The dunes are half an hour from the pine forest. Plan Gran Canaria properly.
Which dolphin cruise leaves from your own harbour, what a buggy day up the barrancos costs, and whether Roque Nublo is worth the early start. Reviews of every tour you can book on Gran Canaria.
Camels on the Maspalomas dunes, pilot whales offshore, a red canyon inland.
The four bookings a first week on Gran Canaria hangs off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The dune crossingGuided Camel Ride in the Maspalomas Sand DunesA slow line of camels over the protected sand between Playa del Inglés and the lighthouse. The cheapest thing on this list and the one everybody photographs.
02The morning at seaDolphin Watching CruisePilot whales and bottlenose dolphins hold that channel all year, so this sails in January as readily as in August. It leaves from the harbour at Puerto Rico.
03The day inlandThe Red Canyon Tour – Small Group Trip with Local Food Tasting ツVolcanic gorges, a village lunch and the ridge road over the middle of the island. The one good argument for giving up a beach day.
04The grey-sky planPoema del Mar Skip-the-Line TicketThe big ocean tank on the harbour front in Las Palmas. Keep it in your pocket for the morning the north sits under cloud.
Dolphins, a dive site or a full day under sail. Pick the boat.
The south coast keeps flat water most of the year and the deep channel is an hour offshore. Three kinds of day afloat, what it costs to board each one, and which harbour it leaves from.
Six bases on Gran Canaria, and the best day out from each.
A protected dune field and a resort strip in the south, a working capital with a surf beach running through it, a harbour town cut by canals, and the volcanic middle most people only see through a minibus window.
The middle of Gran Canaria is a mountain range, and it starts forty minutes from the beach.
Barrancos that cut all the way down to the sea, a rock plug the island grew around at Roque Nublo, cave houses in Guayadeque and pine forest above twelve hundred metres. Almost all of it is reached by buggy, by jeep or by a very patient hire car.
Maspalomas: the dunes first, the resort afterwards.
Everything in Maspalomas →
The sand between Playa del Inglés and the lighthouse is a protected reserve, so you cross it on foot, on a camel, or not at all. The resorts sit either side of it and the water park, the bird park and the western town are all ten minutes inland.
Ride the crossing, or walk it
The camel trains set off from the Playa del Inglés side and take roughly half an hour. Walking the same crossing costs nothing, takes longer and needs a hat. Either way the middle of the day is the worst of it.
Palmitos, Aqualand, Sioux City
Three parks sit in the hills behind the resort strip. Palmitos is birds and dolphins in a palm ravine, Aqualand is slides, and Sioux City is a western town that stages a stunt show around lunchtime.
Buggies up the barrancos
Two-seat buggies climb out of the resorts on dirt tracks into the ravines behind them. The passenger seat asks nothing of you. The driver needs a full licence and the patience to stay in convoy.
Gran Canaria’s most popular days out.
The full ranking →The tours more travellers take than anything else on this island, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Poema del Mar Skip-the-Line Ticket
Spend a full day exploring Poema del Mar’s 35 freshwater and marine ecosystems. See the huge curved ocean window, a 400,000-liter coral reef cylinder, Amazon habitats, fluorescent corals, and Canary Island species. Your skip-the-line ticket includes entry, but food, drinks, and transport are separate.
From · $32
Read our review →
2
Submarine Tour
from $45
3
Guided Camel Ride in the Maspalomas Sand Dunes
from $21
4
Guided tour of the Banana World
from $18
5
Dolphin Watching Cruise
from $47
6
Dolphin and Whale Watching Cruise
from $40
7
Gran Canaria Guided Buggy Tour
from $85
8
Horse Riding Adventure with Transfer Options
from $75
Las Palmas is a working city with a surf beach down the middle of it.
Las Canteras runs three kilometres along the front and a natural reef flattens the water at one end of it. Behind the beach sit the Vegueta old town, a market that still smells of fish, and the aquarium on the harbour.
Every Las Palmas day out →
Puerto de Mogán is where the south coast stops shouting.
Canals, bougainvillea and a harbour that still lands fish, an hour west of the dune strip. Puerto Rico next door is where most of the cruises cast off, and the Friday market in Mogán is the one people build a whole day around.
- 1Submarine Tourfrom $45
- 2Boat and Snorkeling Tripfrom $69
- 33h Boat Trip + Snorkeling in Puerto de Moganfrom $71
What a day out on Gran Canaria actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A fair number of the best days on this island come in under the price of the taxi from the airport.
Camel rides, park tickets, city walks and the short boat trips out of the south harbours.
