The Canary Islands

The Canary Islands are a popular UK holiday destination that I feel like I've only just discovered - Having a more relaxed, sunny holiday was never on my radar when I was younger but now I've fallen in love with the idea of escaping the miserable winter weather in England to mild, sunny, bright evenings and have really enjoyed exploring some new places, and a new kind of holiday!

Gran Canaria - November 2022

The highlight of the trip was definitely the volcano crater hike which was a great opportunity to see some of the plants and animals that live on the island and see some beautiful viewpoints like the one shown above. The tour finished off in a Vineyard and an opportunity to have a couple of glasses of wine which, obviously, is always the best way to finish off a good long walk!

Here's a picture of one of the local residents of the island, the Giant Lizard, that you could see basking all around the volcano crater.

We stayed in Playa Del Ingles which is pretty close to the incredible Maspalomas Sand Dunes. It's so hard to capture just how big the Dunes are but it's crazy how small you feel when you're walking across them.

Tenerife - November 2021

Tenerife was our first trip abroad after Covid; With travel restrictions still in place, along with general uncertainty around travel, we decided to book our first 'package holiday' trip for added security. It was a perfect break, and exceeded both our expectations - We even missed an early snowstorm back in Leeds which made the 25 degrees feel even hotter.

The first activity I booked for our trip to Tenerife was the Pilot Whale watching boat tour - I didn't realise that they lived in the area all year round, and therefore you were pretty much guaranteed to see them. How amazing!

If seeing Pilot Wales wasn't amazing enough already, the boat trip gives amazing views of the mountains in the center of the island and the (very brave!!) paragliders. As you can see despite how warm it was, it was quite cloudy so we decided not to do any travel into the mountains but I'd hope to be able to do that on another visit if possible Mount Teide is known for it's amazing stargazing.  

Lanzarote - Work Trip - September 2017

My first trip to the Canary Islands was to the island of Lanzarote for work. I would love to go back another time to explore more of the water sports there; Specifically a visit to the underwater museum!

I did manage to visit the Timanfaya National Park which is one of the most popular tourist sights on the Island. The visit includes a tour around the Fire Mountains on a coach which stops every now and then at some amazing viewpoints, and at the top of one of the dormant volcanos, there are also a couple of pretty cool demonstrations illustrating how much heat is under the ground still!

A popular combination to the National Park tour is to also visit La Geria region, the wine-tasting region, although make sure you do your research because many of the places are simply very small little shops and don't do tasting sessions. The story behind the vineyards is quite interesting though and, as you can see in the photo below, the vines are planted and then protected from the wind with stone walls build in crescent shapes. This is key to their growth as, without them, the sandy ground would be blown away quickly at the first sign of a breeze.