Tenerife travel guide: when to go, what to see and where to stay

Teide rises to 3,715 metres, Spain's highest point. The TF-21 road crosses the caldera at 2,000 metres, between lava fields and the Roques de Garcia. A cable car climbs to 3,555 metres in eight minutes, but the ticket is booked online days ahead and the service closes in high wind. Reaching the peak on foot from the top station needs a free named permit, requested months before. The park is also a Starlight reserve for stargazing.

The dry, sheltered south lines up beach resorts, black or imported sand beaches, and large leisure parks. Its real singularity is the resident colony of pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins living off Los Cristianos and Los Gigantes year-round: boat trips here have a very high success rate. It is the best base for a first sun-focused stay, with Teide an hour away by road.

The more humid north is covered in banana plantations and often capped with cloud in the afternoon in summer. Puerto de la Cruz keeps its Lago Martianez pools, designed by Cesar Manrique, and an 18th-century botanical garden. La Orotava lines up houses with wooden balconies and lays out carpets of flowers and volcanic sand at Corpus Christi. Garachico, swallowed by a lava flow in 1706, was rebuilt around natural pools in the lava.

In the west, the Los Gigantes cliffs drop 600 metres into the ocean. The hamlet of Masca, long reachable only on foot, overlooks a ravine whose descent to the sea, about 4 hours, is done by booking, with a helmet and a boat return. The Teno rural park, at the far north-west, leads to the Punta de Teno lighthouse by a road open only by shuttle for part of the day.

Santa Cruz, the capital, holds Calatrava's Auditorio and, in February, one of the world's biggest carnivals. Ten minutes away, La Laguna keeps a gridded historic centre listed by UNESCO. At the end of the island, the Anaga massif is a biosphere reserve covered in laurisilva, a relic forest of the Tertiary era: misty trails, the cave hamlet of Chinamada, the wild beaches of Benijo and Taganana.

Icod de los Vinos holds the thousand-year dragon tree, emblem of the Canaries, and its name recalls the island's wine tradition: Tenerife malvasia was prized across Europe from the 16th century, and the Tacoronte-Acentejo and Ycoden labels are tasted in the bodegas. From Los Cristianos, fast ferries reach La Gomera in under an hour, and a little further El Hierro and La Palma, for a day trip. See also the island of Lanzarote.