Tenerife Without a Car: Which Parts of a One-Week Trip Are Realistic?

Most of a Tenerife week works without a car, provided you base yourself in the south and accept that two of the seven days in the car itinerary do not survive the translation. From Estación Costa Adeje, the south's bus interchange, you can reach Teide on a daily bus with four and a half hours at the cable car, Santa Cruz and La Laguna every half hour, Los Gigantes and the whale boats every 30 to 40 minutes, Masca on the same bus the car drivers now have to use anyway, Puerto de la Cruz five or six times a day, and La Gomera by a 50-minute ferry from the next town. What does not work well is Anaga, which is a long day of connections from the south, and the Icod and Garachico loop, which is a bus day for its own sake. This article goes through the week day by day with TITSA's timetable for a January weekday and a January Sunday, says which days are realistic, and gives the arithmetic so you can check it against the live timetable before you go.

How the network works

TITSA (Transportes Interurbanos de Tenerife) runs the green buses, called guaguas, on every route in this article; Metrotenerife runs the tram between Santa Cruz and La Laguna. Fares are by distance and you can pay the driver, but the sensible tool for a week is the ten+ card (EUR 2 from airport machines, stations, kiosks and tram stops, or as the ten+ móvil app) loaded either with credit or with a tourist pass: EUR 10 for 24 hours or EUR 50 for seven days from first use, unlimited on all bus and tram lines, including the Teide and Teno lines that the residents' passes exclude. A same-day return is also available from EUR 4.25 with 10% off for journeys over 20 km. Frequencies drop on Sundays and holidays on most lines, and rural lines run a handful of times a day; the tables below show both a Wednesday and a Sunday for that reason.

Airport to base

From Tenerife South to Costa Adeje or Los Cristianos, line 40 runs every 30 minutes from 06:30 to 21:40 and takes about 26 minutes; line 111 stops at the airport too on its way from Santa Cruz. From Tenerife South to Santa Cruz, line 10 runs about every 40 minutes and takes 55 minutes. From Tenerife South to Puerto de la Cruz there is no direct frequent bus: line 343 leaves the airport at 09:21, 11:49, 13:50, 15:49, 18:25 and 23:10 on the January weekday (five buses on the Sunday) and takes about an hour and a half. From Tenerife North, line 30 runs to Puerto de la Cruz 14 to 19 times a day in about 35 minutes, and line 20 to Santa Cruz and La Laguna far more often. If you are flying into Tenerife South without a car, the base decision has been made for you, and the north or south article agrees.

The week plan by bus: what survives

Teide by bus: the arithmetic

There is one bus a day each way from each coast, and its timing is good. Line 342 leaves Estación Costa Adeje at 09:15, calls at Los Cristianos, climbs through Vilaflor, reaches the cable car stop at 10:56 and terminates at El Portillo at 11:19. It leaves El Portillo at 15:15, passes the cable car at 15:33 and is back in Costa Adeje at 17:21. That gives you four and a half hours at the cable car, and the operator's winter table (09:00 to 17:00, last ascent 16:00, last descent 16:50) fits inside it. Book a cable car slot for about 11:30 to leave a margin for the bus; a summit permit slot of 11:00 to 13:00 or 13:00 to 15:00 also fits, if you want the last 163 m and can get one in the Monday 07:00 release. From Puerto de la Cruz line 348 does the same job: 09:30 out, cable car 10:57, Parador 11:05, back from the Parador at 16:00, cable car 16:04, Puerto 17:26. Both lines ran the same times on the January weekday and the January Sunday in the feed.

Two cautions. When the Cabildo closes the park roads for snow or ice, which happened in December 2024 and in February and March 2026, the bus does not run either, and there is no second bus that day: keep the beach day after Teide as a spare. And the return is fixed at 15:33 from the cable car stop; if you miss it, the next public transport off the mountain is tomorrow.

Santa Cruz and La Laguna

The easiest day on the list. Line 111 leaves Estación Costa Adeje every 30 minutes from 06:00 to 22:00 on the January weekday and on the January Sunday alike, calls at the airport and reaches the Intercambiador in Santa Cruz in about 1 h 25 to 1 h 35 (the 110 is the faster express with a partial January calendar in the feed). From the Intercambiador the tram runs to La Laguna's UNESCO old town; a single is EUR 1.35, EUR 1.10 by phone, and the day and week passes are valid on it. Last 111 back from Santa Cruz is 21:30.

Los Gigantes and the whale boats

Line 473 runs Los Cristianos, Costa Adeje, Callao Salvaje and Los Gigantes roughly every 30 to 40 minutes all day (36 buses towards Los Gigantes on the December weekday, 30 on the Sunday), taking about 1 h to 1 h 10 from Costa Adeje; line 477 is the direct version, about 40 to 55 minutes, every 40 minutes on the weekday and every 80 on the Sunday. Whale and dolphin boats leave from Los Gigantes, Puerto Colón (which is walkable from Costa Adeje) and Los Cristianos; pilot whales are resident, two-hour trips are the standard, and the operators to use fly the Blue Boat flag. From a Costa Adeje base the simplest whale day is a Puerto Colón boat with no bus at all, and Los Gigantes for the cliffs on another half-day.

