Tenerife

⚠️ Entry rules and local regulations change without notice. Before booking, check entry requirements and local rules — visas, access, nature reserves, visitor quotas — with the official authorities.

Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, is dominated by Mount Teide (3,718 m), the highest peak in Spain and a UNESCO-listed national park. Between the verdant north and the seaside resorts of the south (Playa de las Américas, Los Cristianos), the island offers an exceptional diversity of landscapes and temperatures all year round.

One island, five climates

Tenerife fits into 2,034 km², and yet an hour's drive changes the season. The north, exposed to the trade winds, is green and often clouded: this is the country of banana plantations, of La Orotava and the laurel forest of Anaga, a biosphere reserve where the damp builds a landscape of ferns and mist. The south, sheltered by the central massif, is dry and sunlit almost every day of the year — hence the resorts of Los Cristianos and Costa Adeje.

At the centre stands Teide, the highest summit in Spain, in a lunar caldera listed by UNESCO. A cable car climbs to 3,555 m, but be warned: the final 200 metres to the crater require a free permit, applied for online weeks in advance, since the daily quota fills quickly. Many visitors discover this at the foot of the cable car.

Not to be missed either: La Laguna, the former capital and a UNESCO site, the cliffs of Los Gigantes dropping 600 m into the sea, and the Masca ravine, clinging to the mountainside.

Eternal spring, with two caveats

The reputation is deserved: between 20 and 26 °C all year, with the sea around 20-23 °C. The south stays swimmable in January, which is true nowhere else in Europe. Two caveats all the same: the calima, a sand-laden wind off the Sahara, can veil the sky for a few days; and the Santa Cruz carnival in February — one of the largest in the world after Rio — sends accommodation prices soaring across the whole island.

Whales, black sand and a car

The strait between Tenerife and La Gomera holds a resident population of pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins: it is one of the best places in Europe to watch them, and boats leave from Los Cristianos or Puerto Colón. Choose operators carrying the Barco Azul label, which respect approach distances.

The beaches are volcanic, so mostly black — Playa Jardín, El Bollullo — except Las Teresitas, whose golden sand was shipped in from the Sahara in the 1970s. Finally, hire a car: the island has two airports, north (TFN) and south (TFS), the buses are good but slow, and the finest places lie off the routes.

Essentials & your questions