Tours in Tenerife

Things to do in Tenerife depend on which side of the island you sleep on. The trade winds cloud the north and leave the south dry. Teide, just over 3,700 metres high, stands between them.

Five parts of the island

• The south. Los Cristianos and Costa Adeje, the resort coast, dry and bright most of the year.
• The west. Los Gigantes, where sea cliffs of several hundred metres drop to the water.
• The north. Puerto de la Cruz and the Orotava valley, green and often under cloud.
• The north-east. Santa Cruz, the capital, and La Laguna above it, a UNESCO town since 1999. Beyond La Laguna rise the laurel forests of Anaga.
• The middle. Teide National Park, a UNESCO site since 2007, around a caldera about 16 kilometres across with a floor above 2,000 metres.

Whales, stars and wine

Whale watching leaves from Los Cristianos. The strait to La Gomera holds resident pilot whales and dolphins, and became Europe's first Whale Heritage Site in 2021.

After dark Teide is for stargazing, and it holds Starlight certification. Wine takes a full day. Tenerife has five denominations of origin, and Tacoronte-Acentejo, from 1992, was the first in the Canaries.

Practical

• Weather. The south coast reaches 22C in January and 28C in August and gets about 130 millimetres of rain a year. La Laguna runs 16C and 26C, with about 520 millimetres. At Izaña, above 2,300 metres, a January afternoon reaches only 7.5C, and frost comes on about 84 days a year.
• Teide. The cable car climbs from 2,356 to 3,555 metres in under 8 minutes and stops in high wind. The last stretch to the summit needs a slot booked on the Cabildo's Tenerife ON site and a fee for visitors, and the cable car ticket does not cover it.
• Roads. Snow and ice close the roads into the park on some winter days.
• Getting around. Two airports serve the island, South and North. The TF-1 motorway runs about 100 kilometres round the east and south coasts from Santa Cruz, and Puerto de la Cruz is an hour by road from the southern resorts. TITSA operates almost all the public buses.
• Season. November to March is the high season, but the whales stay all year.