Talk:Tenerife

Combine all Tenerife articles into one

I've been in Tenerife for 10 days now, and while I really like the island I don't believe there is enough content to justify having one page per city. I propose refactoring the articles to give a comprehensive island-wide view so newcomers know what to expect (difference between north and south, getting around, etc.)

(WT-en) Yajoe 14:17, 25 December 2011 (EST)

With almost a million inhabitants, there ought to be enough here to sustain a good set of articles. This article should be a comprehensive overview. Please do add any information you think might be missing! (WT-en) LtPowers 15:52, 27 December 2011 (EST)

Get in/Get around info from Culture and nature of Tenerife

I'm moving this here, in case it's of any benefit to merge any of this text:

Arrival

TITSA

Tenerife has 2 airports, one in the north of the island (Tenerife Norte, TFN  ^IATA, formerly known as Los Rodeos), and one in the south (Terife Sur, TFS  ^IATA, also known as Reine Sofia). Although Tenerife Norte is the closest to capital Santa Cruz de Tenerife, its southern counterpart is the larger airport of the two and gets the most traffic with 11 million passengers per year. That is over 10 times as many as there are inhabitants on the island! As a result, there are numerous direct flights to Tenerife Sur from several European countries, whereas direct flights to Tenerife Norte are mainly from Spain and neighbouring islands. This is somewhat inconvenient for tourists, because all of the most important cultural sites of the island are in the north.

Although Tenerife's airports are both international airports, they only accommodate flights to and from the European Union, i.e. other Schengen territories. If you wish to fly to Tenerife from outside the European Union, you'll have to transit through a mainland airport in a European Union member state. For that reason, there are no direct flights between Tenerife and any African country, although Morocco, Algeria, and Mauretania are all geographically closer to Tenerife than Spain is.

Since there is very little to see or do in the south of the island due to its hot and arid climate, most travellers will immediately head north or northeast upon arrival at Tenerife Sur airport. Although it is perfectly possible to move around the island with public transport, the options are somewhat limited: Tenerife does not have a rail network, with the exception of a single tram line connecting Santa Cruz de Tenerife and San Cristóbal de La Laguna, and thus the only public transport option are buses. All buses are run by operator TITSA which have a very good route planner on their website, and even relatively remote places are reachable by bus given enough time. Dragging large backpacks and luggage onto a crowded bus won't make you many friends among the locals though, so unless you plan to travel exceptionally light, relying solely on buses to get around the island will likely prove to be inconvenient.

Although not the most ecological method of transport, a rented car is a reasonable efficient way to get around if someone in your party has a driver's license, and allows to reach points of interest that are out of range of the TITSA bus network. It's best to book a rental car in advance online, companies like Europcar have an office in the terminal building of Tenerife Sur Airport, where a booked vehicle can be picked up straight away. It's wise to pay a bit extra for a rugged vehicle, because many roads on the island are relatively steep and have a gravel or sand surface.

The main roads on Tenerife are well maintained, and a highway goes around most of the island, starting just south of Garachico in the north, heading east until Tenerife Norte Airport just south of Tegueste. It then turns south through San Cristóbal de La Laguna and Santa Cruz de Tenerife before heading southwest to Tenerife Sur Airport. The last section climbs northwest and ends just before Santiago del Teide. It's possible to complete the circle, but the last section between Garachico and Santiago del Teide passes through natural reserve and is therefore not a highway but a smaller mountain road (TF82) that takes much more time to traverse.

It's possible to pass through the interior of the island as well, with roads leading up to El Teide from 4 directions: from Los Gigantes to the west, Vilaflor to the south, La Esperanza to the east, and La Orotava to the north. Keep in mind that these are also mountain roads with numerous bends, and not the fastest way to get from one side of the island to the other. There are no long distance tunnels since digging into the active magma chamber of a volcano is a decisively bad idea.

Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:15, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

"Talk" section

This was a pretty radical change, basically going from "most people will understand you" to "most people won't". Is suspect the truth may lie somewhere in-between, maybe with local differences in touristic/southern vs. rural/northern areas. Comments from further people who have also been there would probably be helpful. @FrillDragon, ThunderingTyphoons!: FYI. --El Grafo (talk) 08:25, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree it was a radical change, and not one which was especially well-executed, just turning the same words into negatives. This was the comment I left on user talk:FrillDragon, which didn't attract a reply:

Thank you for your edits to Tenerife. I must say, I'm surprised by the changes you made, as they don't reflect my experiences as an English-speaking tourist on other Canary Islands (Lanzarote and La Gomera, I only spent a couple of hours on Tenerife), and I thought Tenerife would be the most cosmopolitan island in the group. Is your experience as a local or a visitor?

