Tenerife
Spain
Spain's highest mountain, with a subtropical winter around its feet
Photo by Hendrik Cornelissen on Unsplash
Photos by Andreas M, Bastian Pudill, Hasmik Ghazaryan Olson and Mike Swigunski on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Spain
All year — mildest March to May and September to November
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 55mm in Dec
Where it is
28.29°N, 16.62°W Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Take the cable car up Teide, with the summit permit booked weeks ahead
- Drive the Anaga ridge through cloud forest
- Walk down the Masca gorge to the sea
- Watch pilot whales off Los Gigantes
- Eat in a guachinche in the Orotava valley
Tenerife travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Spain
Mid-rangeEuros, and the Canaries are outside the EU VAT area, so alcohol, tobacco and electronics are noticeably cheaper than on the mainland. Cards are taken everywhere; the duty-free difference is not a reason to carry cash.
ATMs & cards
CaixaBank, BBVA and Santander machines are everywhere and free with most European cards. Avoid the standalone Euronet machines in the resorts, which charge heavily and push conversion.
Avoid these
- Euronet machines in the resorts
Use these instead
- CaixaBank
- BBVA
- Santander
- Unicaja
The blue Euronet machines cluster around the tourist strips, charge several euros and push conversion hard. A bank machine two streets inland is free with most European cards.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Spain
SafeVery safe, with resort pickpocketing the main nuisance. Two real hazards: the Atlantic surf on the north coast, which drowns people every year at unpatrolled beaches, and Teide itself, where it can be freezing and windy at the summit while the coast is at 25 degrees.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (8 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- Playa de las Américas — the strip at closing time, for drunkenness and for timeshare touts
- Playa de Benijo — and the north-coast beaches, which have rip currents and no lifeguard
- Hiking Masca or Teide without checking the forecast — the weather here changes in an hour
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Spain visa rules
No visa needed
Freedom of movement — no time limit, and no visa. Bring a passport or national ID card.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period, counted across the whole Schengen area, not per country. ETIAS, a paid online authorisation, is being introduced for these passports — check the official link for whether it applies to your travel dates.
Visa required in advance€90 (Schengen short-stay visa)
A Schengen short-stay visa is applied for before travel, at the consulate of your main destination.
How to get it: Apply at the consulate or visa centre of the country you will spend most time in, typically 15 working days ahead and no more than six months before travel.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Spain
Excellent and cheapRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date (MMR, tetanus, polio)
Getting treated
EU/EEA and Swiss visitors are treated on the same terms as residents with an EHIC or GHIC card; UK visitors use a GHIC. Everyone else pays, and travel insurance is worth having for the repatriation cover rather than the treatment.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
Very goodPapas arrugadas with mojo — wrinkled salt potatoes with green and red sauces — appear on every table. Look for guachinches in the north, farmhouse dining rooms that open only while the year's wine lasts. The bananas are small, sweet and genuinely different.
Nightlife
Two islands again: the southern resorts run a package strip that never stops, and the north is wine bars and a university town.
- Playa de las Américas — the resort strip, at full volume
- Costa Adeje — the same coast, done more expensively
- Santa Cruz de Tenerife — the real city, and Carnival in February
- La Laguna — the student town, and the good bars
Closing: 04:00 in the south, 02:00 in the north.
A beer in a bar: €2–3.50
Carnival in Santa Cruz is the second largest in the world after Rio, and the island is fully booked for it.
Getting around
Easy- CabifyWorks here
- From the airport
- Tenerife South (TFS) to Los Cristianos €20–25 by taxi, to Puerto de la Cruz €80–95
- Against a taxi
- The taxis are metered, cheap by Spanish standards and everywhere. They are the system here rather than the fallback.
Uber does not operate on the island. App coverage in the Canaries is thin and seasonal, so the taxi rank and the hotel telephone are what most people end up using — and the TITSA buses are very cheap for the long runs across the island.
Time zone and your working day
Atlantic/Canary — 5 hours ahead of you
3 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–12:00 your time, 14:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 04:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 04:00–12:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Spain
Why these are Spain's numbers and not Tenerife's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 2× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fair. Maps, calls and streaming; tethering a laptop works for an hour, not a day. Mobile runs at 77% of the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Tenerife, so these are medians for all of Spain. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Spain, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Spanish
- HelloHolaOH-la
- PleasePor favorpor fa-VOR
- Thank youGraciasGRA-thyas
- Yes / NoSí / Nosee / no
4 more phrases
- Excuse mePerdónper-DON
- How much is it?¿Cuánto cuesta?KWAN-to KWES-ta
- The bill, pleaseLa cuenta, por favorla KWEN-ta
- Cheers!¡Salud!sa-LOOD
Religion
Catholic
Nominally Catholic and deeply secular in practice. Churches are working buildings as well as sights, and Semana Santa is taken seriously even by people who never attend Mass.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Eat late — lunch from 14:00, dinner rarely before 21:00
- Greet with two cheek kisses, right cheek first, between women or a man and a woman
- Stand at the bar to drink; it is cheaper than sitting and more sociable
- Say buenos días on entering a small shop, and adiós on leaving
Don't
- Do not expect anything to be open between 14:00 and 17:00 outside the big cities
- Do not order sangria in a serious restaurant — it is a tourist drink; ask for tinto de verano
- Do not tip heavily; rounding up or a euro or two is normal
- In Barcelona, do not assume Catalan and Spanish are interchangeable — the distinction matters to people
Where to stay in Tenerife
No Holistay rentals in Tenerife yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Tenerife on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Tenerife South TFS
25 minfrom the airport· 28 km as the crow flies
25 min to the southern resorts, an hour to Santa Cruz.
Also worth pricing: Tenerife North TFN — closer to the north and to La Laguna, mostly domestic.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
