Lanzarote Travel Guide

So you want to visit Lanzarote? No other Canary Island looks quite like it.

One artist, Cesar Manrique, persuaded the island to ban billboards and high rise hotels and to keep every building low, white and shuttered in green or blue, so the volcanic landscape he loved stays the star of the show. The result is somewhere that looks more like the surface of the moon than a package holiday brochure, and is all the better for it.

AT A GLANCE

Capital of the island
Arrecife.

Language
Spanish.

Currency
Euro.

Flight time from the UK
Around four to four and a half hours.

Best time to visit
All year round. Lanzarote is the driest of the main islands, so rain is rarely a concern whenever you go.

Time difference
None. The Canary Islands share the UK’s time zone year round, since clocks change on the same dates in both places.

Climate and Weather
Lanzarote is the driest and most consistently sunny of the main Canary Islands, with a near desert climate and very little rainfall year round. July and August are hottest and busiest, particularly around the southern resorts, while spring and early autumn offer fewer crowds and more comfortable walking weather.

Getting There
Direct flights run from most major UK airports to Lanzarote Airport, near Arrecife, with a typical flight time of four to four and a half hours. Budget and charter carriers serve the route year round, and prices are generally lowest outside the school holiday periods.

Where to Stay
Puerto del Carmen is the largest and liveliest resort, with the greatest choice of hotels, bars and restaurants along its long beachfront. Playa Blanca in the south is smarter and more family orientated, with the ferry to Fuerteventura and the beaches of Papagayo close by. Costa Teguise is quieter still and popular with windsurfers thanks to the wind that gave it its name.

TOP TEN THINGS TO DO

Timanfaya National Park
See the Fire Mountains from Manrique’s coach tour, the only way to visit since walking freely is not permitted. At the Islote de Hilario, staff demonstrate geothermal heat that reaches 600C only a few metres down, the same heat that cooks the grill at El Diablo restaurant.

Jameos del Agua
Descend into Manrique’s cave and concert hall built into a collapsed lava tube. Its underground lake is home to the blind albino cave crab, a species found nowhere else on Earth, so fragile that throwing coins into the water is banned.

Mirador del Rio
Take in the clifftop viewpoint Manrique carved into the rock at the island’s northern tip, looking out over the strait to the car free island of La Graciosa.

Cueva de los Verdes
Walk part of the same lava tube system as Jameos del Agua, used by islanders as a hiding place from Barbary pirate raids in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Fundacion Cesar Manrique
Visit the artist’s former home in Tahiche, built around five natural volcanic bubbles left by the 1730s eruptions and connected by tunnels cut through the lava.

La Geria Wine Region
Drive through vineyards where each vine is planted by hand in its own pit, sheltered by a crescent shaped stone wall called a zoco, so the volcanic ash can trap moisture from the dew in a place that gets almost no rain.

El Golfo
See the emerald green lagoon inside a half eroded volcanic crater, coloured by the algae living in the water. The black beach beside it is scattered with olivine, a semi precious green crystal.

Salinas de Janubio
Stop at the island’s largest salt pans, still worked by hand since 1895 in a lagoon that formed after Timanfaya’s lava sealed off the old harbour here.

Playa de Papagayo
Reach the protected coves at the island’s southern tip, sheltered by cliffs that keep the water calm and clear, best visited by the dirt track from Playa Blanca or by boat.

La Graciosa
Take the short ferry from Orzola to the eighth Canary Island, recognised in its own right only in 2018. There are no paved roads, so exploring is done on foot, by bike or in one of the few local taxis.

Getting Around
A hire car is the easiest way to see the island at your own pace, with a well-maintained road network and, thanks to Manrique’s influence, none of the roadside clutter found elsewhere. A public bus network, run by Arrecife Bus, also connects the main towns and resorts for those without a car.

Practical Tips
UK passport holders do not need a visa for stays of up to ninety days. Entry rules for Europe are changing, though, so check the latest Foreign Office advice for Spain before you travel. Lanzarote is generally considered safe for tourists, with the usual precautions around belongings in busy resort areas. Tipping is appreciated but not obligatory, with ten per cent a fair guide in restaurants.

Travel Life Tips!
Almost everything you notice about how Lanzarote looks, the white houses with green or blue woodwork, the absence of billboards and the total lack of high rise hotels, comes from building rules that Cesar Manrique persuaded the island to adopt in the 1970s, and which are still followed today.