To the Top of Spain

As usual, an outstanding holiday from Inntravel. We enjoyed the the transition from the lowlands to the striking volcanic landscapes of Teide National park. We particularly liked the walk from Vilaflor to the Parador albeit being the most strenuous walk of the week.

An excellent walking holiday, with beautiful weather throughout, well planned by Inntravel as usual. Good variety of hotels but each was memorable in its own way. Half board food was of good quality. Night time star gazing was stunning. Day 5 of the walking is more challenging [as we expected], need to leave promptly in the morning especially in winter months as does take a full day to complete. GPS is a really good tool for using on the routes [download each day's routes at home before you leave]

Spectacular views and scenery. Hard going at times but worth the effort. GPS is a must. Take plenty of water.

What a wonderful trip. A blend of great hotels, food plus the "just challenging enough" walks in mind-blowing  volcanic landscapes. The Mount Teide National Park is a sight not to be missed! One of our most memorable trips of all time.

Excellent trip. The walking is hard in as much as every day it's mostly up hill. There is also quite a monotony of uphill in pine forest with no understory vegetation. It's fine but maybe it should be a pointed out more clearly in the notes. The hotels are all lovely and well staffed. 

The weather was a surprise - at the two hotels at lower levels, particularly at the Villalba, the cloud rolled in every day around midday, making the visibility on the walks a little disappointing. However, we were above the cloud on Mount Teide and stayed in the sunshine for two days, getting sunburnt in the process! We wish we had spent extra time at the Parador as the landscape was so extraordinary and it would have been good to have explored it further, rather than only having one day's walk there. Overall, it was a great way to explore another side to Tenerife and to see how the countryside changed, from cacti and potato terraces lower down, to being in the cloud forest further up and then the volcanic barren beautiful landscape up above.

As always a fantastic Inntravel walking holiday with many highlights! Definitely a grade 2/3 walking holiday with some steep climbs which you state in notes but people need to be aware. Fantastic scenery especially the last three days and around Teide and the Parador. The obvious highlight was climbing to the top of Mt Teide. We managed to coordinate cable car tickets and permits booking both well in advance (necessary and recommended to do). Despite all the walking, we managed to gain weight - a sign of the good food (and drink).

This was a fabulous winter break, very well planned and organized by Inntravel. We were lucky to have sunny weather everyday, although the evenings were chilly enough to need a warm sweater.

The first day’s walk around San Miguel was a good opportunity to stretch our legs after a day of travel, but it wasn’t an area that we would feel inclined to visit again. Unquestionably, the highlight of the week for us was the walk on Day 5 from the hotel at Vilaflor up to the Parador del Teide. The first sighting of Mt Teide from the crater rim was absolutely breathtaking and arriving at our room with its close-up view of the volcano followed by a cold beer in the bar was a well-deserved reward for our full and challenging day of walking. We found that although we walked a little faster than the Inntravel guidance, the breaks for our picnic together with many stops to admire the views and take photos meant that in total we took longer than the 6 hour estimate.

For our final day of walking, we had booked the permit to access the peak of Mt Teide about 3 months in advance and were happy with the time-slot that we chose (1pm-3pm). This allowed us to enjoy a leisurely breakfast soaking up the view from the Parador, confident that we would still have enough time to walk to the cable car. We booked the cable car tickets about a month in advance for 12:30pm and were very happy that we didn’t risk waiting to buy them on the day (the tickets are refundable if the service is cancelled due to bad weather). Even in January, it was extremely busy at the base station of the cable car (and around the Parador itself), but for the short yet challenging ascent to the peak it was very quiet and peaceful as visitor numbers are strictly limited.

We were very happy with the plentiful food and comfortable accommodation on this holiday and are already planning our next Inntravel trip.

Walking was great. Future travellers may wish to note that is can be very busy around the parador during the day. Option B walk to Alto de Guajara is a wonderful alternative to escape the crowds. This is a most enjoyable and quite challenging walk and while only 10 KM feels like a longer hike. There was still snow and ice in places and perhaps future travellers may wish to be made aware that this is likely on north facing slopes. Option C is a perfect morning walk if departure permits. The variety of hikes and differing terrains was super and the hospitality in all hotels was warm and welcoming.

Another fabulous holiday meticulously organised by Inntravel. We love the 'journey' offered by hotel-to-hotel walking holidays, and the destination of this one is quite something! We had perfect weather for walking in mid-January and only really needed cold-weather gear on the last couple of days. We would recommend the use of Inntravel's excellent walking notes AND their GPX files. This belt and braces approach kept us on track... most of the time!

This was an excellent trip. The walking was fabulous and the places to stay really good. This is Tenerife for those that want to explore the volanic landscapes and is peaceful, alien and spectacular. We really enjoyed it.

Another excellent Inntravel holiday. Great walking, stunning views, good food (and beer/wine!). This was our twelfth and we cannot wait for the next! Thank you!

