Garajonay

I visited this WHS in January 2020. La Gomera can be reached by inter-island flight or by a 50 minute ferry from the port of Los Cristianos in the south of Tenerife. I opted for the latter and headed with my rental car on board with the first ferry and came back with the last one (even though it was quite expensive for the short trip).

The Garajonay National Park, also a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, is situated in the central uplands of La Gomera and the abruptness of the island's relief makes for an immense variety of climates and landscapes. The Canary cloud forest, also known as monteverde or greenwood, is the defining element of Garajonay and covers over 85% of its area. The evergreen vegetation is known technically as laurel forest and wax myrtle heath. This type of forest has been greatly degraded by human activity and fires and has in fact shrunk to 20% of its original area. 

The national park of Garajonay got its name from the myth of Tenerife prince Jonay and La Gomera princess Gara. Attracted by its beauty, and sensing that the love of his life was waiting for him on the island of La Gomera, Jonay crossed the sea with two goat skins and introduced himself to the princess. At first she rejected him, as she wasn't supposed to speak to strangers or associate with men who were not of her lineage. Consequently, Jonay was imprisoned for his daring act. Nevertheless, …

The park can be visited on a rather easy day trip from Tenerife. I took the 08:45 ferry from Los Cristianos (50mins) and went back on the 17:30 ferry. The price of about 30 Euros per way was ridiculously high. At La Gomera port I rented a car for 25 Euros. Got it in about 2 minutes. Easiest rental ever. From the port it’s a rather joyful uphill drive to the park.

You could follow routes that take the whole day. I opted for driving to several viewpoints instead and did a few kilometers return on several path. If you are not a total tree enthusiast, a trek for several hours will get boring. It’s a constant up and down between the ever same trees. My favorite viewpoints were the Miradores del Rejo and Hermigua. You will need to walk for a few minutes from the parking but views are nice.

There is not much else to see on the island. The “capital” is tiny even tough with a nice church and a park with a tower from colonial times. Further, I visited Agulo, a rather small and unspectacular village. Not really worth the effort.

The intention behind our recent trip to Tenerife was twofold: enjoying some sunshine at the end of our first European winter, plus naturally visiting the World Heritage Sites on Tenerife and the adjacent La Gomera island. Organising our visits to the sites actually on Tenerife were easy, but it proved to be a bit tricky when it came to visiting Garanjonay National Park on La Gomera.

Our tentative plan was to take the ferry over, spend a day exploring, stay the night, then return the next day before our flight out of Tenerife South airport in the afternoon. However, firstly, there's virtually no hotels or Airbnbs on La Gomera that allow dogs (as we were travelling with our dog, like usual). We could have made do with the rustic options open to us, but then we realised a second issue. We wanted to hire a car for a day (not take a car across from Tenerife). But my husband these days only drives an auto, and we couldn't find a single auto car rental available on La Gomera. We knew there was a bus option, but after reading previous reviews weren't happy to depend upon it. 

Luckily, we found an alternative. On GetYourGuide, we came across a day trip option: "La Gomera Full-Day Hiking Tour from Tenerife". Unlike most of the other day trips that mention "visiting the national park", but just drive through the park on a bus, this tour mentioned hiking in the national park. Plus, the cost …

A few suggestions / experiences for anyone considering a visit to Garajonay National Park (NP) -

a. We gave La Gomera island 2 days/1 overnight in early Dec 2015 – I am sure that those who enjoy walking holidays could (and do) spend much longer but we found this was long enough to see both the NP and the island highlights. You could tick the NP off (even including a walk) in a single day return by ferry from Tenerife but that would be very rushed having spent the money to get there!

b. Although (as per Els above) you could rely on Taxi/Bus, my view is that car rental is particularly worthwhile given the scattered nature of the sights around the island and the frequency/routing of busses. It is not as cheap as on Tenerife (We paid 50 Euro for 2 days inc full CDW) but not bad. All the international, national and local rental agencies are located at the small ferry terminal at San Sebastian. Having left Los Cristianos on Tenerife at 9 am on the fast ferry, we arrived at 9.50 and were “on the road” at 10.05 with a pre-booking.

c. The main NP visitor centre is outside the NP in the north of the island (the NP calls it the “area Pre-parque”!). See this map top right. The exhibits of geology and nature are a little old but we found the ethnological section in the so-called “House of Memories” well worth a visit - …

Spain’s Garajonay National Park only has a small footprint on the web. In preparation for my visit, I had been looking for a few extra links to upgrade the site’s page on this website. But not many people seem to go there or at least write about it. It’s not popular among World Heritage lovers either: it’s ranked 409th out of 481 European WHS in our listings. The park covers the central part of the Canary Island of La Gomera, which is the neighbouring island to Tenerife. Tenerife’s prominent WHS Teide volcano can be seen well from the Garajonay.

Garajonay’s claim to fame is its laurel forest. At its inscription as a WHS in 1986, this Spanish national park was seen as the best-preserved stretch of laurisilva that once covered all Canary Islands and Madeira. 13 years later the similar Laurisilva of Madeira was admitted to the WH list. Its nomination document goes a long way to describe the differences: the Madeira laurel forest WHS is about 5 times larger than the one on Gomera, and the forest “is in general more luxuriant than the Canarian forest, being taller, wetter and cooler.” They claim that the Madeiran forest was just lesser-known and written about in the 1980s than the Canarian ones. So maybe Garajonay’s value isn’t that outstanding after all.

Interisland rivalry aside, something with an enormous impact happened to Garajonay in 2012: a forest fire burned 3,000 hectares (20%) of this national park. During my visit two …

I have been there several times and find the island magical.

However outide the park times are changing and some of Gomera's magic has been lost to development. Go there before it is too late - it is cheap and easy to get to.

There is plenty of information available in english now - including maps and 3 different walking guides

if you need more info contact me