The Canary islands. Which is best?

[ronturner]

Hi all you frequent travellers.

Although we are fairly well travelled, these islands have never benefitted from a visit by the Turner family. Not going to Florida this winter so we are thinking of one or two weeks away in those islands.

Question is; which is the best? Obviously we like sun but we are no all day beach loungers. We like some life but not too rowdy and not Blackpool with sun. Public transport would be good, but we are reasonably fit. A place with a nice pool, good restaurants not too far away, nice walk to the beach or the promenade, transport or car hire into the interior....

What are your experiences? Which island and where on that island. If inter island travel is practical we might make a two centre. (Depends on flights to and from Nantes too)
Thanks in advance.

Ron

[ian531]

Hi Ron,

We like Gran Canaria, we normally stop in Melonares - good location, nice hotels and good restaurants

Playa Des Ingles seems to be the busier resort on the Island, not that I’ve been

A trip into the mountains is well worth it

Ian

[digit]

We alternate between Gran Canaria and Tenerife.

For Gran Canaria we normally stay in Maspalomas and have a rental car. Plenty to explore all around the island, last time we discovered the beautiful town of Arucas and had a tour around the rum distillery.

On Tenerife we normally stay in Playa de las Americas. If you like classic 70's/80's rock (Clapton, Deep Purple AC/DC etc) be sure to check out Sax Rock Bar, bands doing great cover sets every night and a great Chinese buffet opposite  . Again we normally have a rental and spend a good bit of time up in the Pico del Teide volcanic caldera, amazing place!

GC

[Deleted]

You might want to consider the least known of the Canary Islands, El Hierro, Ron. I haven't been myself, but I've flown over it at low level a few times and the scenery is quite unusual. More like the Azores than The Canaries and having paradors rather than large hotels-perhaps worthy of a side trip for a few days, rather than a full stay. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Hierro#Tourism_and_transportation

[cambrian5619]

Our favourite is Lanzarote and we always stay in Puerto Del Carmen the biggest, most interesting and nicest resort in our opinion.

It is very close to the Airport and excellent for spotting from the beach or promenade.

Lots of good restaurants and apartments but few hotels.

Playa Blanca is also a nice resort with a ferry link to Fuerteventura.

[optimum1878]

I am with cambrian5619 on this one,Lanzarote all day long for me,Puerto Del Carmen.going back there for a third time next June,plenty of bars and restaurants.But most of all we like the walks to the harbour at one end and the resort of Matagorda around a mile the other way,with lovely bars near the airport runway,we stayed in the Labranda Player Club apartments which is brilliantly situated on the doorstep of the long stretch of bars and restaurants in Puerto Del Carmen,lovely breezes too,which is essential to my partner.

[ronturner]

Thanks everyone for your most useful comments.

[bulldog]

Afternoon Ron

My input for you. We have stayed in all the four big ones. I will harshly instantly exclude GC as we had our room broken into, and then a bag stolen from hotel lobby waiting for pick up Plane then broke down and we were stranded an extra day. So for these reasons I would not go to GC!!. Went to Lanzarote year before last. Stayed just outside Playa Blanca, weird hotel, main problem with the island however was it never stopped blowing a cold gale while we were there. Town itself not very exciting and island covered in Lava, which is good for TV shows but not much else.

Fuertaventura, -Stayed in I think it was Coralejo (Think thats correct spelling, also visited on day trip from Lanzarote. Pleasant , several nice restaurants but overall small and no decent long walks, well not that we found. Hired a car for the day, and rep seemed surprised we would need it for that long!!!!!!!

Then to Tenerife , by a long way our favourite and now only island we consider, as you may gather from comments above. We have been going 2-3 times a year for the past 10+ years. We love the place, climate good and fairly constant summer and winter. We have stayed in Los Cristianos -Arona Gran many times, lovely views over the harbour, and easy walk into town and then a bit further into Playa de Las Americas (40mins ish) big advantage of the place is a beer is 1 yes one Euro. Food also quite cheap and generally very good.
We now have moved to shall I call it the upmarket side of Playa and we stay in Costa Adeje. The hotel Jardines de Nivaria. 5 star, superb hotel, right on prom (via lift and gate to prom) Once on prom numerous very good restaurants within 1-10 min walk. Beach bars, not at all rowdy All bars /restaurants etc tend to close no later than 11pm. Plenty of good walks , one way to La Calleta , have wonderful lunch on the sea. Other way you can walk , via a couple of stops for a beer into Playa. Prob about 1.5 miles , generally flat for us ageing guys. Playa has the best restaurants and of course a visit to Hard Rock for their Nacho starter is a must. Down road from hotel is Del Duque shopping centre. Always good for a walk round and coffee to see what you cannot afford as its full of designer shops.
However the single main reason why we repeatedly go back to the same hotel is that the Pool is heated summer and winter. I have never understood how pools can be cold in hot countries but they always are. This one isn't and its lovely. You can actually go in it and just stay in it as its so nice.
Nice trips to La Gomera and places available if you want to venture out for the day.

These are just my obviously biased views on the islands. We are going back to the Jardines next month for our second time this year, and I think tenth time overall. Prices for this summer are very reasonable too.

Hope this helps

Clive

[optimum1878]

I have news for you bulldog,all the canary Islands have volcanic ash,don`t know what time of year you went there,but playa blanca or just outside is not the main resort,so to be fair you cannot really give it a fair assessment,maybe you just picked the wrong location.Some people prefer a breeze to just a baking hot sun,never known it to blow a gale though.We go in June.
At the end of the day we all have our favourite places,Tenerife being yours which I respect.