How well do you know Tenerife, user:El Grafo? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:59, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@ThunderingTyphoons!: Not well enough to offer anything but anecdotal evidence: I've been there twice, stayed in Puerto de la Cruz (hotel) and Icod de los Vinos (apartment). Spent most of my time hiking, so really not much contact to the locals unfortunately. Only been to two (tourist-trap) restaurants in Puerto, otherwise eaten at the hotel or did our own cooking. I've stayed away from the tourist hot spots in the south and attractions like Loro Parque. That being said, my personal impression is that people working in the tourism industry (hotels, restaurants, car rental, ...) know about enough English to do their job, but not much more. I remember the cashier in the little grocery store adjusting her screen for me to see the total I had to pay with a routined movement suggesting that that's how she's doing it all the time. Maybe she was not able or willing to tell me in english, or maybe she thought I wouldn't understand anyway (I guess I might look a bit German). Ordering a Kebap in a little side street in Santa Cruz, English was not really helpful. Over-all, I suppose I used my hands and feet a bit more than I would have expected, but communication never really was a problem. I suppose it really is a matter of perspective and what you are used to from previous travels to other locations: The guy who sold me bus tickets in a 7/11 in Stockholm spoke better English than anyone I met on the island. But again: my sample size is small and biased towards the North, so I'd really like some other voices here. --El Grafo (talk) 10:54, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Sure. It would be helpful if FrillDragon left a comment. It's hard to know how representative your experiences are, but all of us can only go off of our own anecdotal evidence. I'll also put in a request for comment, though I don't think many regulars in this community are familiar with the Canaries.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:19, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I've never been to Tenerife, but my hunch is that your chances of finding an English speaker may vary by season, with a higher chance in the summer peak season, and a lower chance in the winter low season. My Scottish former roommate whose family has summer homes in Spain said that he had no issue finding English speakers in the south of Spain whenever he went, which would be in the summer (which as you know, is when many British people move to Spain to enjoy the heat). On the other hand, I went to the same part of Spain in the winter, English speakers were actually pretty rare, and there were many instances where I went to restaurants and none of the staff spoke English, which meant that I had to pull out my Spanish phrasebook. The dog2 (talk) 15:33, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

In places like Costa del Sol you can generally get by in English, though again I've been there in the spring and summer. But in places that aren't "all about tourism" (this includes Madrid) speaking only English can be somewhat tricky, both in mid-summer and late fall.

I haven't been to the Canary Islands, but they receive millions of visitors in the winter. A considerable part, if not most, are from parts of Europe where English proficiency is high (e.g. to Las Palmas there were several daily flights from Helsinki alone), so I would imagine you could get by perfectly well in English in the beach resorts (again, it may not be the case in less visited parts of the islands). Ypsilon (talk) 17:03, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

From online searches I found [1], [2], and [3], which aren't exactly the most reliable sources but seem to agree with the comments above. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:10, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I went to Costa del Sol in the winter, and English was definitely not widely spoken. Hotel staff still spoke English, as did staff at the major tourist attractions like the Alhambra and Malaga's Picasso Museum, but when you are out in the streets, people who could speak English were certainly a minority (though not impossible to find). I had difficulty finding English-speaking waiters at the restaurants and bars for instance (though the food was very good). That said, the beaches were deserted, and places like Malaga and Granada weren't particularly crowded, so while there was a greater language barrier, there's the advantage of not being overwhelmed by the crowds. The dog2 (talk) 17:45, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

On Costa del Sol, there's also a large number of expats living there including retirees and people working online more more less year-round. In Fuengirola, for example, as many as 25% of the population are expats according to Wikipedia. But again, if you live there for a longer period you will learn some Spanish. Ypsilon (talk) 18:02, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

The Canary Islands are a very different destination to any of the mainland Costas; because of their subtropical climate, they're sunny and warm even in December, so popular with tourists at all times of the year. Winters may not be exactly frigid on the Costas, but they do have an off season, where the numbers of (possibly English-speaking) seasonal workers are fewer.

"If you live there for a longer period you will learn some Spanish" You'd think so, wouldn't you? But there are many "expats" (often of British origin, let's face it) who have been permanent residents of Spain for years and who can't manage any more Spanish than "Cerveza por favor".--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:07, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the Canaries are called the "islands of eternal spring" for a reason. I don't think you would find much seasonal fluctuations there in terms of language. --El Grafo (talk) 09:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I am not a traveler, rather, I am a Tenerife local 23 years already. Getting around the island is a part of my job. I must say I was dumbfounded as I was reading the text about the locals speaking English. If the locals would excel in foreign languages, I wouldn't have a job in the first place. English is spoken only by the most high-class locals who attended english schools, and of course, expats. FrillDragon (talk) 06:30, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Please edit accordingly, and thanks! Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:03, 26 March 2021 (UTC)