North Tenerife with kids: where to stay and what to do from a country estate in La Orotava

It comes down to the beach. If the plan is a morning on the sand every day with a three-year-old, the south has calmer beaches and more winter sun, and we say so plainly in where to stay: north or south. In the north the Atlantic comes in hard and you choose your beach by the flag.

If the plan is a mix of things (animals, seawater pools, a volcano, a forest), the north is better placed: almost everything is under half an hour away, you're back home for lunch and the nap happens in a bed. You will need a hire car, though; from a country estate in the hills you won't get anywhere without one.

With children, what changes a holiday is having a house. Each of the three on the estate (La Era, El Castaño and Casa Azul) takes up to four people: one bedroom, with two single beds in La Era and a double in the other two, plus a sofa bed in the living room, which is where the children usually sleep. Each has its own kitchen with oven, hob and fridge, a washing machine, heating, wifi and TV, its own terrace and its own entrance, and the car stays parked inside the estate.

Outside is what the kids use most: 17,000 square metres of garden to wander at any hour, with the old threshing floor and its antique cart, a pétanque court under the pines, El Castaño's swing seat and Casa Azul's hammock between two pines. The houses are about fifty metres apart. The only shared thing is the pool, in the middle of the estate and facing Mount Teide; it isn't heated, so from June to October it's in use every day and in midwinter it's for the brave.

If there are five or more of you, or two families, you book two houses. Casa Azul is back from 15 December 2026; until then there are two. Check-in is between 4 and 6 pm, and Tenerife North airport is about 30 minutes away (75 from Tenerife South). Everything around the estate is on our page about the rural house in north Tenerife.

Loro Parque is at Punta Brava, on the western edge of Puerto de la Cruz, about 12 kilometres and twenty minutes from the estate. It opens every day of the year from 9:30 to 17:30, and children pay the child rate from 3 to 11. It takes the whole day, so don't try to squeeze anything else in. To avoid the parking scramble, leave the car in the centre of Puerto: a free train runs to the park every twenty minutes from 9 am, leaving from Plaza de los Reyes Católicos.

Siam Park, the water park run by the same group, is in Costa Adeje in the south: about 75 kilometres and an hour and a quarter on the motorway, longer if the TF-1 is busy. It's open all year, 10:00 to 17:00 from 30 October to 30 April and until 18:00 the rest of the year. For little ones there's The Lost City, a children's area with towers, bridges, waterfalls and fifteen slides, plus a pool for babies. The big rides have a minimum height: check it before promising anything to a six-year-old.

Lago Martiánez, about fifteen minutes away, is the thing the north does better than anywhere: seawater pools right on the Atlantic, designed by César Manrique, with three pools for children. In the children's pool at Los Alisios sits La Jibia, a 1971 piece shaped like a red-and-white octopus and full of holes for kids to climb through, and in the children's pool beside the big lake stands Homenaje al mar, another sculpture you can walk right through. The rest of the town is in our Puerto de la Cruz guide.

The town beach is Playa Jardín: black sand, gardens also by Manrique, right next to Loro Parque. It's a northern beach, so the sea has real power, and with small children you check the flag before letting go of their hand. Another black-sand cove, La Arena in Puerto de Santiago by Los Gigantes, is a little over an hour away to the west.

From the estate, Teide is a morning trip: the cable car base station is about 28 kilometres away, a little over half an hour up the TF-21 through the pine forest. The cable car climbs from 2,356 to 3,555 metres in eight to ten minutes, and because of that altitude children under three aren't allowed up, nor are pregnant women or people with heart conditions. Children aged 3 to 13 pay the child fare.

It's cold at the top: jackets for everyone. The cable car stops when it is too windy, with no published wind limit, so check its status that same morning and have a plan B. The best one is in the park itself: Roques de García, an almost flat 3.7-kilometre loop starting by the Parador, an hour and a half on foot and fine with children. Tickets, prices and how to reach the summit are in our Teide cable car guide.

Fifteen minutes uphill from the estate is Aguamansa. The La Caldera picnic area has tables and parking, and from there the 35.2 variant of the PR-TF 35 makes a 1.9-kilometre, one-hour loop past the old water galleries. It's an afternoon walk with children.

Anaga is about 45 minutes away, beyond La Laguna. At Cruz del Carmen, next to the visitor centre, the Sendero de los Sentidos begins: three short trails through the laurel forest, with signs asking you to smell, touch or look, and a first section on a boardwalk you can do with a pushchair.

If the day calls for something else, the Pirámides de Güímar are an hour to the east: six stepped pyramids, a museum and gardens, open daily from 10:00 to 18:00 except 1 January and 25 December. And La Orotava's old town, five to fifteen minutes away, is street by street in what to see in La Orotava.