Fuerteventura Holiday Guides and Photos.

A Holiday on Fuerteventura offers excellent Beaches, good food and the lovely Fuerteventura weather helps whilst on holiday as well.

Fuerteventura is a large, often windy Canary Island only a few hours flight from the UK and quite well known for it's surfing - however we like going on holiday to Fuerteventura for it's fantastic beaches (especially the naturist beaches), excellent track walking and rugged and somewhat unusual scenery. With Fuerteventura's extensive dunes and volcanic areas and just the general scenery there is no problem to take lots of photos whilst on holiday on Fuerteventura. The weather in the Canary Islands is ideal for Autumn holidays - especially October and early November for that bit of pre-winter sunshine (Usually). When on holiday in Fuerteventura a good place to stay is Caleta de Fuste, which is halfway down the island and ideally placed for driving/getting to various parts of the island. Little seems to change on Fuerteventura except perhaps more building around Caleta, Costa Calma and Morro Jable - a lot of this seems to be for Timeshare or retirement homes rather than hotel accommodation.
Fuerteventura's fantastic Morro del Jable to Costa Calma 16 km beach has been left alone (incidentally if you fancy a long naturist walk whilst on holiday you can strip off and walk this in both directions without any problem from anyone) and new buildings behind the beach have been generally kept low and have been designed to fit in discretely with the landscape.

If you like walking out and about and finding your own private beaches etc. then Fuerteventura is unbeatable, with generally very little sign of life apart from the occasional jeep safari or other walkers. As mentioned Fuerteventura is an excellent holiday destination for naturists and there are some really good beach walks possible - you can find quite isolated beaches if you prefer to be alone or go onto the often quite busy beaches around the dunes north of Caleta. We have a topic containing walks instructions/ideas on the island as well as other bits of interest - our Fuerteventura Walks and Photos topic contains pictures including Costa Calma and Morro Jable.

Caleta de Fuste is located on Fuerteventura's east coast - and being only a few kms south of the airport Caleta is quite well situated for easy access to most of the island (we never had a problem with aircraft noise by the way). Caleta is actually a fairly quiet place despite the considerable amount of holiday accommodation, with a large sandy bay very suitable for children, a small fishing port to wander around and a good selection of restaurants - including for some reason around 5 or 6 Chinese, as well as Greek, Indian and of course Spanish outlets. Nightlife seemed non-existent with apparently most people heading home by around 1030 pm..
There were two walks we took from Caleta de Fuste, the shortest one ( which many people with children undertake because of the squirrels) is to walk up the clearly visible hill which lies behind the town. To reach this simply head to towards it and go UP and then UP some more - it is a nice walk though. There are Barbary squirrels on the hill and so people often take nuts with them - actually the squirrels seem to eat just about anything on offer.

Another Caleta walk takes you south along the coastline mostly walking on a track and eventually reaches Fuerteventura's extensive salt pans at Las Salinas, passing some restored fortifications on the way. Las Salinas has a small sandy beach and there is also a restaurant which is located along the beach front. If you feel like walking on a little further, continue on through the village and once you climb the crest of the hill you seem to be looking at no-man's land with the view in front of you apparently totally devoid of life. You can continue into the Barranco de la Torre (which has palm trees) and the black sandy beach at Puerto de la Torre. If you continue from here you have to climb out of the Barranco and follow the cliff top and to eventually arrive at Bimboy beach.

Fuerteventura - El Cotillo is located on the West Coast and has one of our most favourite beaches, the only caution is regarding the undercurrents which can make it quite dangerous for swimming. The waves can be really awesome - which is why you often see surfers around waiting (optomisticaly?) for the right wave. There is a really good cliff top walk - with excellent views - park by the watchtower and just head south along the beach and when it eventually ends climb up to the cliff top above and just keep going as long as you care too. When you are about 90 minutes into the walk you will be at the top of the steps which lead down to a sandy beach (beware of the tide) - these are very steep and sometimes fragmented steps and also there are Barbary squirrels darting around which can distract you.
On the route from El Cotillo and heading towards La Olivia the road passes alongside a large lava field which has quite a green look to it - with notably the colourful Montana Arena crater looking really weird when the sun-light on it is from a particular angle.

Fuerteventura - Antigua. Antigua is "windmill territory" on Fuerteventura - both old and new varieties of windmills can be seen around here. Antigua's main square is dominated by a huge church which is tree-lined and has many cactus and other plants and shrubs - making it a very cool and pleasant place to stop. Don't miss the 200 year old El Molino windmill just outside of Antigua on the Puerto del Rosario road - part of the Antigua windmill craft centre.

