Hiking Tenerife from the north: eight routes that start near the estate in La Orotava

Above Aguamansa is the La Caldera picnic area, with parking and tables, and from there a small network of trails runs that the island council signs as PR-TF 35. The big loop via the Mamio track and Los Órganos — the vertical basalt walls you can see from half the island — is 13.3 kilometres, 570 metres of climbing and about six hours; it goes through pine and laurel woodland, crosses the GR 131 long-distance path and has a few cabled sections that are not for anyone with vertigo.

If you want less, take the variants: the 35.1, 6.6 kilometres, 450 metres and three hours, or the 35.2, a loop of 1.9 kilometres and an hour past the old water galleries that you can do with children. Everything starts and ends in the same place, and up here it's noticeably cooler than on the coast. For us it's the loop for a Saturday with no plan.

Twenty to thirty minutes from the estate, high above Los Realejos, is the Chanajiga picnic area inside the Corona Forestal natural park, where the PR-TF 40 along the Tigaiga slope begins: 12.3 kilometres, over 900 metres up and as many down, most of it through laurel forest, the woodland people only expect to find in Anaga. The second half is steep and the trail guides rate it hard. From the same picnic area there's also a short loop of about four kilometres through the same forest, for an afternoon.

Between the San Pedro viewpoint and Playa de los Roques, in Los Realejos, an easy path of about four kilometres runs through a palm grove, past the Castro manor house and the San Fernando fort and along the old Gordejuela water-pumping station to a beach of black pebbles. Two hours there and back, barely any climbing, twenty minutes from the estate. It's the walk for the day after Teide, or for a winter day when the cloud is sitting on the tops.

Roques de García is the loop for your first day in the park: 3.7 almost flat kilometres around the Roque Cinchado and the walls of the Catedral, with the Llano de Ucanca in front, starting beside the Parador. An hour and a half, children included.

If you have the whole day, walk the Siete Cañadas (PNT-04): 16.6 kilometres along the foot of the caldera wall from the El Portillo visitor centre to the Parador, 150 metres of climbing, four to five hours and no technical difficulty. It isn't a loop, but the Puerto de la Cruz to Las Cañadas bus, the 348, stops at both ends; check the timetable the day before. It's the walk on which you understand how big the caldera is.

The classic ascent starts at kilometre 40 of the TF-21, at the Montaña Blanca car park at 2,348 metres, and follows the PNT-07 to the Altavista refuge at 3,260: 8.3 kilometres, four to six hours, with stretches of over 60 % gradient, and the altitude makes it harder than the numbers say. From the refuge to the summit at 3,718 metres is another one to two hours, and the last 200 metres need the free permit, which is issued weeks in advance.

The refuge reopened in July 2026, with 49 places and a one-night maximum, booked directly with the refuge. If you sleep up there you see the sunrise from the summit; if you don't, you take the cable car to 3,555 metres and walk the rest. How to apply for the permit and what you can do with the cable car are in our guide to the summit permit and the cable car guide.

Two more for people who already walk in the mountains: Pico Viejo, Teide's twin volcano, high-altitude, an early start and water, nuts and warm layers in the pack; and the Chinyero loop, around the volcano of Tenerife's last eruption in 1909, 6.9 kilometres and two and a half hours through pines and young lava, without the crowds of the central trails.

In summer Teide clouds over from midday; in the park you set off early. Down in the valley it's 18-22 °C; up in Las Cañadas 5-10, and less in winter: layers, always. Between December and March it snows several times, and then the island council closes the TF-21 from La Caldera until the road is cleared: that day you walk in the laurel forest or on the coast. Carry water, there is none on the trails. And apply for the summit permit and the Pijaral permit in Anaga beforehand; the Pijaral has a daily quota.

Anaga itself: about fifty minutes from the estate, a different forest, damp and misty, with the Pijaral as its finest stretch. One day, no more, and back to the valley to sleep.

From the south of the island it takes over an hour to reach El Portillo; from the north coast, a good half hour. From the estate it's twenty to thirty minutes to Las Cañadas, and the valley trails start twenty minutes from the door. That means breakfast in your own kitchen, leaving afterwards rather than in the dark, and the pool waiting when you get back.

The three houses have heating for the cool evenings up on the slopes, a washing machine for whatever the boots bring back, their own kitchen, their own terrace and parking inside the estate. Each house sleeps up to four. On Booking the estate scores 8.8 from 68 reviews; we confirm the price the same day.