Reasons to visit Mount Teide National Park
Here are my 8 Reasons to visit Mount Teide National Park in Tenerife, Spain…
I live in an archipelago called the Canary Islands, it consists of seven islands: Gran Canaria (where I live), Tenerife, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, La Palma, El Hierro and La Gomera. They are situated right next to the north of Africa but belong to Spain. Despite how small they are compared to, well, everything, in the centre of Tenerife, the biggest island of the seven, stands the tallest mountain in all of Spain (3.718 m), called Mount Teide. I´m going to tell you 8 reasons why you should risk your life to see it (just joking!). Haha!
1. THE VIEW IS AMAZING
Even though the cable car was full we still enjoyed the amazing view of a cloudless blue sky, massive mountains and dried lava rocks in different shades of red and brown. INCREDIBLE! If you go to the very top, you can see all of the other six islands (that´s if the weather is good)! We had to check it out for ourselves. Unfortunately, my daughter got dizzy, so we didn’t go to the very top, but we could see two full islands where we stood even though the weather wasn’t 100% clear…
2. THERE IS A CABLE CAR
To get to the top, you have to go on the cable car (“teleférico”). You drive all the way to the top by car or bus (or whatever you want, I guess) and then you take the cable car close to the highest point. Finally, you hike up to the peak of the mountain (actually, volcano, so, the crater). The cable car was packed (and I mean packed!) and exciting, but also quite scary at some points because it goes so high! Nevertheless, the view. Was. Spectacular.
3. IT´S A VOLCANO
The Canary Islands were nothing, just stones under water, literally, until the seven volcanos erupted and created the islands that you now see north west from Africa on the map. Some of the islands, like Tenerife and Lanzarote, still contain large areas of lava rock, which are protected and used for touristic purposes.
4. 100% NATURAL LANDSCAPES
Since everything you see is inside of a National Park, they strive to protect its nature. You are not allowed to take stones or pick any of the flowers because they want to preserve the beauty. One of the flowers that is strictly prohibited is the Violeta Del Teide. It is a very rare purple flower that only grows on Teide and grows in between the rocks. If people were allowed to take them, not only would it destroy the landscape, but the specie could well be extinct.
5. IT´S THE HIGHEST PEAK IN SPAIN
If you went to the very top of the mountain, you would be above all of the Iberian Peninsula (which is pretty cool if you ask me!). Imagine telling your grand kids one day that you were on the highest point in Spain?!
6. IT FEELS LIKE YOU´RE IN A MOVIE
Because of all the dry lava and tall mountains, it literally feels like you are in a western/trip to Mars/climbing Mount Everest movie kind of vibe. In fact, movies like Allied, Fast & Furious 6 and Clash of Titans, Jason Bourne, etc., were shot in the Canary Islands. Did you know that..?
7. DIFFERENT CULTURES
Mount Teide National Park gets around 3.5 million annual visitors. When you are there you are surrounded by people from all over the world!
8. A GREAT EXPERIENCE
It is definitely a once in a lifetime experience! We would definitely recommend this. It´s different, beautiful, exciting and exhilarating!!
Hope you guys liked this post. Let me know in the comments if you have ever been to Tenerife, and if so, did you visit Teide National Park..?
Update on this post
We recently had the awesome experience of being on Mount Teide by Night on the Sunset Tour with Volcano Teide . We went up with the Teide cable car just before sunset where we were welcomed at the top with your choice of a glass of champagne (yeah!) or a cup of hot chocolate. The view from the top was incredible, especially during that time of the day! We could see the whole of Teide National Park and the Teide crater. Our guide on the tour was extremely knowledgeable therefore I would recommend this tour to anyone who visits Teide in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Me & hubby had an extremely romantic time!
Hubby and I had an extremely romantic time! Click on the image below to see the video of our experience 🙂
Johlene
xoxo
RESOURCES
I often get asked about the equipment I use when traveling. I mean this is the only real thing you´ll keep from your trip and therefore it needs to be really good! The camera I use for my blog photos is the Canon T3i/600D EOS (with the Canon STM 50mm 1.8 lens). I would like to upgrade to the Canon EOS 5D Mark III (however my budget does not allow for it yet) because of its full frame (22MP full frame CMOS) sensor capacity. My current camera has a cropped frame which means I need to stand further away from my subject when I shoot.
Then, I use the Osmos DJI Mobile for my videos/vlogs. I love the Osmo Mobile because you control it via an app on any Android or IOS phone. It seriously has changed the way my travel videos look! Some of its features are:
- Active Track technology, automatically keep your smart phone facing you as you move
- Smooths and even cancels out the movements you make, stopping camera shake and turning every shot into a cinematic video!
Jackie says
Visted Mount Teide National Park last week, Our spanish tour guide was Carlos Myles (not sure how Myles is spelt) we were in a group that travelled from Dublin Ireland and travelled with the Travel Department. Our guide Carlos was amazing, he was an encyclopedia of knowledge. We passed through evergreen valley of La Orotava. Definitely not to be missed when in tenerife. It was the first time we saw the sun too because we were so high above the clouded island of Tenerife…
Mike says
Hi Johlene! Mount Teide not only sounds amazing but your photos make it even more enticing to visit. The biggest WOW I got out of this post was that I already knew you lived in Spain…but I didn’t realize it was the Canary Islands!! I’ve had an infatuation with visiting them since I was a little kid! I hope you are having a nice weekend! 🙂
Johlene Orton says
Hi Mike 🙂 It really is! Teide and the rest of the Canary Islands are great for a visit 🙂
David @ Spiced says
Oh ok, twist my arm! I don’t think you need 8 reasons for me to head over to the Canary Islands. 1 is plenty! I’ve never heard of Mount Teide, but those photos are awesome. It sounds like you guys had an amazing day out there. 🙂 Also, I didn’t realize all of those movies were filmed there…but I can totally see why!
Johlene Orton says
If you ever visit the Canary Islands you better come say hi!!