The town of La Laguna below the northern ranges, near Los Rodeos

Car hire atTenerife NorthLos Rodeos · TFN · half an hour from Puerto de la Cruz

Pick-up & drop-off

Dates

Met in arrivalsno counter queueFree cancellationon most carsNo depositon many carsUnlimited mileageon most carsDeposit and covershown before you bookNo hidden feesprices in EUR

Pick-up

Dates

↳ The other airportEvery pickup point →

Most people fly into the south without ever knowing there is a second airport, and for a northern holiday that costs them two hours of driving across the week. Los Rodeos sits on the plateau above La Laguna, six hundred metres up, and it is small enough that you are out of it in minutes. From here Puerto de la Cruz is about half an hour and it is into Santa Cruz in a quarter of an hour, where the same trips from the southern airport are an hour and twenty and an hour.

For a driver that is the whole case. Two hours of motorway saved across a fortnight is most of a day out, and the first drive of the holiday is nine minutes to La Laguna rather than an hour and a half up the length of the island in the dark. The catch is schedules: Los Rodeos handles far fewer international flights than the south, so the choice is usually made for you by where the flights go. When it is not, this is the better airport for anywhere north of the ridge.

↳ What is around itThe drive down to Puerto de la Cruz →

Tiled roofs and painted houses in the old town of La Laguna

La Laguna is five minutes from the runway and is the old capital, a grid of painted colonial streets that the university keeps awake. Beyond it the Anaga peninsula starts, which is laurel forest on a ridge road with the sea on both sides, and it is the part of Tenerife that people who come back keep coming back for. Stay on the sealed roads up there and the cover holds.

The other thing the position buys you is the crater from the north side. El Portillo, the northern gate of the park, is forty-six minutes from the runway on a road that climbs steadily through pine forest and out of the cloud, which is a shorter and quieter approach than the one the southern resorts use. Between that, the Anaga and the Orotava valley, a car collected here has three of the island's best drives inside an hour of the terminal.

↳ Timed from the terminalWhat the roads are actually like →

La Laguna, 9 min

Five kilometres downhill to the old capital. The shortest first drive of any airport on the island, and the historic centre is a walking town: park on the edge rather than attempting the grid.

Santa Cruz, 13 min

Twelve kilometres down to the capital and the port. Busy at either end of the working day, and a garage is a better plan than the metered street bays.

Puerto de la Cruz, 26 min

Thirty kilometres west on the TF-5, dropping several hundred metres into the valley at the end. The north coast town is the main reason people choose this airport. Low gear on the descent.

Las Teresitas, 27 min

Twenty-one kilometres round past the capital to the imported-sand beach under the Anaga. Easy road, and the car park fills early at weekends.

Taganana, 36 min

Thirty kilometres out along the Anaga ridge and down the far side: laurel forest, sea on both sides, and constant bends. Sealed the whole way, and the tracks off it are off limits in a hire car.

Teide, El Portillo, 46 min

Forty-three kilometres and a climb past two thousand metres to the northern gate of the park. The crater drive has its own page. Take a jacket and use a low gear coming down.

Those are free-flow times measured by routing, so a real journey is that or longer, never shorter. The south is the long haul from here: Costa Adeje is 61 minutes and Tenerife South 64, which is exactly the drive the one-way below is designed to save you doing twice.

↳ One way, north to southSet a drop-off →

Collecting here and leaving the car at Tenerife South is the best supported one-way on the island: nearly every car allows the airport pair, in either direction. You can also hand the car back at Los Rodeos after starting in the south. It suits the fortnight that starts in the green north and ends on a beach in the south, and the fee, where there is one, is shown with the price rather than at handover.

↳ Collecting at Los RodeosCheck dates →

It is a small airport, and that is its practical advantage over the south. Arrivals and the car park sit close together, the walk is short, and there is none of the volume that makes a summer afternoon at Tenerife South slow. Give your flight number when you book: a late landing is then not treated as a no-show, which matters more here because the last flights in are often the ones held up by the cloud.

01 The card is what turns people away

Bring the licence itself, as a card: photographs and digital licences are not accepted, and neither is a copy. Bring a physical credit card in the main driver's name with raised numbers for the deposit hold. Some suppliers take a debit card instead, also physical and in the same name, and your voucher is the thing that tells you which. This is the single most common reason a pickup fails.