- 1Poema del Mar Skip-the-Line Ticketfrom $32
- 2Submarine Tourfrom $45
- 3Guided Camel Ride in the Maspalomas Sand Dunesfrom $21
The full-day standards: buggy safaris, the island crossing by minibus, catamarans with lunch, first dives.
Private drivers, chartered boats and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
- 1tandem paragliding flights for everyonefrom $177
- 2Skydiving over Maspalomas Dunesfrom $352
- 3Gran Canaria 3 days / 6 dives in Various Locationsfrom $320
Three things Gran Canaria keeps for itself.
Beaches and volcanoes belong to the whole archipelago. A protected sand desert running into the sea, deep water with whales in it a few miles offshore, and a rock plug at the centre you can walk up before lunch are this island’s own.
The Maspalomas Dunes
Four hundred hectares of dune run from Playa del Inglés to the lighthouse, and the sand did not blow in from the Sahara. It is ground-up shell and coral the sea put there, which is why it stays pale and fine. The field is a protected reserve with no tracks and no vehicles, so you cross it on foot or in a camel line, and its shape is different every year.
- 1Guided Camel Ride in the Maspalomas Sand Dunes★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 3,690 reviews
- 2Camel Riding in Maspalomas Dunes★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 590 reviews
- 3Skydiving over Maspalomas Dunes★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 81 reviews
The whale channel
The sea floor drops away hard between Gran Canaria and Tenerife, and short-finned pilot whales stay in that channel rather than passing through it. Boats out of Puerto Rico and Mogán are over deep water inside an hour, which is why these cruises run all year instead of following a migration.
- 1Dolphin Watching Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 2,520 reviews
- 2Dolphin and Whale Watching Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 1,855 reviews
- 3Palmitos Park Ticket with Dolphin and Bird Shows★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,507 reviews
Roque Nublo
An eighty-metre plug of rock left standing when the volcano around it wore away, at eighteen hundred metres in the middle of the island. The walk up from La Goleta takes under an hour and finishes above the cloud more often than not, with Teide sitting across the water on a clear day.
- 1Arucas, Teror, Viewpoint Roque Nublo – Highlights Gran Canaria★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 170 reviews
- 2Roque Nublo: hiking on volcanoes with Sky Rebels★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 100 reviews
- 3Sunset Hike and Stargazing Experience in Roque Nublo Mountains★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 38 reviews
Four Gran Canaria bookings that will not wait.
Most of this island can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on boat timetables, small group sizes and a mountain road that only takes so many vehicles.
- 01Guided Camel Ride in the Maspalomas Sand DunesThe crossing is a protected reserve with a fixed number of rides in it, and the cool slots at either end of the day go first.
- 02Arucas, Teror, Viewpoint Roque Nublo – Highlights Gran CanariaThe lay-bys at the top of the island fill by mid-morning, and the small-group trips take a dozen people at most.
- 03Dolphin Watching CruiseThe boats out of Puerto Rico are small, and the calm morning sailings are the first to close in season.
- 04Submarine TourOne vessel on a fixed timetable out of Mogán, with a set number of seats on every dive. Nothing about it stretches.
When the north sits under the donkey’s belly and the south is in full sun.
The trade winds park a flat grey lid over the north of the island for weeks at a stretch, and Las Palmas can be under it while Maspalomas is at thirty degrees. It cuts both ways: that same cloud is what keeps the north green. Drive through the middle, or spend the day somewhere the weather does not get a vote.
Papas arrugadas, two kinds of mojo, and a lunch that usually arrives by boat.
Canarian food is its own thing: wrinkled potatoes cooked in salt, red and green mojo on everything, goat cheese out of the barrancos, coffee cut with condensed milk. On this island most of it is sold inside a day out, so the good eating turns up at a beach club, on a deck off Mogán, or on a tapas walk through the old town.
By place — coast, capital and the middle
South coast, dunes, the middle of the island, then Mogán and the capital.
The Gran Canaria reviews we added last.
More just-added reviews →
Entire Day Ticket at Perchel Beach Club with Spa Circuit
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Full-Day Tour Exploring History, Nature and Aloe Vera Farm
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Winery Tour, Wine Museum, and Tasting in Gran Canaria
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Gran Canaria Private Transfer from Puerto Rico to Las Palmas (LPA) airport
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Gran Canaria Private Transfer from Playa del Inglés to Las Palmas (LPA) airport
Read our review →
Gran Canaria Private Transfer from Las Palmas airport (LPA) to Costa Meloneras
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