hamlets reached by hairpin roads and a dense network of walking trails.
Tip The Sendero de los Sentidos near Cruz del Carmen is short, easy and gives the full rainforest effect in half an hour.
A hamlet in a gorge on the island's western tip, reached by an extraordinary road of hairpins. The gorge walk descends 600 m to the sea and requires a booked permit and a helmet.
Tip The gorge walk must be booked in advance and includes a boat back. The road alone is worth the drive even if you do not walk.
Boats from Los Gigantes, Puerto Colón and Los Cristianos head into the strait where pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins live year-round. Sightings are close to guaranteed and the animals are resident rather than migratory.
Tip Choose an operator with the Blue Boat certification, which enforces distance and behaviour rules. Smaller boats are better.
Sea cliffs on the west coast rising up to 600 m straight out of the Atlantic. Best seen from the water on a boat trip, which usually combines with the whale watching.
Tip The light is on the cliffs in the afternoon. Morning trips see them in shadow.
Most of Tenerife's beaches are black volcanic sand. Playa de las Teresitas near Santa Cruz is the exception — golden sand imported from the Sahara in the 1970s, backed by palms and a fishing village.
Tip El Médano on the southeast coast has the wind and the best windsurfing in Europe; Benijo in Anaga is wild, black and dramatic.
Things to do
Tenerife rewards moving around the island rather than staying put in one resort. The distances are short and the changes are dramatic.
The cable car in the morning for the view over the cloud layer, then stay in the park until dark. Teide has some of the clearest skies in the northern hemisphere and is a designated Starlight Reserve.
Tip Take a warm layer regardless of the coastal weather. It can be near freezing at 3,555 m on a 25°C day at sea level.
The Anaga massif's trails run along ridges through permanently damp laurisilva — a forest type that covered the Mediterranean two million years ago and now survives only on a few Atlantic islands.
Tip It is cool and wet up there even when the south is baking. Take a waterproof, not shorts.
The resident population in the strait between Tenerife and La Gomera means sightings almost any day of the year. Choose a small, certified boat and a trip that does not promise swimming with them.
Tip Morning departures are calmer. Combine with the Los Gigantes cliffs on an afternoon trip for the better light.
The TF-5 and the older coastal roads run through banana plantations, Puerto de la Cruz's botanical gardens, and the wine villages of the Orotava valley — a completely different island from the southern resorts.
Tip The Orotava valley produces good volcanic-soil wine, and several bodegas above La Orotava receive visitors.
Lava flows meeting the sea have formed rock pools all along the north coast, several developed into public swimming areas. Charco del Viento and the Garachico pools are the best known.
Tip Check the sea state. These are open to the Atlantic and become dangerous in swell.
Fifty minutes from Los Cristianos, a far smaller and wilder island with Garajonay National Park's cloud forest and a whistled language, Silbo Gomero, used to communicate across ravines.
Tip Doable as a long day trip, better as an overnight. Hire a car on arrival — the island is all ravines.
Local food
Canarian food is its own thing — African, Latin American and Spanish influences on an island that grew rich on sugar, wine and bananas.
Small potatoes boiled in heavily salted water until the skins wrinkle and crust with salt, served with two sauces: red mojo picón of chilli and paprika, and green mojo of coriander or parsley.
Where to try it Every restaurant on the island. The potatoes are local varieties brought from the Andes in the 16th century.
Toasted maize or wheat flour, a staple that predates the Spanish conquest and was eaten by the indigenous Guanche people. Used to thicken stews, mixed into milk, or made into a dense bread-like block.
Where to try it Traditional guachinches and rural restaurants. Gofio escaldado, thickened with fish broth, is the most common version.
Vieja (parrotfish), cherne (wreckfish) and sama, usually grilled whole with papas arrugadas and mojo. The fishing villages of the north and the far south do it best.
Where to try it Harbourside restaurants at Los Abrigos, El Médano and the northern fishing villages.
Grown on volcanic soil, often from vines that survived the phylloxera that destroyed European stock, including varieties found nowhere else. Listán Negro and Malvasía are the ones to look for.
Where to try it Bodegas in the Orotava and Güímar valleys, and guachinches — informal seasonal bars that sell the family's own wine.
A thick paste of hard aged cheese, garlic, chilli and oil, from La Gomera next door, spread on bread. Salty, sharp and very good with a glass of red.
Where to try it Traditional bars across the western Canaries. Sold in jars at markets.
The small, sweet Canarian banana has protected status and is noticeably different from the export variety. Papaya, mango and avocado all grow on the north coast.
Where to try it Markets in La Laguna and Santa Cruz. The Mercado Nuestra Señora de África is the biggest.
Accommodation
The island splits sharply between the sunny, arid, resort-heavy south and the greener, cloudier, more Spanish north. Which you choose changes the trip substantially.
Transport
Tenerife has two airports and is one of the most flight-connected islands in the Atlantic. It is a genuine long-haul from mainland Spain — about 1,000 km.
