Tenerife
Despite its predictably sunny weather and the wide variety of
landscapes that attract millions of tourists every year, Tenerife
has a bit of an image problem, thanks largely to the attentions of
the package tourism industry. As a result the entire island is
commonly, though rather mistakenly, assumed to be just a playground
for the hordes of rowdy, booze-fuelled holiday-makers looking for
sun, sea and often sex in the island's large resorts, particularly
Playa de las Américas. And though most visitors largely content
themselves with lazy days on the beach, there are plenty of
opportunities to be more active and go surfing, windsurfing,
sailing, diving or deep-sea fishing.
Tenerife first established itself as a holiday destination over
a century ago when it became a fashionable place for the
aristocracy of Europe to spend the winter months. Since then, but
particularly in the last fifty years, during which time
mass-tourism has become a major global industry, the numbers
of holiday-makers have vastly increased. Today the island gets over
four million annual visitors who, together with the thousands of
northern Europeans settling here, have significantly changed the
personality of the island.
Though commonly viewed by independent travellers as an
aesthetic and social curse that has distorted the cultural
landscape and cloaked vast areas in concrete, mass tourism has also
guaranteed plentiful and excellent services in the resorts towns
and cheap flights to the island. And if the resort
honey-pots aren't to your taste, you'll find that it's easy to
leave the mass of holiday-makers behind. Despite the compactness of
the island that puts most areas of the island within an easy day
trip of its resorts you won't find many other foreigners in the
island's vibrant, unpretentious and distinctly Canarian urban
centres and only a small stream of hikers in its mountainous
regions . Here it's easy to find great quiet hiking
trails , a couple of good climbing areas , as well as
some quiet (though hilly) backroads and dirt roads for
cycling and mountain biking . And for those wanting
to get even further from the humdrum, there's the option of heading
out to hike or bike on the strikingly precipitous and laid-back
nearby island of La Gomera .
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