Masca

Masca is the one place where not having a car is no disadvantage, because since December 2025 the gorge walk requires arriving by bus 355 from Santiago del Teide anyway, and during the summer 2026 fire-risk alerts the Cabildo barred visitor cars from the TF-436 between 09:00 and 16:00 altogether. From Costa Adeje, line 460 leaves at 09:50 and reaches Santiago del Teide at 10:59 (the 07:45 gets there at 08:54), on the January weekday and Sunday alike. Line 355 then runs Santiago del Teide to Masca, a 13-minute ride, every 20 to 40 minutes between 07:30 and 13:40 on the December weekday plus through buses to Buenavista until 19:30; on the December Sunday only the ten through buses (08:00, 09:00, 11:00, 11:45, 13:25, 14:35, 16:20, 17:00, 18:20, 19:30). Back from Masca to Santiago del Teide there were 27 buses on the weekday and 11 on the Sunday between about 07:50 and 19:20, and line 460 leaves Santiago del Teide Norte for Costa Adeje at 12:28, 14:33, 16:43 and 18:48. A viewpoint visit is therefore a comfortable half-day; the gorge walk itself is a booked full day (from EUR 40.66, morning descent slots, bus 355 at least an hour before your slot, boat out to Los Gigantes booked separately, then 473 or 477 home).

Puerto de la Cruz and the north towns

Line 343 links Costa Adeje with Puerto de la Cruz through both airports: on the January weekday it leaves Costa Adeje at 09:00, 11:30, 13:50, 15:30, 18:00 and 23:00 and takes about 1 h 50, and returns from Puerto at 09:00, 11:25, 15:25 and 18:00 (plus a 12:25 to the south airport only); the Sunday has four or five each way. The 09:00 out and the 18:00 back make a full day in Puerto de la Cruz, La Orotava (a local bus or a taxi, ten minutes uphill) and the sea pools. Adding Icod and Garachico means line 363 from Puerto, which ran every 30 minutes along the coast on the December weekday (about an hour to Garachico) and every 30 to 60 minutes on the Sunday; it is doable, but you will spend the day on buses. If the north coast is why you came, the honest answer is to move base there for two nights on the 343 and do these towns from Puerto.

Anaga: possible, not comfortable

Anaga is the part of the week that the bus network serves worst from the south. The realistic version is a Taganana and Benijo day: line 111 to Santa Cruz (leave Costa Adeje by 07:30 to be at the Intercambiador by about 09:00), then line 946 through San Andrés to Taganana and Almáciga, which on the January weekday leaves the Intercambiador at 10:30, 13:10, 14:15, 17:05 and 19:25 (earlier buses at 05:10, 05:50 and 06:55 are for commuters) and on the Sunday at 09:10, 11:40, 14:15, 17:05 and 19:55; the return from Almáciga is at 11:40, 14:20, 15:30, 18:10 and 20:25 on the weekday and 10:15, 12:45, 15:30, 18:10 and 21:00 on the Sunday. The 10:30 out and 15:30 back give about four hours on the coast, then an hour and a half back to Costa Adeje. Cruz del Carmen and the laurel forest are a separate day from La Laguna on line 76 (five buses on the weekday, three on the Sunday, about 20 minutes) or the 275; combining the ridge and the coast in one bus day does not work. If you have one Anaga day and no car, take the Taganana version, or book a small-group day tour and spend your bus day on Teide instead.

La Gomera

The Fred. Olsen fast ferry from Los Cristianos to San Sebastián de La Gomera takes 50 minutes, sails several times a day and carries foot passengers and cars; read the sailing times for your date in the operator's booking engine, because we did not. From Costa Adeje, Los Cristianos port is ten minutes on line 473 or 477. As a day trip it costs you the buffer day; as two nights it is a proper second island. Either way it is one of the easier things to do without a car, not one of the harder ones.

What to drop, and what to book instead

Drop the Icod and Garachico loop unless you move base to Puerto de la Cruz, and do Anaga as the Taganana day or as a tour. Keep Teide, Santa Cruz and La Laguna, Los Gigantes and the whales, Masca's viewpoints, the beach days and, if you want it, La Gomera. That is five of the seven days intact, one altered and one replaced, which is a better week than most car-free guides admit and a worse one than the ones that say the bus goes everywhere. A one-day car rental for the Anaga and Garachico day is the other honest option.

How this was checked

Bus times are from TITSA's published GTFS timetable feed dated 18 September 2026, read for Wednesday 20 and Sunday 24 January 2027 where the feed carried the full January calendar (lines 111, 342, 343, 348, 460, 946, 76) and for Wednesday 16 and Sunday 20 December 2026 where it did not (lines 473, 477, 355, 363, 325, 40, 10, 30, 102). titsa.com itself was unreachable from our network on 19 September 2026; fares are from an archived copy of the operator's fares page dated 27 July 2026 and tram fares from Metrotenerife. Cable car hours are the operator's 2026 tables, permit rules are from Tenerife ON, Masca rules from the official booking site and the Cabildo's summer 2026 notices, the ferry crossing time from Fred. Olsen's route page, whale-watching guidance from Turismo de Tenerife. Nothing here is a first-hand account.

Photo credits

• Cover: TITSA bus in Costa Adeje, Cs-wolves, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, resized.
• Costa Adeje bus station, Falk2, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, resized.
• Teide cable car upper station, Flocci Nivis, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, resized.
• Acantilados de Los Gigantes, Tuxyso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, resized.