Tenerife truly has everything a destination needs to be a top-tier solo travel destination, and yet I couldn’t help but feel a little let down by my trip overall. The island has incredible scenery and national parks, various adventure activities and is pretty affordable. While there are several reasons to put backpackers off from specific parts of the island, there are other areas which truly are hidden gems and just lack enough good hostels and advertising to draw the right crowd to the island.
I can see how the areas of Los Cristianos and Playa Adeje appeal to so many tourists every year. There are countless huge resorts at bargain prices, alcohol at a fifth of the price of at home and sunshine and 12 hours of daylight all year round. In addition to this, the south of the island is home to various very highly rated theme parks, such as Siam Park, and while I personally didn’t go to any of these, I’ve only heard good things. This draws many families and Brits looking for a cheap holiday in the sun. However, this wasn’t the kind of trip I was on or even enjoyed.
The whole area felt very artificial, almost like a cruise ship, with no local people; only tourists. The issue with the sheer number of tourists who come here every year is that nearly every restaurant is bang average and copy-and-pasted from one another, as there is no real need to compete for business; almost everywhere is busy or full every day, even in the off-season – I visited in November.
Between Los Cristianos and Playa Adeje is Playa de las Américas, which is hard to describe in words that I can post to the internet. It is an area built around tourists who want to party and as such has many less than favourable businesses. It is the kind of place where every bar has someone outside trying to lure you in with deals, and you’re likely to be accosted every hundred meters by someone trying to sell you something ranging from sunglasses to some form of drugs, not just at night but also in broad daylight. Once, even while I was eating at a restaurant. I think what sums the place up is that half the people who are staying here rent mobility scooters because they don’t want to have to walk around. Having been on party holidays to both Zante and Ayia Napa, I can confidently say this would be the worst destination of the three by a country mile.
With that said, this is only a 10-mile stretch of coastline, and the rest of the island has a lot to offer. One of the biggest reasons I chose to come here was that the island has great surf spots for all abilities, all year round. While it is a shame that one of these is right in Playa de las Americas, there are some really reasonable surf schools and rental shops here, for European prices at least. I went with Ika Ika surf school, who are just 20 meters or so from the beach and has lessons for just 35 euros. Our teacher spoke both Spanish and English, and the classes were of no more than 5 or 6 people, meaning every time you attempted to surf a wave, you would get immediate feedback on what you did right or wrong. Having not surfed for almost a year, this feedback made sure I caught some decent waves again, much faster than if I had surfed alone. They even have a photographer taking photos, which you can buy afterwards. A little too expensive for me, so I’ll keep the watermarked versions.
Venturing inland, there is Teide National Park. Home to the tallest mountain in Spain, Mount Teide, at over 3700m. Having rented a car, I drove all the way through the park, and it was an awesome road trip, passing through forests, around volcanic rocky plateaus, up and down mountainsides with incredible views along the way. There are several viewpoints throughout the park, and there are some famous hiking trails. Of course, you can also go to the top of Teide either by hiking or by cable car. The only frustrating thing about the park is how much of it requires permits and how few permits they give out. If you want to do the best hikes here, you’ll need to research and book them at least 3 weeks in advance, as they sell out fast, even in the off-season, like when I visited. This, of course, was something I learnt after I had already booked the flights and hostel with just a week to go before I went. In addition, some of the more famous spots within the park severely lack parking. To visit El Roques de Garcia, I tried for 20 minutes to park with no luck, and so in the end parked about a mile down the road in a lay-by and walked all the way back down. This doesn’t sound bad, but when you’re on a 3 or 4-day trip, you don’t want to waste hours of a day walking to and from where you’ve parked.
