Tenerife: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Tenerife is one volcano rising from the ocean floor, and the Teide at its centre is the highest mountain in Spain at 3,715 metres — measured from the sea bed, one of the tallest volcanoes on earth. Around it is a crater seventeen kilometres wide filled with lava flows of every colour. A full day and a car; at the top it can be freezing in August, and the cable car must be booked.
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A short history of Tenerife
Before the Europeans arrived, Tenerife was home to the Guanches, a people who had come from North Africa. In 1496 Alonso Fernández de Lugo completed the conquest of the island for the Crown of Castile after years of fighting. The island became a stopping point on the way to America. In 1797 the British fleet attacked Santa Cruz, and Admiral Nelson lost his right arm in the battle. Mount Teide, 3,715 metres high, is the highest mountain in Spain. On 27 March 1977 two jumbo jets collided at Los Rodeos airport and 583 people were killed, the deadliest aviation disaster in history.
The ten best sights in Tenerife
1Teide Cable CarEight minutes up to 3,555 metres; book ahead and bring warm clothes
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2Pico del Teide
The highest point in Spain; the last metres need a free permit
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3Roques de García
Lava towers in the crater with the volcano behind
4Teide ObservatorySolar telescopes above the clouds; guided visits by booking
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5Chinyero
The cone of the island’s last eruption, in 1909; a walk round it in pines
6Paisaje LunarEroded pumice pillars above Vilaflor, on a long walk
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7Vilaflor
The highest village in Spain, among giant Canary pines
8La Laguna CathedralIn the old capital whose grid became the model for colonial cities
9Plaza del AdelantadoThe main square of La Laguna and its convent
10Plaza de EspañaSanta Cruz’s square with a lake by the port
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Tenerife →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Tenerife:
Free walking tours in Tenerife
Up the volcano
Tenerife is one volcano rising from the ocean floor, and the Teide at its centre is the highest mountain in Spain at 3,715 metres — measured from the sea bed, one of the tallest volcanoes on earth. Around it is a crater seventeen kilometres wide filled with lava flows of every colour. A full day and a car; at the top it can be freezing in August, and the cable car must be booked.
- Vilaflor · The road up from the south passes through Vilaflor at about fourteen hundred metres, one of the highest villages in Spain, among Canary pines that can survive a forest fire and sprout again from their charred trunks. One of them, the Pino Gordo, is over forty-five metres tall.
- Paisaje Lunar · A hidden valley above the village where wind and rain have carved soft volcanic pumice into white pillars and cones. It is reached only on foot, through pine forest, and the walk is long, but almost nobody is there.
- Roques de García · Towers of hardened lava standing in the crater floor, with the cone of the Teide rising behind them. One of them, balanced on a narrow base, was on the old Spanish thousand-peseta note. A path circles them in about an hour and a half.
- Teide Cable Car · In eight minutes the cable car lifts you from 2,356 to 3,555 metres. At the top the air is thin and cold, steam vents smell of sulphur, and on a clear day the other Canary Islands float on the clouds — and the shadow of the Teide falls across the sea as a perfect triangle at sunset.
- Pico del Teide · The last hundred and sixty metres to the summit crater are by a steep path that needs a free permit, booked weeks ahead. The Guanches, the island’s first people, believed the devil Guayota lived inside the mountain and had once imprisoned the sun there.
- Teide Observatory · The air above the clouds here is so clear and steady that astronomers built one of the world’s main solar observatories on the crater rim. The island protects its sky by law, with special street lights, so that the telescopes can see.
The old towns of the north
The north of Tenerife is green and often cloudy, and it is where the Spanish built their first towns after the conquest of 1496 — a capital with a grid of streets, a town of carved wooden balconies, a port that the volcano buried. A full day and a car; the north is cooler and wetter than the beaches of the south.
- La Laguna Cathedral · San Cristóbal de La Laguna was laid out in 1497 as an open town without walls, on a grid of straight streets — the first such planned colonial town, and the model the Spanish later used for Havana, Lima and Cartagena. It is a world heritage site, and its streets are lined with houses of the sixteenth century.
- Casa de los Balcones · La Orotava grew rich on sugar and wine, and its mansions have balconies of carved Canary pine around patios full of plants. For Corpus Christi the town carpets its main square with pictures made of coloured volcanic sand from the Teide.
- Lago Martiánez · The north coast is rock and pounding surf, so the Lanzarote artist César Manrique built Puerto de la Cruz a sea of its own in the 1970s: a complex of saltwater pools, islands and terraces among black lava and palms, with the ocean beating on the wall beside it.
- Drago Milenario · A dragon tree, a plant found almost only on these islands, with a thick trunk and a crown of spiky leaves, whose red sap the ancients sold as dragon’s blood. This one is the oldest known — the name says a thousand years, though botanists think it is several hundred.
- Garachico · In the sixteenth century this was the main port of the island, shipping wine to England and the Americas. In May 1706 an eruption sent rivers of lava down the cliff, burying half the town and filling the harbour. The lava cooled into rock pools by the sea, and the town swims in them today.
- Masca · A hamlet on a ridge deep in the Teno mountains, reached until the 1990s only by mule track and said to have hidden pirates. Below it a gorge drops to the sea between walls hundreds of metres high; the path down needs a booking and good legs.
The coast of laurels and cliffs
The two ends of Tenerife are its oldest rocks: the Anaga mountains in the north-east, covered in a laurel forest that survived from before the ice ages, and the Teno massif in the west, ending in cliffs six hundred metres high. Between them are the island’s capital and its Virgin. A full day and a car.
