Tenerife, Canary Islands

This is an itinerary for Tenerife island including points of interest, suggestions for lunch/dinner and other tips.

This itinerary promises a unique experience of the entire island drawn up from an urban designer’s perspective, myself. The aim is, for the traveller, to experience the different character areas and qualities of Tenerife, the architecture and other key features, whilst also ‘seeing’ other, less positive, qualities of the island.

It is very important, on every trip, to scratch the surface and go deeper than just looking at the architecture and hot tourist spots. Understanding a place means that one fully embraces all its qualities, both positives and negatives. This is the true ‘sense of place’ and this is what is offered here with this itinerary.

QUICK OVERVIEW – WHAT TO EXPECT

Tenerife island is a place of extreme contradictions. It is divided into two distinct areas, the protected and unprotected land. The protected land is under some designations of conservation, and it is the place that hardly changes, surrounded with beautiful nature and rich vegetation, where pace becomes slower. This area mainly includes the landscape around El Teide, the north-eastern corner of the island, Anaga and the western corner, Teno, as well as some lands to the north-west, south and east. The protected land is called wild nature in the itinerary below.

On the other hand, the rest of the island holds no protection and thus, the environment is more dynamic as it constantly changes and transforms. In particular, in the last decades the unprotected land has experienced extreme development and growth due to touristic activities. The unprotected land is called civilised side in the itinerary below. 

Those two different worlds define the island creating visual interest along the streetscene and strong emotions. My blog post on The neoliberalisation and commodification of land and natural resources in the islands | The case of Tenerife expands even further on those two worlds, whilst taking a more critical look towards the urbanisation in the island. Worth checking it before visiting Tenerife to get a better insight of the island.

Please reach out to hello@stelakontogianni.com to share your thoughts about this route or any suggestions/ideas of other places I should talk about next.