Tenerife or Gran Canaria: which island suits your trip

• Tenerife, if you want to ride a cable car most of the way up Teide, see the island change from the green north to the dry south, and have a week or more for it.
• Gran Canaria, if you want one base with most of the island within day-trip range, plus a city beach in Las Palmas and the Maspalomas dunes.

We use the same sources for both: climate averages from AEMET, Spain's weather service, for the two coastal airports (Tenerife South and Gran Canaria Airport), a single source for sea temperatures, and our own catalogue for places, roads and trip length.

On the coast there's little in it. These are AEMET's 1981–2010 January averages for the two coastal airports:

• Tenerife South, January: 21.7 °C by day, 15.2 °C at night, 17 mm of rain.
• Gran Canaria Airport, January: 20.8 °C by day, 15.0 °C at night, 25 mm of rain.

Tenerife's south is about a degree warmer in the afternoon and a little drier, and the nights are the same. Tenerife's north is another matter: at the northern airport, 632 m up near La Laguna, January days average 16.0 °C, with 80 mm of rain. The sea is much the same around both islands, about 19–20 °C from January to March. Up high, both get cold. Snow falls on Teide in winter, and Gran Canaria's summits can see frost and the occasional snowfall.

Teide rises in the middle of Tenerife. A road crosses the lava fields of the national park, and a cable car climbs about 1,200 m in eight minutes to 3,555 m, some 160 m below the summit. The last stretch to the top needs a permit. Gran Canaria's centre is lower and more rugged, with pine forest, ravines and rock towers, and the 80 m pillar of Roque Nublo stands near the island's highest point. From Roque Nublo, on a clear day, you can see Teide across the sea. Near Las Palmas, the Bandama crater is about 1 km wide and 200 m deep, with a 3.5 km path round its rim. For more on each, see things to do in Tenerife and Gran Canaria's mountains and ravines.

Most of Tenerife's beaches are black volcanic grit. Las Teresitas, near Santa Cruz, is pale because its sand was shipped in from the Sahara in 1973, and behind its kilometre-long breakwater the water lies still. On the south coast, El Médano is a windsurfing town; a chain of buoys marks off the swimming area, and the beach in front of the main square is sheltered from the bigger waves. On Gran Canaria, the Maspalomas dunes run straight down to the beach on the south coast, and Las Canteras is a city beach just over 3 km long in the middle of Las Palmas. A reef about 200 m out shelters most of the beach, and the northern end is the calmest. We cover Tenerife's beaches one by one in a separate guide.

Both islands have an old town laid out soon after the Spanish conquest. On Tenerife it's San Cristóbal de La Laguna, founded in 1496 and capital of the islands until 1723. Its street grid became a model for Havana and Lima. On Gran Canaria it's Vegueta, where Las Palmas began as a Castilian camp in 1478. La Laguna has the first university in the Canaries, while Las Palmas is a port city of about 382,000 people with Las Canteras beach right in town.

Gran Canaria is about 50 km across, so wherever you stay, most of it works as a day trip, and the GC-1 motorway runs from Las Palmas past the airport to the south coast. Tenerife is the largest of the islands, and its roads are often narrow and winding: expect to average 30 km/h or less. Gran Canaria's mountain roads are narrow too and twist above steep drops, so on both islands allow extra time for driving in the interior. Buses link the main towns and the airports on both: Global on Gran Canaria, and on Tenerife TITSA, a well-run network, though some journeys involve a change and services stop around midnight. A hire car is the practical way into the mountains, but for Roque Nublo the bus is easier, since you can't drive up to the trail entrance.

On Gran Canaria, a week is enough for the main sights. Tenerife takes 7–10 days for a full loop, or 3–4 days if you stick to one side: either the beaches of the south or the greener north. You can also combine both islands: the Fred Olsen catamaran from Agaete, on Gran Canaria's west coast, reaches Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 80 minutes. Ferries and flights between the islands are expensive, though, so with a week or less one island is the simpler plan. To choose between Tenerife's north and south, see north or south Tenerife.

Pick Tenerife if Teide is the reason you're going, if you want forest and lava as well as beaches, and if you have a week or more, or are happy to stay on one side of the island. Pick Gran Canaria if you want a single base for day trips across most of the island, plus the Maspalomas dunes and a big city with a beach. If warm winter afternoons matter most, Tenerife's south has the edge: it's about a degree warmer by day in January.