- Cruz del Carmen · The laurisilva, a forest of laurel and heather trees dripping with moss, once covered much of southern Europe and was wiped out there by the ice ages; it survived only on these Atlantic islands. In Anaga the trade-wind clouds catch in the trees, and the forest drinks the fog.
- Taganana · A village of white houses on the steep north coast of Anaga, one of the oldest settlements after the conquest, with vineyards on terraces above the sea. Below it, on the beach, a row of fish restaurants serves the catch of the morning.
- Las Teresitas · Tenerife’s natural beaches are black volcanic sand, so in the 1970s the city of Santa Cruz shipped in millions of tonnes of golden sand from the Sahara to build this one behind a breakwater. Palm trees and kiosks line it, and it is where the capital swims.
- Auditorio de Tenerife · Santiago Calatrava’s concert hall on the seafront of Santa Cruz, a white shell with a wing like a breaking wave. Santa Cruz is also where Nelson lost his right arm in 1797, in a failed night attack on the port, and the town still has the cannon that is said to have fired the shot.
- Basilica of Candelaria · The legend is that a hundred years before the conquest, two Guanche shepherds found a statue of the Virgin on the beach here, and the native people revered it long before the Spanish came. Along the seafront stand nine bronze statues of the Guanche kings of the island.
- Los Gigantes · The western end of the island falls into the sea as a wall of cliffs up to six hundred metres high, which the Guanches called the wall of hell. Between here and the island of La Gomera the strait is home to pilot whales and dolphins all year, and boats go out from the harbour to see them.
Getting to Tenerife and getting around
- Tenerife South Airport · Most international flights land here, near the southern beaches
- Tenerife North Airport · The smaller airport by La Laguna, for flights within Spain
Cheap eats in Tenerife
Canary food is simple and strong: papas arrugadas, small potatoes boiled in very salty water until their skins wrinkle, eaten with mojo — red sauce of peppers and garlic, or green of coriander. Gofio, toasted grain flour that the Guanches ate, goes into everything. And in the north, from autumn, the guachinches open: farmers’ garages turned into temporary bars selling their own new wine with a few simple dishes, a few euro.
- Casa de los Balcones · Guachinches in the valley, autumn into spring
- Taganana · Fresh fish on the beach in Anaga
- Plaza del Adelantado · Papas arrugadas and mojo in the student bars of La Laguna
- Vilaflor · Mountain wine and cheese in the high village
- Garachico · Grilled limpets and fish by the lava pools
- El Médano · Surfers’ cafés on the windy south coast
Museums in Tenerife
Tenerife’s history is in two layers: the Guanches, the island’s Berber-descended first people who lived in caves and fought the Spanish until 1496, and the colonial towns that served as the model for the Americas. The great natural museum is the volcano itself.
- La Laguna Cathedral · The colonial grid town, a world heritage site
- Casa de los Balcones · Carved balconies and island crafts
- Teide Observatory · Solar telescopes; book a guided visit
- Pirámides de Güímar · The pyramids and the Kon-Tiki explorer
- Auditorio de Tenerife · Calatrava’s concert hall by the sea
Nature and day trips near Tenerife
In one day on Tenerife you can go from banana plantations by the sea to pine forest, to a lunar crater above the clouds, and back down to a laurel forest dripping with fog. The island has more climates than most countries, and the national park of the Teide is the most visited in Europe.
- Roques de García · A loop walk among lava towers in the crater
- Cruz del Carmen · Trails into the laurel forest
- Masca · The gorge to the sea; book the trail
- Chinyero · The black lava of the 1909 eruption among pines
- Los Gigantes · Whale and dolphin boats under the cliffs
- Playa de Benijo · Black sand and sea stacks at sunset
Things to do in Tenerife with kids
Tenerife is a family island: warm all year, a cable car up a volcano, whales in the strait, seawater pools among the lava, and one of Europe’s biggest zoos. The southern beaches are sunniest; the north has the pools.
- Loro Parque · Parrots, penguins and a big aquarium
- Lago Martiánez · Seawater pools safe from the surf
- Teide Cable Car · Up a volcano in eight minutes
- Los Gigantes · Boat trips to see whales
- Las Teresitas · Calm golden sand behind a breakwater
- Garachico · Rock pools made by lava
Holy places in Tenerife
The faith of Tenerife joins two worlds: the Virgin of Candelaria, said to have been found by Guanche shepherds before the conquest and revered by them first, and the mountain the Guanches believed held their devil.
- Basilica of Candelaria · The patron Virgin of the Canaries; pilgrimage in August
- La Laguna Cathedral · The cathedral of the old capital
- Pico del Teide · The Guanches’ mountain of Guayota
- Casa de los Balcones · Corpus Christi carpets of volcanic sand
Nightlife in Tenerife
The night on Tenerife has two poles: the resort strip of the south, with its clubs, and Santa Cruz, whose February carnival is one of the largest in the world, with a million people in the streets. The rest of the year, the student town of La Laguna has the bars.
- Plaza de España · The carnival of Santa Cruz in February
- Plaza del Adelantado · The student bars of La Laguna
- Playa de las Américas · The club strip of the south
- Teide Cable Car · Stargazing tours above the clouds
- Puerto de la Cruz · Bars along the old harbour
Frequently asked questions about Tenerife
What is there to see in Tenerife?
The top sights in Tenerife are Teide Cable Car, Pico del Teide and Roques de García. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Tenerife?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Tenerife without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Tenerife?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Tenerife, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: Up the volcano.
How do you get to Tenerife and get around?
The main ways are Tenerife South Airport and Tenerife North Airport. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Tenerife, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Tenerife that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Tenerife for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.