North or South Tenerife? How to Choose Before You Book

Most people book Tenerife before deciding what they want from it, then discover that the island they landed on is not quite the one in the photographs. That is not bad luck. Tenerife is effectively two islands with a volcano between them, and they have different weather, different landscape and different reasons to visit.

Choosing the wrong side is the most expensive mistake you can make here, and it is entirely avoidable.

The Split

Trade winds arrive from the north-east and hit a mountain 3,715 metres high. Moisture rises, cools and stops as cloud on the northern slopes. Air that comes over the top arrives on the southern side dry.

The result is a genuine climatic divide across about forty kilometres.

The north

Green, cooler, frequently cloudy at coastal level, and considerably more Spanish in feel. Banana terraces, old towns, laurel forest, black beaches, natural pools. Puerto de la Cruz, La Orotava, Garachico, Icod.

The north's reputation for "worse weather" is misleading. It is cloudier at sea level and reliably sunny fifteen minutes uphill.

The south

Dry, hot, sunny nearly every day, and built for tourism. Costa Adeje, Los Cristianos, Playa de las Américas. This is where the large hotels, the reliable sunshine and most of the golf are.

The landscape is stark rather than green, and the coast has been developed heavily. The compensation is that the weather does what you booked it to do.

Which One Should You Pick

Choose the north if

• You want to see the island rather than a resort
• Green landscape, old towns and food matter more than guaranteed sun
• You intend to walk, drive and explore
• Natural pools and black beaches are the appeal
• You are comfortable with a grey morning that clears by afternoon

Choose the south if

• Reliable sunshine is the point of the holiday
• You are travelling with small children and want an easy beach
• You want a resort with everything inside it
• You are visiting between November and March, when the north is at its wettest

Choose the middle if

Santa Cruz and La Laguna sit on the eastern side, near the airport and within reach of both. La Laguna is a UNESCO-listed university town and the most pleasant place on the island to spend an evening. Almost no visitors stay there, which is itself a recommendation.

The Thing Nobody Tells You

You can drive between them in about an hour. The motorway runs around both coasts and the interior roads cut across the middle.

Staying in the south does not stop you seeing Anaga. Staying in the north does not stop you having a beach day in Adeje. Renting a car turns the north/south decision from a defining one into a matter of where you sleep.

Without a car, the decision matters enormously: public transport is decent along the coasts and poor into the mountains, which is where the island is at its best.

When to Go

• April to June. The best combination on the island: warm, clear, and before the summer crowds.
• July and August. Hot and busy. The north is at its most reliable; the south is at its most crowded.
• September and October. Warm sea, thinner crowds, occasional calima, dust carried from the Sahara that turns the sky yellow and the air hot.
• November to March. The south stays warm and sunny. The north gets genuine Atlantic weather, which is dramatic on the coast and unpleasant on a beach.

A Practical Itinerary

If you have a week and a car, the island divides neatly:

1. Anaga: a full day, starting early
2. Teide and Las Cañadas: a full day, going up before the cloud
3. The north coast: Garachico, Icod, the natural pools
4. Teno and Masca: the west, in the afternoon light
5. A beach day: south if you want warm water, north if you want it empty
6. La Laguna and Santa Cruz: for a day that is not about landscape
7. The one you want to do again

Planning It Properly

Tenerife rewards a plan far more than most islands, because the distances are short but the roads are slow, and because the weather at your hotel tells you very little about the weather where you are going.

CanaryMaps was built for exactly this: every location visited and photographed, with exact coordinates and the practical notes that decide whether a place is worth the drive today.