Fiat Panda
5 seats · Manual · Economy
€16per day, cheapest in this class right now
✶ South coast, 33 minutes from TFS
Los Cristianos.
A harbour, and
a way out of it.
The oldest of the three southern resorts and the only one that was a town before it was a resort. It has a working port, ferries to two other islands, and the motorway on its doorstep, which makes it a better place to keep a car than its reputation suggests.
✶ Live availability in Los Cristianos
27 cars from €16 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
The bay, with the ferry port at the far endTo the airport33 minNineteen kilometres, all of it on the TF-1.
To Costa Adeje14 minNine kilometres north along the same coast.
To the crater51 minUp the TF-21 through Vilaflor and the pine belt.
Ferries2 islandsLa Gomera and El Hierro sail from the port here.
The town, and why the shape of it matters
Los Cristianos grew out of a fishing village rather than being drawn on a plan, which is why the streets behind the harbour go where they go and why parking in them is inconvenient. It is also why the place has a centre: a square, a church, a fish market, a promenade that starts somewhere and ends somewhere. Adeje and Las Américas are more comfortable; this is more of a town.
For a driver the practical consequence is that you want to be parked on the edge and walking in, not circling the old streets hoping. The blue bays are metered, the white ones are free, and the free ones nearest the water are gone by mid-morning. The paid car park at the ferry terminal is the fallback that always works.
The ferry question, answered honestly
This is the one thing people ask about Los Cristianos that they do not ask anywhere else, because the port sends boats to La Gomera and El Hierro and the crossing to La Gomera is under an hour. The temptation to take the hire car across is obvious.
Whether you may is a question for your supplier and their individual rental agreement, and we are not going to give you a confident answer we cannot stand behind. What we will say is that even where it is allowed it is rarely the right call for a day trip: the vehicle fare is several times the foot fare, and hiring a small car on the far side for the day is usually cheaper than shipping yours there and back. Walk on, hire there, come home.
What the car is for from here
Everything north and everything up. The west coast turns to cliff at the cliff town in half an hour, the TF-21 climbs from Vilaflor into the pines and out onto the crater floor in fifty minutes, and the north coast town and its entirely different weather are an hour and a bit over the top. None of that is a bus journey worth making.
| Where | Time | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Playa de las Américas | 10 min | 4 km |
| Costa Adeje | 14 min | 9 km |
| Los Gigantes | 33 min | 31 km |
| Tenerife South | 33 min | 19 km |
| Teide, Parador de Las Cañadas | 51 min | 47 km |
| Santa Cruz | 54 min | 77 km |
| Tenerife North | 1 h 01 | 84 km |
| Puerto de la Cruz | 1 h 12 | 73 km |
One note on the descent. Coming back down from the crater you lose two thousand metres in about forty minutes, and the temptation is to hold the brakes the whole way. Use a low gear instead and let the engine do it. Brake fade on a hire car whose pads you did not choose is a bad way to learn this.
Which car, and what it will cost you
Small and manual, unless you have a reason. There is less here than at the airport, which is worth knowing in February: the cheap end goes first and the choice you are looking at on the day is not the choice you would have had six weeks earlier. If price is the thing you are optimising for, the honest version of that is on what actually makes a rental cheap here rather than in a headline day rate.
Toyota Yaris
5 seats · Automatic · Compact
€21per day, cheapest in this class right now
Hyundai i20
5 seats · Automatic · Compact
€21per day, cheapest in this class right now
SEAT Ibiza
5 seats · Automatic · Compact
€23per day, cheapest in this class right now
✶ Asked about the harbour
Questions,
including the ferry.
Is parking near the harbour difficult?
In the old streets by the harbour, yes. Around the edges of town, not really. Blue-lined bays are metered with a time limit, unmarked white are free, yellow means no. There is a large paid car park at the ferry terminal itself, which is the option to use if you are catching a boat and do not want to be walking back to a meter.
How far is the airport from here?
Thirty-three minutes and nineteen kilometres, routed, all of it on the TF-1. That is a free-flow figure so allow more on a Friday evening, but it is one of the easier airport runs on the island because the motorway does the entire journey and there is nothing to navigate.
Is this a better base than Las Américas or Adeje?
It is smaller, older and quieter, and the working harbour gives it a middle that the purpose-built strips further north do not have. For driving it changes almost nothing: all three towns sit within fifteen minutes of each other on the same motorway, so the times to anywhere else on the island are effectively identical.
✶ Fewer cars than the airport
Fewer cars here than at TFS.
Collection points away from the terminal carry less stock, so the choice thins earlier in the season. Many cars cancel free, which makes booking ahead the cheap option rather than the risky one.