INNTRAVEL NOTE: These customers combined two walks: To the Top of Spain and Canyons, Caves & Coast of Gran Canaria

The holiday was fantastic. The walk to Teide is very challenging but the first views at the crater edge are truly spectacular. It took us nine hours to complete, but we're both in our late 60's and felt very proud of ourselves for completing it. It was a wonderful experience to share with each other. We will definitely be booking another Inntravel walking holiday.

A very enjoyable trip with some excellent walks and quite a lot of ascent! The landscape in the area around Mount Teide is stunning with especially good views from the Parador.

Another excellent Inntravel itenerary. Our fourth trip with Inntravel and the first with provided GPS tracks which were accurate and made navigation very straightforward. We visited in early September and the walks are quite challenging with the combination of heat and altitude but well worth the effort.

A good selection of hotels and we particularly enjoyed the spa at Hotel Villalba.

We did the "VIP ascent to the Peak on foot" with volcanoteide.com which was an excellent way to end the holiday but should only be undertaken if you are confident you can manage the climb, otherwise the cable car is a good option! 

We had waited 2 years to go on this particular holiday because of the covid pandemic, and it did not disappoint. We booked two extra nights, one in the Hotel Villalba and one in the Parador because we wanted to do all the walks and have some time at the Villalba to use the spa. We didn't regret that decision. We enjoyed the three hotels that were used and it felt like a journey. We were worried about our fitness but we managed all of the walks. For the walks from Vilaflor and the Parador we both used walking poles - the paths are loose and stoney and the poles give extra stability. As a useful guide, we left Vilaflor at 9am and got to the Parador at 6.16pm. We split our picnic into two stops and also took photos and admired views. The actual walking time stated by Inntravel was accurate for us. We had been to the Parador before, but had not gone up the final peak of Teide, so this was a real aim of our holiday. We had checked when permits would be released and had booked these, plus paid for the appropriate cable car tickets to get there on time. Hence, we did the Peak of Mount Teide walk to the cable car base station the opposite way round - the shorter route on the way there (so as not to be late) and the longer route back late afternoon. It is tiring getting to the top of Teide but well worth it!

Some general tips:

A tip on the altitude: if you want a good night's sleep at the Parador, they do a very nice alcohol-free beer. The altitude is not a problem at Hotel Villalba and the gin and tonics are huge! Check out the hot tub at the Hotel Rural San Miguel - it has an amazing (and slightly unnerving) stone vaulted ceiling, held up by physics. Centinela Mirador restaurant (the detour for the walk Around San Miguel) appears to have closed, possibly because of the pandemic. We saw no tour buses at all during our holiday. The Inntravel notes about the enormous starters at the Parador are not wrong. The main courses are more manageable. One starter of canarian potatoes is more than enough for two people and can be kept to carry on eating with the main course. 

What a fantastic holiday! We absolutely loved the mountains of Tenerife. An incredible landscape! This holiday started slow with some fairly easy walking around San Miguel but the walks around and between Vilaflor and Teide were much more challenging ....but the rewards! Stunning views and blue skies all the way. The accommodation booked by Inntravel was excellent and everything went very smoothly as we've come to expect from Inntravel.

Walking excellent and verbal guidance very accurate. Hotels excellent and welcoming.

The walk from Vilaflor up to the Teide Parador was absolutely stunning - a few quite challenging parts but very well directed . The whole of the Teide National Park totally bowled us over . Even short walks from the Parador revealed the most amazing rock formations and views.

[INNTRAVEL NOTE: This customer combined our Hidden Gem of the Canaries holiday to La Gomera and To the Top of Spain holiday on Tenerife.] Highlights? The landscape, sea views, plants, food and variety of La Gomera. Walking up to the crater of El Teide and exploring the crater the next day. Enjoyed bird watching and seeing blue chaffinches, canaries, birds of prey etc.

Thanks again for a great trip. We enjoyed this, our first trip to Lanzarote and although we have visited Tenerife before, it was great to explore different parts of the island. In particular the walk from Vilaflor to the Parador is a very special highlight with spectacular rewards for the effort and challenge involved. The whole trip ran smoothly and we look forward to travelling with Inntravel again in the future.

INNTRAVEL NOTE: These customers combined our 'Lanzarote & La Graciosa' and 'To the Top of Spain' walks.

A generally very high standard well organised holiday which is why we keep coming back to Inntravel.  We would suggest having maps and directions also available in an electronic format. In this itinerary we would remove San Miguel - it is of little interest.

The crater walk was epic, finally seeing a snow covered Teide from the crater rim was spectacular. The hotels and food are a higher standard and didn't mind having to half board. We usually much prefer just B&B. Interior of Tenerife is a delight and so unspoil. Very good value and recommend a simple Italian cafe in San Miguel which insisted we went 2 nights in a row called Il Mokha. Amazing value.