[bulldog]

If you read post again Optimum I did say it is purely based on my experiences. The hotel we had in Lanzarote was well weird, called I think the Vulcano and roof shaped like a volcano. To enter you walk through a copy of a church with candles and organ music. Hotel is all spread out with towers and things. We had nice room at top of a tower. But OMG was it blowing a gale. All week long, would have prob been totally different if not for the persistent cold wind. Think we went at Easter so March/April.

Agreed re the Ash bit just giving a bit of dramatic effect to the writing. It is by no means a fair assessment of any of them just an opinion based on our personal experiences for a bit of fun.

[optimum1878]

No problem Bulldog,I take your point mate.

[columbo]

I've been to Lanzarote a few times and always stayed at the Beatriz Playa in Matagorda, good comfy hotel and good food right next to the approach. Its a nice walk down the path to the threshold and go under the threshold to the right side of the perimeter fence for great photos in the morning. In the afternoon the sun is behind the hotel so can be at the pool bar and photo anything that's landing. I went to Fuerteventura on my honeymoon in May May 2018 (marriage lasted 7 months which caused me a nervous breakdown and loss of my career...but moving on...) we stayed at the Barcelo Thalasso Spa, great photos for the approach from your sun lounger or anywhere walking about with a decent lens. Good food, great rooms and ideal for some sneaky spotting. Traffic at both Islands can vary greatly depending on the day. At times its very quiet but then the day after its hectic. Best days at Lanzarote are Thursday and Sundays, they are "British" days but anything can arrive from different UK airports. They have "german" and "Scandinavian" days but I cant remember what they are. Traffic at Fuerteventura is varied also.

[davecalveley]

For a first visit Ron would recommend Lanzarote ...all the Canaries have the usual boat trip/jeep safari/waterpark trips but Lanzarote has the benefit of doing the Timanfaya volcanic park trip and if culture is your thing the Cesar Manrique tour is a must.... google them to see if of interest....others have given you all the best viewing spots for aircraft etc.We like the beachfront bars/restaurants at Matagorda for views of incoming aircraft....

[viscount]

As this thread is rumbling on, my six pennyworth. It is quite a while since I spent a week on Tenerife, which included a day by air to Lanzarote, plus comments I recall from a work colleague at around the same time.

I liked Tenerife. True I was staying, along with the half the world in the SW corner- which is where the larger airport is as well as the two major resort towns. I spent several days following footpath routes in the 'Sunflower' series of guidebooks, a short public bus trip and quickly into remote valleys and into a different world. I am not fond of 'tourist strips' be they Blackpool or Benidorm. I found myself in a 'Hotel Sol' right on the Playa de las Americas strip - despite being over 10 floors up the bed still vibrated to the bass speakers from the club next door until after dawn. Indeed the morning of the day trip to Lanzarote I was up and waiting for the pick-up bus while revellers were still progressing from bar to bar still part of the day before; I feeling totally overdressed in standard daytime shorts and T-shirt! Both Playa de las Americas and Los Cristianos are densely packed, high-rise towns - the tourist centres thinning, and hotels lower as you progress northward to the high cliff top setting of Los Gigantes. Stating all this as the "location, location" of your hotel is important and 'brochure speak' "quiet and close to amenities" seems to apply to siesta time only! 'Close to amenities' in Playa Americas or Los Cristianos = noisy roads, lots of people and loud nightlife - don't be fooled by 'convenient and lively'.

Right, that is the down-side of Tenerife's main tourist centres. Up in the NE the towns are more Spanish, life is quieter - but there is also a greater risk of cloudy days and even some rain. I spent two days, using a hire car, in the crater of Mount Tiede. Both days the cable car to the summit was not operating due to winds, a regular problem. Not sure what the current situation is, but back then you could not climb the last (50m?) to the top due to erosion making the friable surface dangerous. Spent a day and half wandering around a web of footpaths within the crater marvelling at volcanic topography (well I am a geographer) using the already mentioned Sunflower guide book and hardly meeting a soul.

I'd have no problem going back to Tenerife, but I would be more careful about where I stayed! I would love to reach the top of Mt Teide and walk further on the slopes and crater of the volcano. A great week, with still more to do into a fortnight.


Lanzarote is one of those island locations that visitors either seem to absolutely love or swear never to return. Burning hot black rock dominates the landscape from waters edge to way inland. I'm not a beach lover, so Lanzarote's gritty black and scalding beaches were intolerable. However, on a one day bus tour around the principal tourist 'honey pots', Lanzarote was an absolutely fascinating place, historically, culturally, visually, architecturally, biologically. Beyond a one day bus tour, which I am sure could be stretched out over several more targeted, fascinating 'do-it-yourself' days in a hire-car. Lanzarote has more to offer than airport approach views from the burning hot beach, but once you have visited the attractions, not sure how much more there is. So a great week, but a fortnight might be a stretch too far (well for me anyway).


Fuerteventura from what I've had described to me is very much the opposite of Tenerife. Mostly low lying, sand dunes stretching well across the whole island. Fantastic beaches, mostly quieter and family based resorts. There is a great contrast to the Atlantic rollers on the west side and gentle beaches on the east. Great for a 'wind-down and switch-off' holiday, but not for the active be it walker or explorer, unless that is you are a wind-surfer!


Gran Canaria is an island I would love to visit as there seems much to see and do, but without the mass tourism of Tenerife's resorts. Likewise La Palma and Gomera are far enough from mass tourism to seem very appealing. Indeed part of the attraction is the difficulty of getting there (although Gomera is much more accessible now than it used to be).

Likely of no help whatsoever to Ron, my promised six-penny-worth likely providing only the value of a cent, but a few enjoyable memories and few common sense warnings too . . . . and I only mentioned the 'airport' word twice.