02 The first ten minutes are the cloud

The plateau catches the trade winds, so it can be grey, wet and briefly unpleasant on the road out while the coast twenty minutes away is in full sun. Lights on, wipers on, and do not read the holiday from it.

03 Sealed roads only, and the cover has holes

Standard insurance leaves out the wheels, the underside, the windscreen and the interior, and the Anaga tracks are exactly what would find them. Hire cars are for paved public roads only in any case, so read the cover and stay on the sealed roads, which are the good ones.

04 Fuel, fines and the return

Return the fuel at the level you were given; nobody pays you for bringing it back fuller. There is a station on the TF-5 before the airport turn, which is the one to use. Speeding fines and parking tickets are the driver's, and they reach you afterwards through the supplier.

05 A day is twenty-four hours

The shortest chargeable rental is a full day, not a calendar day, so a ten in the morning collection and a two in the afternoon return the next day is two days. Worth a look when you are pricing a short hire against taxis and the tram.

↳ Mileage, and the northFilter for what you need →

Most car rentals come with unlimited mileage, and from Los Rodeos that is worth checking rather than assuming. Every car states its own mileage terms on its card in the results, and you can filter for unlimited rather than opening one car after another. It matters more from this airport than from the southern one, because the good driving up here is long: the Anaga ridge, the run west through Icod and Garachico, and the climb to El Portillo all add up quickly, and a fortnight of that is real distance. If the car is going back at the other airport, set the drop-off in the search and the one way fee comes with the price.

↳ Ready when you areAll pickup points →

Pick your dates and the widget opens on the Tenerife North pickup point, with a different drop-off point a click away if the fortnight ends in the south.

Check dates →Live prices for your dates. Free cancellation on most cars.

↳ Which car suits the northSee what is available →

Small, and for the roads rather than the parking. Everything worth driving from this airport bends: the descent into the Orotava valley, the Anaga ridge, the climb to El Portillo. A compact car is more pleasant on all of them, fits the old-town streets of La Laguna and Puerto de la Cruz, and is cheaper to fuel across a fortnight in which it will be used most days rather than twice.

Two things move you up a class. Four adults with luggage climbing to the crater will feel the smallest engines on the way up, and from here that climb is the obvious day out. And if nobody in the party drives a manual, filter for an automatic from the start rather than hoping: there are fewer of them here than in the UK, they go first in the busy weeks, and on roads with this many bends and gradients an automatic is genuinely easier.

↳ QuestionsOr just check dates →

The questions below are the ones that decide whether to fly into Los Rodeos at all, and what to expect when you do: the drive out, the cloud, the one-way to the south and what you need when you collect. The rental conditions themselves are written out in full on the terms page.

Which airport is better for the north of the island?

This one, comfortably. Tenerife North is about half an hour from Puerto de la Cruz, where the southern airport is an hour and twenty. If you are staying anywhere in the Orotava valley, La Laguna or the Anaga, flying into Los Rodeos saves you an hour of motorway on both ends of the holiday.

Can I collect here and drop off at the other airport?

Yes, and this is the best supported one-way route on the island: nearly every car allows it in both directions. Set the drop-off in the search and any fee shows with the price.

Why is it so often cloudy at this airport?

Altitude. Los Rodeos sits about six hundred metres up on the plateau between the ranges, right where the trade wind cloud piles in, so it can be grey here and blazing twenty minutes down the road. It has no bearing on your drive apart from the first ten minutes.

How long from Los Rodeos to Teide?

Forty-six minutes to El Portillo, the northern gate of the park, up through La Laguna and along the ridge. The Parador down in the caldera is another quarter of an hour. It is a wide sealed road the whole way and an ordinary car does it, but it climbs past two thousand metres and the temperature at the top is nothing like the coast.

What is the drive out of the airport like?

Short and simple. The terminal sits beside the TF-5 and you are on it within a couple of minutes, heading west for Puerto de la Cruz or east for La Laguna and the capital. The one thing to expect is cloud on the plateau: the first ten minutes can be grey and wet, and then it is not.

Where exactly do I meet the supplier?

In the arrivals area. Los Rodeos is small, so there is no shuttle to an off-site depot and nothing to hunt for; your voucher names who you are looking for. Give your flight number when you book and a late landing is not treated as a no-show.

What do I need when I collect the car?

The licence as a physical card in Latin script, in date past your return, and a payment card in the main driver's name. Most suppliers here want a real credit card with raised numbers for the deposit; your voucher says if a debit card is accepted.