Lanzarote Travel and Holiday Guides.

Lanzarote is a particularly unusual and scenic Canary Island and has a plenty to offer for a holiday.

There are excellent beaches and great sightseeing available and with the normally lovely weather it all helps in surviving a hard day out on a Lanzarote Beach.

We last went on holiday to Lanzarote in February 2004 having found a nice last minute deal on the web, and stayed at Playa Blanca. There are plenty of paths and tracks to walk on Lanzarote - we managed about 120 miles of walking (and took many photos..) during our couple of weeks holiday and that only within quite small parts of the island. There were loads more tracks we just did not have time for.

It is amazing how much building is going on now - mostly apartments and small houses for sale - the Playa Blanca we knew from a couple of years ago has disappeared under a lot of concrete and from the look of the marked out areas on it's outskirts it is going to get a whole lot bigger yet.
That said, most of the building is very low level and a lot of trouble has been taken to plant shrubs to keep the area as nice as possible. This building craze also seems to be applied to Puerto del Carmen, Teguise and in fact most of Lanzarote's villages and towns - thank goodness various areas of the island have been designated Parks etc which will preclude building encroachment - hopefully. Another thing we noticed whilst on holiday on Lanzarote was that (apart from the Parks like Timanfaya and Monumento Natural de los Ajaches) quite a lot of the tracks we knew of on our previous visit have been tarmac'd over which is a shame if you like track-walking but probably good news for hire-car companies.

Lanzarote walking and hiking: We enjoyed a few walks whilst on holiday and have described eleven of them below with thumb nailed photos to go alongside. The walks vary from circular to end-to-end, are from just a few kms to around 20 km, and go from coastline following i.e. fairly flat to walks involving sometimes quite steep climbs. We tried where possible to stay off tarmac but as mentioned above the continued surfacing of tracks means at times normal roads had to be used for a part of some of the walks. We have included some GPS readings (Lat/Lon) at various locations for those who like to play around with Magellans etc. using WGS84. It is worth taking a look at our walks since even if you don't like hiking too much there are lots of photographs showing the various features seen around the walk locations.

Car Hire: The Canary Islands are pretty cheap for hire cars and Lanzarote seems to still be one of the cheapest. We got a newish Golf Polo for 10 days for 190 Euros including insurance - it is worth checking a couple of hire places out to compare though since the first one we tried was 80 Euros dearer than that - also of course you may find even cheaper deals before you go out to Lanzarote by booking your car on the web.

Lanzarote Restaurants. We found several good restaurants along the front at Playa Blanca - actually for the size of the place there are not that many to chose from - anyway we found the food nicely cooked - and big plate full of it, friendly waiters, good wine and lots of menu choice - typically a main meal with a bit of bread and a jug of house wine (or bottle of local wine) was around 30 Euros for the two of us. Many meals come with chips as standard but you can ask for either canary potatoes or jacket potatoes plus vegetables instead thank goodness.

Lodging Options: When you stay on any of the Canary Islands you'll have a lot of different accommodations to choose from. For a truly local experience, stay away from the chains and opt for a locally run hotel, timeshare, or inn. Ask the staff for recommendations for non-touristy spots and you may be pleasantly surprised by wonderful discoveries.

 

Lanzarote's lovely holiday beaches.

The really nice beaches in the south of Lanzarote are just outside of Playa Blanca - Playa de Papagayo probably being the most well known, but also check out the others nearby like Mujeres and Pozo. They all seemed to be mixed bathing i.e. you could be just in your skin or dressed in an overcoat - up to you with nobody getting excited either way.
There is a boat ferry service operating from Playa Blanca to Papagayo leaving several times a day, otherwise unless you are prepared to walk to the beaches then you have to drive to them.
There is now a charge for vehicles to enter Monumento Natural de los Ajaches where the beaches are located which is 3 Euros - this area is track only and the surfaces are extremely rough but perfectly possible with a hire car - the way in is to go down to the Playa Blanca - Femes roundabout and in you bump from there.

The other Lanzarote beach we have always loved to go to is up the other side of the island at Playa de Famara - you can use the beach which runs alongside the road (have never seen any naturists here by the way and since many locals seem to use it as well as families I am not sure stripping off here would wise?). However you can drive further along the road towards the cliffs, then take the left hand fork which soon passes houses on the left - at the end of the road the tarmac ends nearly under the cliffs and the (now) track goes sharply left - follow this incredibly bumpy track down and around and you come to another part of the beach right under the very high cliffs. This end of the beach area is really wild looking - there are lots of rock wind-breaks which you can use to stay out of the wind - and around here stripping off is fine is you so wish.

The only exception to using Playa de Famara beach for naturists is possibly on Friday afternoons and through weekends when the local Islanders descend onto the beach complete with their tents and barbeQs (plus a granny or two) - often to stay for the weekend.

 

As we hiked around Lanzarote we took quite a few photographs associated with the various walks instructions and these can be seen via our "Lanzarote Walks" topic. Below are a few other photos taken whilst we were driving around the island which we hope may be of interest as well for possible places to visit.

Salinas de Janubio (saltplans) It is easy to spend hours round here, not only because of the black sandy beach for sunbathing but also to wander round the old saltpans and have a look inside the now disused buildings (several of which still have various pumping machinery inside them). There are plenty of lizards and birds that have made the area their home too. Salt is still collected from the saltpans.

 

Los Hervidores. This is where you can watch the sea crashing into and through rock blowholes (when the sea is rough and the waves are coming at the ideal angle.).

El Golfo. These photographs below are from the really unusual locatoin of El Golfo and it's surrounding area. The deep green looking water in the mini-lagoon down on the beach is really this colour - the green comes from the algae. Certainly this mixture seems to suit the fairly large fish which you can see swimming around in the lagoon.

 

La Geria - these pictures above and below were taken from inside Lanzarote's Parque Natural de los Volcanos - Timanfaya area - lots of lava and craters to be looked around and the colours are amazing at times. When you get a contrast of a brooding angry looking crater or cone with a cloudy sky behind it the views are spectacular.

Teguise. Below are some pictures taken in Teguise - it's a really pretty little Lanzarote town and nice to walk round - but note that on Sundays there is a large market in the town's church square. Therefore the roads in and around Teguise become incredibly busy - so it can take ages just to get through the traffic chaos and manage to find a parking space.

Apart from the local islanders going there you will also find lots of holidaymakers around who are ferried in on coach trips as part of round the island day trips and escursions.

Lanzarote Topics on our Site - Lanzarote Holiday Walks  Volcanic Area Walks.

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