The quietest part of Tenerife: where to stay if you want peace, and where not to

Four things decide it, and only three of them show up on a map.

A quiet village can have one loud week a year, and it's worth knowing which one before you choose your dates.

Carnival is the big one. In 2027 the street carnival in Santa Cruz runs from 19 to 28 February, two weeks later than usual because the city council moved it, with dancing in the streets every night and, on the last Saturday, more than 18 hours of music without a break. Puerto de la Cruz holds its own carnival in the same season. If you're staying in either town in February, look up the dates first.

Then there are the village fiestas, most of them between June and September: a stage in the square, a verbena until the small hours and fireworks. In a village of three streets, the stage is next to everything. And at the other end of the year, the quietest weeks on the island are the ones after 6 January, when the north empties out; we explain why in Tenerife in December and January.

The south has quiet places, and the lists that recommend them are partly right. Costa del Silencio lives up to its name at street level: houses and low blocks, a few bars that close early, residents rather than holidaymakers. El Médano is laid-back, windy and full of surfers. Both are next to the airport, so before booking, find out which side of town the flat is on and whether the planes pass overhead.

On the west coast, Los Gigantes and Puerto de Santiago are much calmer than Las Américas, with a handful of bars that have live music. The quietest place in the south is inland: Vilaflor, at about 1,400 metres among the pine forest, with cold nights, no beach and the silence of the mountains.

If you want sun and quiet together, the south can give you both. Choose a house rather than a complex, and check where you are in relation to the TF-1 and the runway.

The north is calmer as a whole because it has no mass resort, but it's not the same all over. Puerto de la Cruz is a proper town: plenty on foot, lively in the evenings, and the TF-5 above it. The coast between Puerto and Santa Cruz is busy.

Real silence is at the ends. To the west, Garachico, Los Silos, Buenavista del Norte and the Teno massif: the quietest stretch of the north coast, and further from everything. Masca is silent at night and full of walkers by day. To the east, the hamlets of Anaga, such as Taganana or Chamorga, deep in the laurel forest at the end of hairpin roads: the quietest nights on the island, and a long drive to anything.

In between are the mid-slopes, the medianías: the farmland above the motorway in the Orotava Valley, Los Realejos or La Guancha. Lanes, smallholdings and the odd dog, quiet at night, and fifteen or twenty minutes from a town. We compare the two halves of the island in more detail in where to stay: north or south.

Anyone who rents out a genuinely quiet place answers these without hesitating. If the reply is «it's very peaceful», ask again.

We are in Bebedero Alto, a hamlet in the mid-slopes above La Orotava. The nearest main road is the TF-21, the road up to Mount Teide, about 750 metres away as the crow flies; the TF-5 motorway is almost four kilometres further down the valley. The nearest bar is a village tasca some 400 metres off. The three houses are independent, each with its own terrace, spread across 17,000 square metres of garden, so one house doesn't hear the next. At night what reaches them is what you'd expect in a farming hamlet: the wind in the palms, birds at first light and, some nights, a dog from one of the farms nearby.

One thing we'd rather tell you now than have you find out: the estate also hosts celebrations in the garden, one at a time. If quiet is the reason you're coming, ask us whether there's one on your dates. We'll give you a straight answer, and some weeks that answer is to come the week after.

And you need a car: the way up is a country lane, the old town of La Orotava is five to fifteen minutes' drive and Puerto de la Cruz fifteen.