Tenerife 1st trip 2008

I first visited Tenerife back in 2008 – this was my first “sun, sea & sand” holiday, although I actually spent very little time on the beach! The majority of my time was spent exploring the Los Cristianos/Playa de las Américas area (we stayed at an aparthotel in Los Cristianos), plus a day driving up to Mount Teide volcano and back. Apologies in advance for the quality of my first couple of photos here – they were taken on a 2008 camera phone!

I would recommend anyone who visits Tenerife to take a day trip to Mount Teide, to see its surreal, lunar landscape – a real juxtaposition to the beautiful yellow sandy beaches along the coastlines below. I am sure that you are able to take guided tours and public transport there, however we decided to go it alone with a hire car. It was great to see the peak of the volcano, however, we didn’t want to stay too long as the barren, neutral landscape can actually get a bit tedious after a while! We managed to blow a tyre on the way back as well, which ended up being pretty costly, but overall the journey was still worth it!

One thing that I love about the Canary Islands is that you cannot fault the weather. The temperature hardly goes below 20 degrees c in the daytime, even in the winter months, so whatever time of the year you go, you can be guaranteed great weather! It rained once during my first time in Tenerife, and honestly I did not mind it at all, in fact, it was rather refreshing!

I didn’t sample any of the local cuisine on my first trip, although I now know that Canarian food is pretty good (think Spanish tapas, with a twist). I got round to this on my second trip in 2026 – details below. I just wish that the Canary Islands were a little bit closer to the UK! At a four and a half hour flight, they feel somewhat inaccessible for shorter-haul trips, and I wouldn’t recommend going for any less than a week if travelling from the UK or mainland Europe.

Tenerife 2nd trip 2026

Tenerife round 2 was fantastic, and a completely different experience to that of my 2008 trip. For starters, we stayed in a holiday rental villa in the capital, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and secondly, I actually branched out and tried some different cuisines (including Spanish!) Again, this was in February, so the weather was a little cooler than average, and since we were staying on the north of the island, the weather a bit more variable too. This, however, leads to more of a lush green landscape, in contrast to the dry desert landscapes of the south of the island.

We day-tripped Los Cristianos, Puerto de la Cruz, and the forests surrounding Mount Teide (via rental car), and visited the beautiful Playa de las Teresitas beach on the north-east cost. I couldn’t give a favourite moment or place of the holiday, since it was all thoroughly enjoyable and we got to see and experience a fair bit of the island. We did go on a nice hike nearby the village of Arona in the south, which is something that I never imagined myself doing in Tenerife but gave a glimpse into a completely different side of the island and a bit of local village life. Visiting the Costa Martiánez beachfront lido in Puerto de la Cruz was also something I wasn’t expecting to be doing in February, but resulted in a refreshing and reinvigorating swim on a cool windy day!

See below for some more of my favourite photos from this trip…

Gran Canaria

I visited Gran Canaria in the summer of 2011. Being a close neighbour of Tenerife, Gran Canaria was somewhat similar, but had a slightly different vibe to it. I found it to be quieter, more relaxed, with a slower pace of life. I would say that it is ideal for a “fly and flop” type holiday, where you may not want to be embarking on activities or visiting attractions every day. It generally had a very “clean” and “upmarket” feel to it, and did not disappoint on the pretty views and chilled out beaches. One thing that I did observe was that Gran Canaria, at least the part that we went to, felt a lot more like a desert-scape than Tenerife. This may well be because I went to Tenerife in the winter (and once to the lush green north) and Gran Canaria in the summer, but I did start to miss the greenery of the UK towards the end of the holiday!

We sampled some of the nightlife in Gran Canaria, which is something that I didn’t get to do in Tenerife on either of my two trips there. This felt relatively low key, and certainly not akin to some of the raucousness that you hear about in Tenerife. The food was decent, however, I didn’t sample any of the traditional cuisine (uncultured of me, I know!) One thing that concerned me a bit was that there seemed to be a fair few cockroaches around, both in the aparthotel that we were staying at, and when out and about on our explorations. We actually started the holiday by “exterminating” a cockroach that had found its way into our kitchenette – not the nicest of welcomes! We found this not to be a big issue in general though, and managed to have a good holiday despite this.

I would be interested to know other people’s thoughts on the Canary Islands – where did you go, how did you find it, and would you recommend visiting anywhere in particular? I have had my eye on Lanzarote for a long time now, so any suggestions based on this island in particular will be much appreciated!