A short stroll out of Antigua.
There is an enjoyable walk you may care to try leaving from Antigua which heads up into the hills and ends up giving splendid views of the island for miles around as well as offering a birds eye view of Betancuria. With the square on your left and church belfry behind you head along the street and turn first right, follow the road until it turns sharp right, carry on straight ahead on a track. You can clearly spot the intended route going across the valley and then heading up into the hills on a rocky zig-zag path.
Finish the walk at the crest (Dogollada de la Villa) with Betancuria in view and then walk back to Antigua or alternatively you can continue along to Betancuria and take a taxi back.

Heading north out of Antigua you come to Tefia which also has it's share of windmills. Take the road towards Puertito de los Molinos and after a short distance you will see a restored windmill on your right which is reachable by a track. There are good views of the surrounding hills - if the light is correct you can see many different colours in the hillsides. From here return to the road and turn right towards Los Molinos - passing Barranco de Los Molinos on the way - this barranco has a permanently flowing stream which empties into the sea, providing duck-pond facilities for some extremely hungry ducks. For hungry or thirsty humans there is a restaurant where you can also find more hungry ducks as well as hungry cats.

Return back to the main road and head south for Betancuria which used to be the old capital of Fuerteventura. Once across the valley wind your way through the hills; there are two view points, the Mirador Morro Velosa on a road to your left and another at the top of the pass. Just before reaching Betancuria the ruins of the 15th century Franciscan Covent of San Buenaventura are on the left. Betancuria has a number of old houses, a cathedral and a Museo de Arte Sacro. The place is also inundated with coach parties.

The countryside is quite green as you continue south towards Pajara. When you reach Vega de Rio Palmas turn right on a narrow road which takes you to the reservoir. There is a lovely walk near here which will take you through a beautiful valley to the reservoir and eventually the delightful church called Ermita de Nuestra Senora de la Pena. Park as near as possible to the streambed which is about 1km from where you joined the reservoir road. Simply walk along the streambed until you reach clumps of tamarisk at which point continue along the narrow path to the far edge of the reservoir. Make your way carefully along the right hand side of the reservoir and take a stone path which leads to the steps down to the little church. You can continue on the path beyond the church for a while and will find several good picnic spots with excellent views.

Fuerteventura Corralejo. Corralejo has a small beach, numerous shops and holiday accommodation and an interesting harbour semi surrounded by tavernas and bars - the local wildlife seems very well - trained at scrounging food from the restaurants customers - wildlife being the various seabirds and of course the cats. Many visitors head for the seemingly miles of sand dunes just along the coast which is a paradise for naturists. Ferries leave from Corralejo bound for Lanzarote and for Lobos - when we visited Corralejo we originally planned to have a day out (possibly with our car) to re-visit Lanzarote but the ferry prices were in our personal opinion outrageous ((not just our view)) with apparently two tariffs i.e. a local and a much higher tourist rate.

The Jandia Peninsula is well worth a visit - guidebooks state you should only use a 4wd vehicle for your trip. The dirt road surfaces are very rutted and in places very rutted however on our trip we did see a few people using ordinary hire-cars (several stuck in sand or lodged on unfriendly rocks). Just driving in our jeep was hard going at times with the ribble surface shaking us badly even at low speed - goodness knows what damage and so on was occurring with the hire-cars. Our hire-car company let us exchange our car for a jeep for the day so the cost was only a few pounds - surely worth while. There are several restaurants at Puerto de la Cruz and also one at Cofete (where we sat outside looking at the hills and had an excellent salad and omelette).

We started off just before Morro Jable Port on a signposted gravel road (clearly marked on the right) and bumped our way up and along what was often a quite narrow and hair-pinned experience, however after a few kilometres the track improved a little to become only awful. After around 12kms there is a turn-off to the right to Cofete but we kept straight ahead towards Puerto de la Cruz and the lighthouse at Punta de Jandia - this being the southernmost tip of the island. There are tracks off to the left at various places but we decided to check these out on our return trip. You will find the only bit of tarmac surface on the Peninsula which heads from Puerto de la Cruz to Punta Pesebre on the most western tip.

The coast line is really worth exploring right along this area and the sea crashing in on the rocks is quite impressive. Eventually we retraced our route back to the Cofete junction and turned left - this track to Cofete is very very steep and heavily rutted in places as you zig-zag up and over the pass. At the very top of the pass there is a small parking area and you have a really good view of the golden beaches of Cofete and the Barlovento de Jandia. From here we zig-zagged steeply down to Cofete, diverted to the Villa of Senor Winter (a German who once owned the Peninsula) and then backtracked a little and turned right down a track to the enormous sandy beach with it's superb waves.

