In 2023, a wildfire devastated an area covering 14000 hectares along Tenerife’s cumbre, spreading further down northern slopes than southern ones. Where it can be difficult to visualise a number, official maps made it abundantly clear how much of the island was affected. Wildfires are, unfortunately, not uncommon in places with warm climates. We’ve witnessed plenty...
Think you know what a barraquito is on Tenerife? Ordering Tenerife’s speciality coffee might not be as straightforward as you think.
Ever since we launched our Real Tenerife Town & City Guides, the one for Santa Cruz has niggled; it hasn’t felt quite right. We were satisfied the main route covered all the things we felt were most interesting in the centre of Tenerife’s capital. But the secondary route was more like a mini-me version of the primary route. It did have a few differences, but was...
‘That’s not Mexico,’ I exclaimed. The location at the start of BBC’s Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue was instantly identifiable. ‘That’s Abades on Tenerife.’ When I Googled it, AI disagreed, insisting only Gran Canaria appeared in the series, Jardín Canario de Viera y Clavijo to be exact. Not for the first time, nor the last, AI was wrong. The leper village that...
For the last few years, The Real Tenerife website has been virtually rotting on the vine. We didn’t outright abandon it, but we certainly neglected it. There were several reasons for this. One was we left Tenerife for Portugal in 2017. Another was that we grew so weary of other writers using our experiences and knowledge as a resource without crediting us (it brings...
By the Time Dawn Breaks: A Tale of Mystery and Magic From the Canary Islands Two friends on holiday on Fuerteventura become lost in the hills, unaware a violent storm is heading their way. Life in a sleepy Canarian town on La Palma is thrown into turmoil during the visit of an obnoxious American author. Descending into one of Lanzarote’s unexplored volcanic tunnels...
The Banana Road: It’s Tenerife But Not As You Know It When Andy and Jack walk away from their successful careers, leaving family, friends and Manchester to move to the Canary Islands, they hope to find a new adventure and quality time together in the sun. What they do not expect to encounter is the intriguing, often amusing and sometimes downright bizarre cast of...
The Real Tenerife: An Insider’s Guide The most comprehensive guide to Tenerife available in the English language, written with insight and passion by travel writers who, for 14 years, lived and worked on the island, travelling its length and breadth to research, photograph and record every aspect of island life. Instead of endless hotel and restaurant listings...
The idea was to write a factual book detailing accounts of mystery and magic in the Canary Islands, especially as I hadn’t seen much written about the folklore of the islands in English. Islands full of strange stories Years and years of exploring each of the islands on foot left me with a whole raft of amazing tales I’d never heard about before. It started with our...
There was a scene in Celebrity Traitors where Scottish actor Mark Bonnar took a step away from his fellow celebs and eyed them suspiciously, trying to work out who the traitorous rogues in the pack were. In a world where misinformation, misdirection, and fake news are rife, it’s more important than ever that we all do a ‘Mark Bonnar’ every so often. Take the news...