A car transforms Tenerife. The island's appeal is the variation between its regions, and buses connect the resorts far better than they connect the interesting parts.
When to go
Tenerife has the most stable climate of any European destination, which makes it a year-round island. The choice is about crowds and what you want to do rather than about weather.
The island's main season and its strongest argument: 20–23°C on the southern coast, sunshine most days, and swimmable sea at around 19–20°C. Northern Europe fills the resorts, so book ahead, particularly at Christmas and February.
Warm, quieter and the best walking of the year, with the caldera's wildflowers in May and the high trails clear. Fewer visitors than winter and prices lower.
Warm rather than hot at 26–29°C on the coast, tempered by the trade winds. The sea is at its warmest in September. Teide can be uncomfortably hot at midday and the calima — Saharan dust haze — occasionally arrives.
Warm sea, warm air, few visitors and clear conditions for the mountain. Arguably the single best month, sitting between the summer and winter peaks.
Worth planning around: Carnival in Santa Cruz in February is one of the biggest in the world and fills the island. The calima, a hot dust-laden wind off the Sahara, can arrive at any time and cuts visibility on Teide for a few days at a stretch.
Itinerary
Deliberately split between north and south so you see more than one island. Assumes a car from day one.
Settle in, then get out on the Atlantic.
The whole day in the national park.
Masca, Garachico and the volcanic pools.
The colonial town and the rainforest behind it.
Wine and gardens, or a second island.
Travel tips
Canarian specifics, the first two of which people most often get wrong.
FAQ
For the final 200 metres from the cable car's top station at 3,555 m to the 3,715 m crater rim, yes. The permit is free but capped at 200 people a day and must be booked online, often weeks or months in advance. Without it you can still take the cable car and walk two marked viewpoint trails at the top, which most visitors find sufficient.
The southern resort strip is real, but it accounts for a small part of a large and varied island. Tenerife also has a UNESCO-listed colonial town at La Laguna, a laurel rainforest in Anaga that is a relic of prehistoric Mediterranean forest, Spain's highest mountain inside a 16-kilometre caldera, and volcanic wine villages in the north where almost no visitors go.
Any month — the coastal temperature ranges only from about 20°C in winter to 27°C in summer. November to March is the main season and the reason people come, for reliable winter sun. April to June and October are quieter with better walking and lower prices. October is arguably the single best month, sitting between the two peaks.
The south for reliable sun and the best beaches; the north for greenery, character, food and proximity to La Laguna and Anaga. The two are different climates — the south is arid and sunny almost every day, the north greener and often cloudy. On a stay of five days or more, splitting between them gives you far more of the island.
It can be near freezing at 3,555 m on a day when the coast is 25°C, and the wind chill makes it feel colder. UV at that altitude is also extreme. Take a warm layer, sunglasses and high-factor sun cream regardless of what the weather is doing at sea level — this catches out a great many visitors in shorts.
Yes, and unusually reliably. Around 500 short-finned pilot whales and 250 bottlenose dolphins live year-round in the strait between Tenerife and La Gomera, so sightings are close to guaranteed in any month. Boats leave from Los Gigantes, Puerto Colón and Los Cristianos — choose a smaller operator with Blue Boat certification, which enforces distance and behaviour rules.
Yes. The Canaries use Western European Time, one hour behind mainland Spain and the same as the UK and Portugal. All local timetables, opening hours and flight times are on island time, and forgetting this is one of the most common practical mistakes visitors make.
Keep exploring
Places that pair well with Tenerife, whether you have a few spare days or are building a longer route.
Balearic Islands, Spain
The largest Balearic island has a proper capital city, a mountain range along its entire northwest coast, and hundreds of coves that never appear in the package-holiday version of it.
Don't miss The Serra de Tramuntana — a UNESCO-listed mountain range of terraced olive groves dropping straight into the sea.
Explore Destination — MallorcaGalicia, Spain
A granite cathedral city at the end of Europe's oldest pilgrimage route, in a region of rías, oyster beds and rainfall that looks and tastes nothing like the rest of Spain.
Don't miss The moment pilgrims walk into the Praza do Obradoiro after weeks on the Camino — worth seeing even if you arrived by train.
Explore Destination — Santiago de Compostela & GaliciaAndalusia, Spain
A hillside city beneath the Sierra Nevada, holding the Alhambra — the finest surviving Islamic palace complex anywhere — and a tapas culture where the food still comes free with the drink.
Don't miss The Nasrid Palaces: honeycomb vaulting, carved stucco and courtyards designed entirely around water and light.
Explore Destination — GranadaHawai'i, United States
The second-largest Hawaiian island, with a summit above the clouds, a rainforest coast road, some of the Pacific's best snorkelling and a winter whale population in the thousands.
Don't miss Sunrise above the clouds from Haleakalā's summit crater, at 3,055 m, in near-freezing air.
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