If you plan to bring your campervan, motorhome or tent to Tenerife then you’ll want to obtain camping permits to gain access to some of the best locations on the island! As UK nationals, we initially found it difficult to find information on how to book camping permits for areas surrounding the national park on Tenerife. Hopefully, the below information will get you setup and ready to explore some of the most beautiful locations on Tenerife.
Many of the permitted camping areas around the national park in Tenerife are part of, or in close proximity to free recreational areas which are popular for picnics, BBQs and for the locals to spend the weekends outdoors. One of our favourite locations to camp away from the crowds on Tenerife was the Chio Motorhome & camping area (Zona Acampada Chío). This location had great access to lots of beautiful hikes and scenery right on the doorstep. It’s worth noting that these are wild camping locations, there are no services on sites for filling up or emptying water or waste tanks. General waste and recycling is often available in the recreational areas however.
To access these campervan or camping locations you must first obtain a permit from the Tenerife council website. Once you’ve found the correct locations and links the process and website are easy to follow. It is worth knowing that reservations can only be made at least 15 days in advance. After 15 days, the calendar appears black because the available places have not yet been released for booking. The website also contains a key which shows which sites are accessible for campervans or motorhomes. You’ll need to look out for the little vehicle icon alongside ‘Available spaces per caravan’, these are the designated spaces for the campervans and motorhomes. To book you only need your email address, vehicle registration and passport number. We relied heavily on our Starlink internet setup on these remote locations so you might want to plan ahead with your bookings whilst you have guaranteed signal or WiFi.
To make our stays and planning easier we located, and pinned all the areas which were available to stay overnight onto a list on Google maps. We then added the appropriate URLs to each location as a note so we could go directly to the booking site for that specific location. The images above show how we managed this on our iPhones.
You can find a list of the available camping areas here.
There is a filter on this page to refine which sites are available for “Caravans’ which is campervans and motorhomes. At the time or writing there are 6 sites available for vans out of a possible 16.
The 6 camping sites which require a permit, and which are available for campervans on Tenerife are:
- Arenas Negras camping area
- El Lagar camping area
- Las Lajas camping area
- La Caldera camping area
- Las Raíces camping area
- Chío motorhome area (our favourite)
We’d like to thank the council of Tenerife for allowing us to stay in such wild and peaceful locations for free whilst visiting their island. As always, please be mindful and respectful of the environment and locals when visiting these locations so that they can continue to be enjoyed in future.
