Tenerife 🏝: 6 Reasons to Add It to Your Travel Bucket List
Why We Love Travelling to Tenerife as Digital Nomads
Tenerife is one of our favorite places to catch some winter sun ☀️. We’ve already spent two amazing vacations (workations) as digital nomads there and would surely go back once again.
Here’s what we love about Tenerife ❤️:
- Warm and Pleasant Climate: Spring Weather All Year Round
- Amazing Beaches & Natural Pools
- Food with a Dash of History
- Beautiful Architecture — Columbus Greets You
- Wide Array of Accommodation Options: From Beach Houses to Eco-Tourism Farms
- Island Hopping: You Can Easily Check Out the Other Islands
Below you’ll find more info on these points.
Warm and Pleasant Climate — Spring Weather All Year Round
Tenerife is one of the 7 major Canary Islands and one of the main plus points of the Canary Islands is its climate. All year round you’ll be able to enjoy spring weather, with an average temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. Even in winter we could lie on the beach and swim in the ocean.
Keep in mind that the sandy south of Tenerife is generally a few degrees warmer than the wilder north of the island.
Amazing Beaches and Natural Pools
Being a volcanic island, most of the beaches in Tenerife have black sand. Only on a few beaches, you will see white sand, which was once carried over from the Sahara Desert. Amongst the most famous white sand beaches is Las Teresitas near the capital Santa Cruz.
We love the black sand that glistens in the sun, but if you want to check out some white sand beaches on Tenerife here is an overview.
All over Tenerife, you’ll find natural swimming pools formed by volcanic stones. Here, people can swim peacefully without fearing the force of the Atlantic waves. We especially loved the ones in Bajamar in the north of Tenerife, and the pools Piscinas Alcalá.
Inspired by the naturally formed pools, the Canarian architect César Manrique built an awesome swimming complex in Puerto de la Cruz, in the north of Tenerife: El Lago Martiánez. We enjoyed swimming in the calm seawater pools with a beautifully designed landscape surrounding us.
Food with a Dash of History
The first inhabitants of Tenerife were the Guanches. You can see several statues of the most important chiefs in Candelaria, but even today, something of the natives lives on in the guachinches. These are old pubs, where the locals meet for drinks, card games, and some food. There is usually no menu and it’s easier to get what you want if you speak Spanish. Some guachniches are also to be found in Gran Canaria or La Gomera (the two islands next to Tenerife).
A local product that we are a big fan of is gofio. It is flour made from toasted grains. We tried it and loved it. You can drink it or find cereals, and pasta made with it.
Another great plus are the fresh fruits that grow on the Canary Isles. With fresh bananas, oranges, papayas, pineapples, mangos, custard apples, and lychees you will have a good vitamin supply all year round.
Beautiful Architecture — Columbus Greets You
All architecture lovers will find some treasures in the Canary Islands. Not only can you admire the modern Auditorio in Santa Cruz, but in many towns, you can still find the colonial architecture, dating back to Christopher Columbus, who also spent some time on the Canary Islands on his voyages to the Americas. Especially beautiful are the narrow, wooden balconies, often adorned with subtropical flowers. The most famous town for admiring colonial balconies is La Orotava, in the north of the island.
Wide Array of Accommodation Options: From Beach Houses to Eco-Tourism Farms
As Tenerife is an island oriented to accommodate tourists, it is extremely easy to find good apartments all over the island. Many apartments also offer pools. Although most of them are shared pools, it is a wonderful opportunity for all of you working from Tenerife to take a quick dip in the pool during your lunch break.
On one occasion, we stayed on a farm, exploring eco-tourism. If you like rural villages, hikes in the country, farm life, and animals, it is an enticing contrast to do workation from such lodgings.
Island Hopping: You Can Easily Check Out the Other Islands
The archipelago of the Canary Islands consists of seven major islands (and some smaller ones). We have seen five of them, and every island looks different. Each island has its unique charm. Here is a brief overview of the five islands we have seen so far.
Whereas Fuerteventura is desert-like with white sand beaches (a rarity amongst the Canary Islands) and appreciated by windsurfers, Lanzarote surprises you with a landscape of black volcanic rock sculptures.
Gran Canaria has large dunes in the south and a green and hilly interior. Its capital, Las Palmas, is quite renowned amongst digital nomads.
Tenerife is desert-like in the south and has magical forests in its northeast. But its most prominent sight is the volcano El Teide, with 3715m the highest mountain of Spain. Don’t forget to check out the Dragon Tree (El Drago de Icod de Los Vinos), a tree as old as the hills, in the north of Tenerife.
Only a stone’s throw from Tenerife is the small nature pearl of La Gomera. Here, you’ll find lush greenery and one of the rare rainforests in Europe (Laurisilva). The island offers great hiking trails all over the island.
If you wonder about the climate, the rule of thumb goes as follows: The islands closer to Morocco are warmer and it gets a bit fresher the more you venture west towards the open Atlantic. But even in January, we spent some time on the west coast of La Gomera, and it was comely warm which made regular swims in the ocean our daily highlight.
If you feel like you can’t decide on one island, consider island hopping. It’s easy thanks to two ferry companies: Naviera Armas and Fred Olsen. Some rides are as short as 30 min (Lanzarote ← →Fuerteventura).
There are even flights that connect the islands, but the ferry ride is an experience on its own.
We hope we were able to convince you to add Tenerife to your travel bucket list 😉.
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