To the north of Teide National Park, the landscape changes from barren and rocky to dense pine woodlands; this is great fun to drive through and offers plenty of hikes, camping spots and viewpoints. Notably, El Mirador de Chipeque, which is arguably the best sunset spot on the island, as you watch the sun set behind Teide and out over the ocean. It is also pretty common to get cloud inversions here, which are always spectacular to see. The sunset was pretty subdued on the day I went, but even so, the views were incredible. Make sure to get here early, though, as lots of people pack out this spot. There are also some fantastic stargazing spots here; however, having only 1 full day to explore the park and wasting hours parking, by the time the sunset had finished, I still hadn’t eaten lunch or dinner, and so I shot back to the hostel to go and grab some food. There is one restaurant in the national park, but this gets pretty full with tour group reservations, and so if you plan to spend a day here, bring a packed lunch/dinner if you want to stay late to watch the stars. This is an error I made in planning the trip, as when you look at the map, the distance between these spots seems pretty small, and the island is only an hour drive from tip to tip. However, as the national park is so much higher in altitude than the rest of the island, driving from within it to a restaurant just outside may take 40 minutes or so, as you need to descend 2000+ meters in elevation.
The final national park is Anaga, which is another forest to the far north of the island. This one is more dense and twisted than on Tiede due to its higher humidity. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time here, but it is well worth a visit for its drastically different vegetation and feel, with one highlight being a viewpoint just outside the town of Taborno.
Another great activity to do on the island is to go dolphin and whale watching. This is possible all year round as several species inhabit the ocean surrounding the island. This cost me just 13 euros for the two-hour trip, and we saw several dolphins, turtles and a pilot whale. While this is one of the smallest species of whale, it was still incredible to see just meters from the boat in their natural habitat. It has also resulted in my entire for you page on Instagram and TikTok being full of scuba diving and whale watching spots across the world – mainly French Polynesia, which has me doing some financial gymnastics to see if this could be a trip for next year. O, and if it tickles your fancy, you can pay a few extra euros to do the tour in a giant Viking boat – because why not.
In contrast to the towns I’ve spoken about before, the rest of the island feels far more authentic with local cuisine, tapas and wine bars down little side streets, churches, botanical gardens, etc. It’s great to spend a day driving the coastline and wanting to explore each of these towns. My favourite was Ortava with its free botanical gardens, colourful staircases and houses and an incredible viewpoint; the Mirador de 500 escalones. This is so unsuspecting; it has no signposts or car park, it is simply a staircase leading down at the end of a residential road, but its views are breathtaking.
One day trip, which the internet highly recommends, is Masca. The is a little village perched a the edge of a mountain with two valleys on either side which run down towards the ocean. Similar to Teide, there is simply not enough parking here, so again I had to park miles along the road, even in the off-season. Unfortunately, when I visited in November, all of the restaurants had shut for their season, and so there wasn’t really anything you could do in the village but have a quick wander around, as it is very small.
The drive here again has fantastic views, but it is a tricky road to drive. Many of the rental companies give out large family cars, and this road isn’t the widest; this leads to some difficult encounters, as the road is very steep and has several hairpin turns in it. This isn’t too bad when it is one car coming either way, but when traffic piles up behind a slow driver, this becomes problematic. To the extent that in almost every car, a girlfriend or wife was recording the encounters and taking immense joy in their partner’s driving struggles. Of course, this is the trip I decided to do on the first day with the rental car, and so it’s safe to say I made a right fool of myself several times trying to get to grips with the Kia Stonic I was given. I swear its ‘safety features’ were trying to kill me at several points. Namely, its ‘anti-crash’ feature emergency stopped for me because the bus I was trying to get past was ‘too close’ – as if I could make the road wider to give the amount of space it wanted. That or the ‘lane assist’, which would try and steer me back into the middle of the lane when overtaking a cyclist. It’s safe to say I was wishing for my usual Ford Focus after those experiences. While I can see why TikTok glamourises this little village for its aesthetic postcard look, which never came through with the overcast weather when I visited, it’s not somewhere I’d put high up on any future Tenerife agenda if I were tight for time.
Would I come back to Tenerife?
Personally, a return here won’t be anytime soon as I’d much rather pay a little more and go back to Madeira, which has almost everything Tenerife has to offer and far exceeds Tenerife in its authenticity, ease of visiting national parks and number of incredible hikes and viewpoints. Tenerife is definitely worth visiting, though, so long as you centre the trip around road tripping the north of the island, trying out its surf schools and making the most of the discount prices. Even with higher flight and car rental prices because of how last-minute I booked, I still spent less than £500 all in.