However as with most of Fuerteventura's western beaches their are very strong currents and the sea is really only safe for a paddle. When we eventually left the beach we returned over the pass and at the junction turned left towards Morro Jable, however we diverted down several of the tracks to look at the beaches and coves we had spotted previously - well worth doing. We really enjoyed this trip and will certainly do it all over again when we get the opportunity. However next time if we use an open jeep we will take and then put our belongings into plastic bags or we will get a jeep with a roof as we were unbelievably covered in dust by the time we got back to Morro Jable.

Pozo Negro is a very small fishing village with a stoney beach, cafe and seems to be quite unaffected by tourism - very pleasant place for a stroll and some sea air. Las Playitas is situated in the mouth of a barranco and has a largish black sandy beach - it's considerably larger than Pozo Negro but still very quiet. On leaving Las Playitas you find a road leading off to your right which goes to El Faro de Entallada (a lighthouse very very high up on the rocky coast).  The road is always quite narrow but once you start climbing it narrows to about car-width, climbs very steeply with numerous switchbacks and has more than it's share of potholes - however the views on the way up and from the lighthouse car-park make this well worth the drive.

Gran Tarajal is very much a working town - it's pretty good to have a wander around but always seems terribly busy. Gran Tarajal can be a nightmare just getting there let along trying to park- The best time we found was on a Sunday morning since most other times we went it was swamped with cars, farmer's pickups and lorries.

Probably the best scenic drive on Fuerteventura island is by heading off round the Cardon. The drive can be started from the FV2 and taking the FV511 heading inland and after only 200 metres turn left onto the FV56 - a short way along this road you will find the turn-off to Cardon (marked as a scenic route). This winds up through the hills and mountains with some wonderful views and eventually ends up on the FV605 coast road.
If you turn left and head south take the junction marked Huertas de Chilejia (on the left) and this takes you back across the mountains to complete the original loop. (The drive is actually worth doing in both directions since the views and scenery appear completely different).

Pajara - one of our favourite places to visit whilst on Fuerteventura. As you come into Pajara there is a good car park on the left which is surrounded by beautiful trees and shrubs - running alongside the car park is a (usually dry) stream bed lined on both sides with flowering shrubs, and crossed by a small bridge.

Pajara is really a lovely place to wander around, with it's trees and shrubs full of birds and insects, it's numerous small gardens and squares, and of course the church with it's Aztec stone-carved decorations above the main entrance. If you are lugging children around it may be of interest to know that Pajara also has a swimming pool.

Ajuy is a small fishing village with a black sandy and pebble beach and gets quite busy since coach excursions include it on their circuit due to the Mirador Caleta Negra. The walk to the Mirador leaves the beach on the right and goes up and around the rocks - it's all clearly marked You arrive at one viewing platform and get excellent views along the cliffs and of the caves. Then you can also take the narrow somewhat vertigous walk down the steps to a lower view point and you can in fact go right on down to the sea.

Visiting the small Canary Island of Lobos - about a short walk around it's coast with photos of Lobos.

The tiny Canary Island of Lobos is located a little to the north of Fuerteventura and quite near to Corralejo - Lobos island is reached by a short boat trip from the harbour. When we went there two types of boat available - a glass bottomed type and an ex fishing boat. They leave the harbour at 1000hrs and 1015hrs (but do check for any alterations as things change) respectively and take about 35 minutes to get to the island. If you intend walking around Lobos then walking boots are favourite, also you should take bottled water with you since there are not too many supermarkets - none in fact - but there is a cafe/restaurant near the jetty.

A walk around Lobos takes about 3 hours and you would have difficulty in getting lost as the paths and tracks are clearly visible. Leave the jetty and bear half-right passing the Cafe after a few minutes. Keep to the coastal path soon passing through or if necessary around the tidal lagoons reach the main track. Ignore this "main" track by instead turning sharp right towards the sea to pick up the small coastal path which then wanders along the coast and arrives back on the main track by the Lighthouse. Now continue along the main track but bear right on it's fork towards Montana Lobos, but just before reaching Montana Lobos take a track off to the right which goes down to the beach inside the crater. When you return if you look carefully up on the steep screes to your right you can spot a path which links up with the main crater path. Troll up this nicely steep crater path to the top where you can wander along the ridge for a while. Up on the ridge you get some good views including a view of the beach hidden inside the crater, the sand dunes of Corralejo and of Lanzarote.

Return to the main track, head right and in around 15 minutes you will arrive at the turn-off to Playa de la Calera (the beach). Remember your return ferry time - it takes about 7 or 8 minutes to get to the jetty from the beach - and the ferries don't wait.

Please see our Fuerteventura Beach Guide and Fuerteventura Holiday Walks topics.
You may be interested in our Canary Islands Home Page for other Canary Island holiday guides about holidays on Gran Canaria and Lanzarote holidays.