Toyota Yaris
5 seats · Automatic · Compact
€21per day, cheapest in this class right now
✶ South-east coast, 18 minutes from TFS
El Médano.
The first town
that is a town.
Drive west out of the airport and you cross twenty minutes of black grit and wind turbines before anything resembling a place. El Médano is that place: low, windy, unpolished, and the closest real town to the terminal by a wide margin.
✶ Live availability in El Médano
42 cars from €20 a day on these dates
Pick-up and drop-off
Dates
Free cancellation on many carsThe deposit is on the car, before you book itPrices in euros, the figure you see is the figure you pay
Pick-up
Dates
Montaña Roja at the end of the beachTo the airport18 minFive kilometres, and the closest pick-up point to the terminal.
To Los Cristianos24 minTwenty-three kilometres west on the TF-1.
To Vilaflor28 minStraight up the hill to the highest village in Spain.
To the crater51 minThrough the pine belt to the Parador at two thousand metres.
A different sort of place to base a car
El Médano was a fishing settlement that turned into a windsurfing town rather than a resort, and it has never quite got around to pretending otherwise. The buildings are low and mostly white, the beach is long and dark, the wind blows almost every day, and the bars face the water rather than a promenade. People who like it like it a great deal. People who wanted the Adeje experience find it thin.
For a driver it has one clear advantage over anywhere else on this list, which is that it is eighteen minutes from the runway. If you are landing late, or leaving early, or simply cannot face another forty minutes in a transfer minibus after a four-hour flight, this is the shortest hop on the island between a terminal and a bed.
The other advantage is that it sits on the right side of the island for going up. The road to Vilaflor climbs directly from here, and from Vilaflor the TF-21 carries on into the pines and out onto the crater floor. You are not driving the length of the south coast first, which is what everyone staying in the resorts has to do.
The wind, and what it means for the car
The trade winds funnel through here almost year round, which is the whole reason the town exists in its current form. Two practical consequences. The first is sand: park facing the beach for a week in a blow and the car will need a rinse, and a scratched-looking windscreen at return is worth photographing at collection rather than arguing about at drop-off. The second is that gusts across the open stretch of the TF-1 east of town are real, particularly in a small high-sided car. Two hands, and do not be startled by it.
None of that is a reason to hire something bigger. It is a reason to know it is coming. The same wind is why the beach here is one of the best in Europe for what it is for.
Where you can get to
These are routed from El Médano itself, free-flow, so a real journey is these or longer. Note that the airport row reads eighteen minutes for five kilometres in this direction and eighteen minutes for six in the other; both are measured and both are correct, because the routes are not the same road in reverse.
| Where | Time | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Tenerife South | 18 min | 5 km |
| Costa Adeje | 23 min | 26 km |
| Los Cristianos | 24 min | 23 km |
| Vilaflor | 28 min | 24 km |
| Candelaria | 32 min | 44 km |
| Los Gigantes | 42 min | 48 km |
| Santa Cruz | 44 min | 62 km |
| Teide, Parador de Las Cañadas | 51 min | 47 km |
| Tenerife North | 51 min | 68 km |
| Puerto de la Cruz | 1 h 06 | 93 km |
If you are going up, go early. The cloud that sits against the north of the island tends to spill over the ridge by mid-afternoon, and the view from the crater rim is the whole point of the drive. The two approaches to the national park covers which road to take and what the temperature does at the top.
What to book here
This is a thin pick-up point compared with the airport twenty minutes away, so the choice on any given date is narrower and the cheap end goes first. If nothing here suits, collecting at the TFS collection points and driving the five kilometres over is a perfectly sensible fallback rather than a compromise.
Hyundai i20
5 seats · Automatic · Compact
€21per day, cheapest in this class right now
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€23per day, cheapest in this class right now
Fiat Panda
5 seats · Manual · Economy
€24per day, cheapest in this class right now
✶ Asked about the wind
Questions
from this coast.
Is it really only eighteen minutes from the airport?
Yes, and only five kilometres. The pairing looks wrong because eighteen minutes to cover five kilometres is slow, and the reason is that every route in or out of the terminal includes the access road and the approach at walking pace. Treat it as about twenty minutes and you will never be late.
Is the wind really that constant?
Yes. The town sits where the trade winds funnel between the coast and Montaña Roja, which is why it is one of the better windsurfing and kitesurfing spots in Europe and why it feels several degrees cooler than the resorts twenty minutes west. If what you want is still air and a sun lounger, this is the wrong town and nobody here will pretend otherwise.
Do I need a bigger car for the boards?
If you are bringing your own kit, yes. A supermini will not take a board bag with the rear seats up, and roof bars are not standard on hire cars here and are not something to assume. A crossover or a small estate with folding rear seats is the realistic minimum. Check the boot rather than the class name; the classes are about engine and price, not about what fits.
Is there anything to drive to nearby, or is it all an hour away?
Vilaflor is twenty-eight minutes straight up the hill, and it is the highest village in Spain with the Canary pine belt beginning just above it. Candelaria and its basilica are thirty-two minutes north along the coast. Both are half days rather than full ones, which suits a town you came to for the water rather than for the driving.
✶ A thin pick-up point
Not many cars, this close in.
El Médano carries a fraction of the airport's stock, so the list on your dates is short and gets shorter. Many cars cancel free, so booking early is how you get a choice at all.