Tenerife With a Toddler

After ten days of indulging in sangria, I am now back home and pouring myself a cup of warm mint tea as the weather is cold and rainy. And as my memories from our vacation in Tenerife are still fresh in my mind, I begin writing this post.

I believe it is important to share my experience of traveling to Tenerife with a toddler as it can help others planning a similar trip. When traveling with kids, your schedule may differ from traveling with just a partner, but I'm sure you already know if you have traveled with your kid already :). Before traveling with our toddler, I usually search the internet for information about our destination and write something like "what to do in <insert destination name here> with a toddler" in the Google search bar to be able to set myself the expectations properly.

I have been dreaming about vacationing with my family in Tenerife for a few years now. However, there is only one direct flight from Romania to Tenerife, which departs from Bucharest. This made me feel discouraged every time I looked for flights. Since we live quite far away from Bucharest, it is not the most convenient for us to travel there.

We considered different travel options, such as departing from our hometown and taking connecting flights from Milan, London, Madrid, or Barcelona. However, planning such a trip became too complicated for me. Alternatively, we could drive to Budapest, Hungary, and take a direct flight from there. Although having multiple connecting flights is usually not an issue, we have been hesitant to travel in such a way with our toddler. But that had to change :)

I began my research in January, with the primary focus on finding flights from Cluj Napoca, our hometown, to Tenerife. After evaluating multiple options, I finally booked Lufthansa flights for the following route: Cluj Napoca - Munich - Tenerife. For us this was the easiest route, not the cheapest one, I must say.

Accommodation🏠‌

In the past few years, whenever my family and I traveled with our daughter, we always stayed in hotels that offered at least breakfast as part of the package. However, on this trip, we decided to rent a car and explore the island, so I chose an Airbnb host instead, located on the South-West coast in Costa Adeje. Fortunately, everything went smoothly. Although I had originally been concerned about how we would prepare our meals, we found that there were supermarkets located just a few minutes away by foot from our apartment, which made it easy for us to buy the things we needed.

Car🚗

While we were in Tenerife, we rented two cars for us to explore the island. The first car was rented from Canarias, and we used it for seven days. For the next three days, we rented a car from Cicar. Both rentals were satisfactory, but if I had to choose one, I would prefer Cicar. The rental process with Cicar seemed smoother than with Canarias. For both, we have opted for a booster seat for our daughter.

Activities🐧

As I was telling you in the beginning, whenever we travel with our daughter, we are trying to make the schedule of our trip to also fulfill her needs. Our first stop was at Loro Parque, which is considered to be the best modern zoo in the world. We purchased our tickets online one day before our visit. I must say that we were not at all disappointed, but rather mesmerized by all the fascinating creatures we saw there. We did not miss the presentation times, where we could see amazing shows given by orcas, dolphins, parrots, and sea lions. As an adult, you will still have an amazing experience there. Trust me!

Because seeing and feeding animals is a nice activity for our toddler, we went to Monkey Park too. It was a cute experience, our daughter could feed dozens of small Guinea pigs and monkeys.

We were tempted to visit Siam Park, which is considered the best water park in the world. However, after doing a bit of research and consulting with some locals, we decided that it might not be the best option for us to take our 4-year-old toddler there. Although there are areas dedicated to small children, we concluded that we wouldn't be able to fully enjoy the Siam Park experience at this time.

We spent a day wandering the small streets of Los Gigantes, indulging in delicious locally-made ice cream and savory food while admiring the grandeur of the cliffs and the black sand beach.

We considered some other appealing options, such as hiking on Mount Teide, which is the third highest and most voluminous volcanic structure in the world. However, after consulting with the locals, we realized that it may not be the most suitable activity for us to undertake with our 4-year-old daughter. The road leading to the mountain is quite winding and challenging, and our daughter is not an experienced hiker yet.

Our daughter's favorite activity was playing and swimming at the pool in our apartment complex🤷‍♀️. To make sure she had enough time to enjoy herself, we always made sure to be back at our apartment by 5 o'clock in the afternoon and have a couple of hours playing around the pool before dinner.

During our stay, we visited the Hard Rock Hotel Pool, which had amazing heated pools where we could soak up the sun. Our daughter, who I already told you that she loves every pool she sees, had a great time.

Beaches🌴

As we rented a car and explored the island, we discovered new beaches almost every day. Some of the most incredible ones we visited were Playa de la Pinta, Playa de Fañabé, Playa Del Duque, Playa de los Guios, and of course, the amazing Playa de Las Teresitas.

At the beach the weather was perfect for sunbathing, the water was a bit too cold for my taste. My husband and my daughter entered the water though on Playa de Las Teresitas. There were a lot of people swimming, although I decided to post here only those pictures in which there are not too many strangers :)

Restaurants🥘

During our trip, we relied on Google recommendations to choose restaurants, and we discovered some incredible places to eat.

Ristorante Pizzeria Desiderio, where we had an amazing fish and possibly the best tiramisu I've had in years. Oh, and they have an absolutely divine lava cake filled with pistachio.

El Gomero, tasty fish, delicious sangria, and many locals eating there, which was a good sign for me.

Los Pinchitos, where we had absolutely amazing fish and shrimp tacos.

Agua y Sal is famous for its seafood. We made a reservation before going there after reading reviews saying that it might be very crowded during lunchtime as it is very popular. Everything that we ordered was mouth-watering.

KV Bar Gourmet, where we were served by the restaurant's owner, Karl, who recommended trying the Cataplana, a traditional Portuguese dish.

Guachinche El Cordero is an absolute gem. It is a restaurant inside a banana plantation. The inside is very green with banana leaves and a small fountain. On the outside, we went to see a small part of the banana plantation and our daughter could feed some goats there.

If you're considering a trip to Tenerife, I can assure you that you won't be disappointed. Whether you're traveling with your partner or your kids, there are countless activities and sights to keep you entertained throughout your stay. You might even find that time flies by, and you're not ready to go back home when the time comes!

All pictures in this post are made by me and belong to me. You cannot use any of them without my permission.