Tenerife with children: six nights between volcano and ocean
One island, four landscapes, short driving distances: that combination is what makes the largest Canary work for a family. Six nights in April for two adults and two children, a hire car from the first morning, and a rhythm that alternates a demanding day with an easy one, so nobody climbs a volcano on tired legs.
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Who this trip is for
April is the quiet argument of this trip. Our readings give 23.9 °C by day and 17.6 °C at night, with 14.9 mm of rain over 3 rainy days — the driest stretch of the year alongside May, far from the August peak of 30 °C and ahead of the summer crowds. Warm enough for the sea, mild enough that the crater climb stays a pleasure, and European school holidays fall either side rather than on top. The plan sleeps in the north, greener, cheaper and better fed than the southern resorts, and drives out from there: no change of base, no half-day lost to repacking. It suits families whose children will walk for an hour without negotiating, roughly from six or seven upwards. Younger than that, keep the crater and drop one coastal drive.
Day by day
Day 1 — Arrival, the north coast, a first swim
Two airports serve the island: one nine kilometres from the Santa Cruz and La Laguna area, the other fifty-six kilometres out along the motorway. Collect the car at the terminal: the interior is genuinely awkward without one. Head north and unpack properly, since you will not move base again. The afternoon belongs to the sea: dark volcanic sand and a seafront of tidal pools cut into the rock, plus a first lesson in Atlantic swell, stronger than its Mediterranean look suggests. Check the flags before anyone goes in, eat early on the promenade, and let the children set the pace.
Day 2 — A colonial grid, then the laurel ridge
Begin in La Laguna, whose colonial streets and painted courtyards take a morning at most — the right dose with children. Then climb into Anaga, the old massif in the island's northeast. The road turns to hairpins and the forest closes in: this is laurisilva, damp green survivor of a forest that once covered southern Europe, and nothing about it says holiday island. Walk one short marked trail, then stop at a ridge viewpoint late in the day, when the cloud sea settles below the road. Count an hour of driving each way; the distances are small, the bends are not.
Day 3 — Up to the crater
The big day. The road leaves the banana terraces, crosses a belt of Canary pine and reaches the caldera floor, a lava plateau where nothing grows and the light turns hard. Warm layers for everyone: you are climbing far above the coastal readings, and the wind bites even in April. The cable car lifts you most of the way up the cone, but the loop walk among the rock towers below is the better family option: an hour on a clear path. The final path to the summit needs a free permit reserved well ahead, rarely worth the constraint here.
Day 4 — The south coast and the whales
Cross to the other side, forty minutes or so of motorway, and change climate completely: the south lies in the wind shadow, dry and bright, and clears earlier in the day. The morning is for a boat trip. A resident population of pilot whales lives in the channel between Tenerife and the neighbouring island, close enough to shore that no long crossing is needed; pick an operator that keeps its distance and cuts its engines. Then the beach, an ice cream, nothing more strenuous: this recovery day is what makes the crater day possible, so resist adding a second outing.
Day 5 — Lava pools and a gorge road
Take the northwest early, before the coaches: the road to the gorge village of Masca is narrow, spectacular and short of parking, and the first hour is the only comfortable one. Drop back to the coast, where old lava flows left natural swimming pools at the water's edge, sheltered from the swell and shallow enough for children who are not yet confident. The old port village above them keeps its wooden Canarian balconies and its chain of small shaded squares. Lunch inland if you can, in banana country, where farmhouse tables serve the island wine at half the seafront price.
Day 6 — A slow day, kept flexible
Keep one day without a plan. April is dry in our records, but the Atlantic sends wind, and a calima, the dust haze blown off the Sahara, can flatten light and temperature at once. If the weather holds, spend the morning in the water and the afternoon in Santa Cruz, where a covered market, the waterfront architecture and a park full of parakeets make an easy city outing. If it does not, this is the day for aquariums and museums, or for driving up to the pine belt where the cloud usually stops below the road. Either way, pack tonight.
Day 7 — Market, sandwiches, departure
Give the last morning to something small: a produce market, a final hour on the black sand, or the coastal path north of town. Buy bananas, goat cheese and a bag of the wrinkled salt potatoes everyone will miss within a week. Then the drive out, remembering that the southern terminal is nearly an hour away along the motorway while the northern one is twenty minutes from the Laguna plateau, and that fuel costs less in town than beside the terminal. Return the car with a full tank and keep the swimming things in hand luggage rather than in the hold.
Updated on 21 September 2026.
