Best Hikes You Can Enjoy in Tenerife

Tenerife is a hiking paradise for us. The diversity of the landscape and climate creates a variety of environments to hike through, each with its own specific scenery and challenges. Adding to these factors is the geological history of the island that few people know about. Long story short:

Tenerife is formed from 3 different volcanic pieces that molded together some millions years ago. There’s the central part with Roque del Conde, Teno in the north-weast and Anaga in the north-east. The central part is the oldest, between 11.9 and 8.9 million years, then comes Teno, between 6.3 and 5 million years ago, and lastly Anaga, between 4.9 and 3.9 million years ago. However, the central part was rejuvenated more recently, between 1.9 and 0.2 million years ago by Las Cañadas and Teide-Pico Viejo.

We’ve done hikes in all three regions and each time we were impressed by the surroundings. When you think there’s nothing different to see anymore, Tenerife will still surprise you.

About us: we’re physically in good shape and we have good hiking experience. We only do one-day hikes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t do long, strenuous hikes. Diana has some mild height vertigo, therefore we filter the hikes we do based on that. Please be careful in case you have a more severe form of vertigo.

We care about nature and we respect it. Please do the same, clean after you, and don’t break anything!

We had plenty of time for hiking, but in case you are short on time, we will group the hikes by the Natural Park it is part of. This way you can easily compare multiple hikes and choose your favorite one based on its location and your travel itinerary.

1. Teide National Park
2. Rural de Anaga Park
3. Rural de Teno Park
4. Corona Forestal
5. Reserva Natural Expecial del Chinyero
6. Others: Güímar, Montaña Roja, Montaña Amarilla

There are also some hikes that we didn’t have time to do just yet, but we plan to go back to Tenerife and check them out.

• Of course, the first hike that we haven’t done, but we will definitely do is Pico del Teide.
• Mount Guajara in Teide National Park is one of the tallest mountains in Tenerife. We were very close to hike it until we read some reviews about steep and exposed areas on the trail that are not recommended to people with height vertigo.
• Barranco del Infierno requires a pre-booking because the number of people that can enter the ravine is limited. This is a hike that requires you to wear a helmet that you will receive at the start.
• Montana Blanca is a hike with interesting volcanic scenery, mostly like the Moon. It’s a hike that we considered doing, but always had other hikes we were more curious about.
• Chinamada - we just liked Rural de Anaga Park a lot, we did multiple hikes there and Chinamada is the area that we haven’t explored yet. No worries, there are plenty of other beautiful hikes in this park that we covered in the Rural de Anaga Park article
• El Rio is said to be an interesting hike because it highlights the passing from the southern dry and arid climate into vegetation. Since we like the northern climate more than the southern one, we had other hikes higher on our want-to- do list.
• La Cueva del Viento is actually a cave, not a hike, but we’re adding it here since sturdy shoes are recommended, just like on a hike. Cueva del Viento is the largest lava tube system in Europe and the 5th largest in the world. After spending months in Iceland we became lava-nerds, so this is a must-do for us.

There are other hikes worth mentioning that we had on our map and we’ll check them on our next visit to Tenerife: Roque del Conde, Boca del Paso, Cuevas Negras, Montana de la Botija, Las Canadas.

As enthusiast hikers, there’s no better way to observe and admire nature than a hike. However, the thrill of a hike can be ruined if you don’t have the proper gear with you. For this we made a special article about the gear you need on every hike.