Tenerife Volcano Tours

See it before you pay for it

The cable car, the lava fields and the sky after dark

There is one volcano on Tenerife that everybody means, and every listing on this page is a different hour spent on it. The cable car is the shortest way high: a cabin carries you to La Rambleta at 3,555 metres, and the tour that bundles it with hotel transport runs $105 over seven hours, rated 4.3 across 6,051 reviews — the most reviewed listing in this niche. The road version keeps you in the caldera instead, past Vilaflor, the lava field below Pico Viejo and the rock towers of Roques de García, from $68 for a full day with pickup, rated 4.5 across 1,906 reviews, with free cancellation. Then the light goes, the coast fills with cloud below you, and the same park turns into a dinner table and a row of telescopes: $63 for three and a half hours with a meal, sunset and stargazing, rated 4.5 across 2,507 reviews. Dress for the altitude whichever half you pick, because it is much colder at 3,555 metres than on the coast you left an hour earlier.

Side by side

Cable car, road trip, engines, or the night sky

Choosing a tour of Teide, Tenerife’s volcano, is mostly a decision about which hours you give it and how you move once you are up there. The cable car shape goes highest: seven hours with transport and a return ticket to 3,555 metres at $105, rated 4.3 across 6,051 reviews, the listing this site puts first. The road shape stays in the caldera and adds the island around it — four hours from the south at $80, eight hours with pickup at $68 with free cancellation, nine hours that add Masca, Icod de los Vinos and Garachico at $66, rated 4.6 across 2,988 reviews, or a 4WD version with a meal at $98, rated 4.7 across 757 reviews. The engine shape puts you at the controls on the park roads and forest tracks: quads for $57, $92 at 4.8 across 1,695 reviews, or $97 at sunset, and buggies in small groups at $223 and $229. The night shape is the cheapest way into the park and the one people rate highest — two hours of stargazing at $40, rated 4.9 across 519 reviews, the large private telescope at $74, also 4.9, dinner with the sunset at $63, and a guided hour inside the Teide Observatory at $24.

Two-minute check

How high each ticket actually goes

Three heights explain almost every question about this mountain. The park floor is the caldera of Las Cañadas, and that is where the road tours, the jeeps, the quads and the buggies spend their time, on the park roads and forest tracks rather than on the crater itself, with photo stops around 2,100 to 2,200 metres. The cable car goes to La Rambleta at 3,555 metres, and a listing that includes the return ticket, like the seven-hour tour with transport at $105, puts that ticket in your hand before you arrive. The summit itself is 3,715 metres, and the last stretch above La Rambleta is a short Tenerife volcano hike on a separate permit that is issued for a fixed time slot, in small numbers, and is worth booking weeks before you fly. The warning that belongs on every Tenerife volcano page is about air rather than anything else: it is far colder at 3,555 metres than at the hotel, the air is thin enough to slow you down, and a warm layer and closed shoes turn the whole difference into a detail. Five of the twenty listings carry free cancellation, so a date booked early can still be moved.

Six ways up the mountain

33,467 reviews across twenty volcano tours

Every rating on this page is the operators’ own number from GetYourGuide on Tenerife, shown as published. We write none of them, and we average nobody else’s into a score of our own.

What it really costs

What a day on Teide costs, line by line

Prices are per person and cover what the listing names — the guide, the transport, the meal where there is one, and on the cable car day the return aerial ticket up the Teide volcano, Tenerife’s highest ride. Three things move the number: how many hours the day holds, whether a vehicle collects you at the hotel, and how small the group is. The evening half is where the low prices live — $24 for the observatory hour, $40 for stargazing in a small group, $63 once dinner and sunset are attached. The daytime half runs from $65 for a long island loop to $105 for the cable car day, and above that you are paying for a machine of your own: $223 and $229 for a buggy in a group of a few.

The honest answer

Is the volcano worth a whole day of a beach holiday?

Teide is the highest point in Spain and the island is built around it, so the drive up is a change of planet rather than a change of scenery: pine forest, then bare lava, then a caldera floor with rock towers standing in it, and the coast lying under cloud somewhere below. That is the argument for the ticket, and 33,467 people rating these twenty listings is the evidence behind it. If you have one day and want it to hold the most, the cable car tour is the one we would book — seven hours, hotel transport and the return ticket to 3,555 metres at $105, rated 4.3 across 6,051 reviews, the most reviewed listing on the page. If you would rather have the island around the mountain, the nine-hour loop through Masca, Icod de los Vinos and Garachico at $66, rated 4.6 across 2,988 reviews, is the best value here. And if what you actually want is the Tenerife volcano sky view after dark, the evening half of the park is both the cheapest and the highest rated: $40 for two hours of stargazing at 4.9 across 519 reviews, $63 once dinner and the sunset are part of it.

What it's like

Twenty ways up Mount Teide — what changes is the hour, what carries you and how far past the park you go

If it is Mount Teide you are weighing up

Three ways into the same national park — the cable car, the island loop and the evening

All three run inside Teide National Park, around the Las Cañadas caldera in the middle of Tenerife, and all three are guided. What changes is the hour and how far past the park you travel. The cable car day carries you to La Rambleta at about 3,555 m, high over the caldera and below the 3,715 m summit, which is reached on a separate permit booked ahead. The full-day tour with pickup adds Vilaflor, Icod de los Vinos, Garachico and Masca to the same park over eight hours. The evening listing swaps all of it for sunset above the sea of clouds, dinner and telescope time under one of the clearest skies in Europe.

Practical

Plan the volcano day

Four things decide how it goes. First, where you sleep: most listings collect from the beach resorts in the south of Tenerife, the side the Teide volcano listings are built around, while others gather in Puerto de la Cruz or ask you to drive to a meeting point, and the title of each listing says which. Second, which Tenerife volcano activity you are actually buying — a seat in a vehicle, the handlebars of a quad, a buggy of your own, or a telescope after dark — because that single choice sets both the hours and the price. Third, what the fare already holds: the cable car ticket on the seven-hour day, a meal on several listings, pickup on some and a meeting point on others, which is where two prices that look different turn out to be the same afternoon. Fourth, when to press the button: four of the twenty are marked as likely to sell out, one asks to be booked at least seven hours ahead and several ten hours ahead, five carry free cancellation, and the permit for the last stretch above the cable car station is booked separately and well before you fly.

Best time

When to come

Tours into Teide National Park run in every month of the year, because the park is a high desert that stays open around the calendar and the cable car works through the seasons. What changes is the length of the day and the temperature at altitude, which together decide what time the sunset listings start and how warm a layer you pack. The whole page is bookable whenever you come.

Worth knowing

Six things that aren't in the listing

Common questions

Mount Teide tours, answered straight

Why trust this page

How we put this together