Treasured Islands

Island hopping sounds idyllic but how practical is it in a motorhome? Walter and Leone Olins spend a couple of months touring the Canary Islands

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My wife, Leone, and I, accompanied by our dog Titus, fancied some winter warmth, but the thought of parking ourselves on a site in Spain or Portugal for three months just didn’t appeal. Instead, we had the notion to visit the Canary Islands, somewhere neither of us had been to before.

We put our plan into action early last January, using the Channel Tunnel as our escape route. In addition to the motor home we were also taking a car to make touring the islands that bit easier. Our first stop was at Camping Municipal Les Marronniers at Pont-Authou, a 2.5-hour drive from Calais. The weather was awful the next day so we didn’t hang around. I drove the 230 miles to Camping Le Futuriste, close to Future scope near Poitiers. It was still raining when we made our final stop in France at Camping Larrouleta at St Jean de Luz.

Our first stopover in Spain was at Camping Fuentes Blancas, just outside Burgos, in whose cathedral the true ElCid is buried. Our next stop was a 160-mile drive to Camping Regio on the outskirts of Salamanca. at night the temperature dropped to 0C.

A huge car park in Seville, with electricity and clean water, sufficed before our last stop at Camping Playa Las Dunas at El Puerto de Santa Maria.

Nine days into our trip we boarded the Transmediterranea ferry to Tenerife, a 48-hour crossing because it stops off at other islands along the way. The smooth crossing and self-service restaurant were very acceptable, although the free Wi-Fi sometimes took more than an hour to connect.

Tenerife ahoy!

It had taken 11 days, but we finally disembarked at Santa Cruz and drove the 50 miles to the southern tip of the island to Camping Nauta near Las Galletas, where we stayed for 11 nights.