Getting to La Orotava and around northern Tenerife

Tenerife has two. The northern one, Tenerife North-Ciudad de La Laguna, sits on the La Laguna plateau and is a good half hour from La Orotava on the TF-5 motorway. The southern one, Tenerife South-Reina Sofía, is in Granadilla at the other end of the island, and works out at just over an hour via the TF-1 and then the TF-5.

If you have the choice and you are sleeping in the north, fly north. You save a good forty minutes of driving on arrival day and the same again on the way home — usually the two worst days of any trip.

The catch is the price. The southern airport takes most of the international and low-cost flights, so it often comes out considerably cheaper. It is worth weighing the saving on the ticket against the extra journey, especially if you land at night.

The island has motorways along both coasts and the distances are short for what looks like a big island on a map. From the northern airport to the Orotava Valley takes thirty to forty minutes. From the southern airport, an hour to an hour and a quarter depending on traffic.

Once you are here, most things are close: Puerto de la Cruz a quarter of an hour away, the Teide National Park twenty to thirty minutes up the hill, Santa Cruz and La Laguna a long half hour. Crossing to the deep south, by contrast, is an hour to an hour and a half.

The warning we always give: the times on the map hold on the motorway, but the moment you turn off onto the valley roads everything is narrow and full of bends. It is not dangerous, it is slow. And at night, in mist, more so.

Let us be plain, even if it is not what you want to read: if you sleep in the valley and do not hire a car, you will see half of your trip. No regular bus service runs up Mount Teide on timings that suit a visitor, and you cannot reach the guachinches — half the reason for coming north — on public transport.

Car hire in Tenerife is among the cheapest in Spain, and so is fuel, so the sums usually work out even for a short stay. If you fly into the south and are sleeping in the north, pick the car up at the airport: paying for a transfer and hiring locally afterwards works out worse.

There is a real exception and it deserves saying: if you are coming to be still, to read in the garden and walk down to the town, you can spend a week here without a car and be very happy. What you cannot do is come without a car and expect to do the excursions.

The north has a bus network — guaguas, as they are called here — and it works well between the larger coastal towns and the capital. It will get you to Puerto de la Cruz, Santa Cruz and La Laguna without trouble, and there is a tram between the last two.

We are not printing route numbers or timetables here, because they change and the wrong stop ruins a morning. What we do instead: tell us your dates and where you are arriving from, and we send you the specific routes and links that work on those days.

And for Mount Teide, if you would rather not drive, the sensible option is an organised half-day excursion with pick-up in Puerto de la Cruz. It costs more than the car, but it works, and it lets you look out of the window on the way up, which is the best part.

We are on Camino Bebedero Alto in La Orotava, halfway up the valley slope. You leave the TF-5 towards La Orotava and climb; the last few minutes are village road, narrow and with the odd junction that is not fully signposted.

That is why we always send the exact location by WhatsApp before you arrive, and not just the name: map apps sometimes send people to the next track along. If you are arriving after dark, let us know and we will leave the entrance light on.

There is parking inside the estate, next to the houses. No hunting for a space in the street and nothing to pay.

All of this changes a good deal if you end up sleeping in the south, where a week without touching a car is perfectly possible. If you are still weighing one half of the island against the other, we have set out the real differences in climate, prices and driving times in the guide on where to stay in Tenerife: north or south.

And if your mind is made up and you want to see the houses, they are on the rural house in La Orotava page, with what each one includes.