How to get to La Palma

Information about the trip

How to travel to La Palma

La Pal­ma has an inter­na­tion­al air­port, so trav­ellers either decide to book a direct flight straight to San­ta Cruz de la Pal­ma (SPC), or aproach one of the air­ports on Tener­ife, Tener­ife-South (TFS) or -North (TFN). Often the flights to Tener­ife are more favor­able; vis­i­tors have to con­tin­ue via fer­ry or to change to a small­er plane, though, in order to get to La Pal­ma via island hopping.

La Pal­ma is big­ger than one might expect. If you do not want to wait for the bus takes a hire car to explore the island.

Travelling to La Palma…

…directly to Santa Cruz de la Palma (SPC)

The west­ern­most of the Canaries, La Pal­ma, has an inter­na­tion­al air­port. Most char­ter car­ri­ers approach the air­port San­ta Cruz de la Pal­ma (SPC) sev­er­al times a week, plus, in the sum­mer sea­son, the low-cost-car­ri­ers from main­land Spain, Barcelona and Madrid. The air­port is sit­u­at­ed on the east coast in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Vil­la de Mazo, about 8 km south of the cap­i­tal San­ta Cruz.

…via Tenerife-South (TFS)

In two min­utes inter­vals planes from all over Europe and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca are land­ing in the biggest air­port of the Canaries, Tenerife-South/“Reina Sofia“ (TFS). Accord­ing to this it is like­ly to get a flight to Tener­ife-South at a good price. By taxi it is just a 15 min­utes ride to the fer­ry port of Los Cris­tianos (ca. 23 Euros) where the fer­ries to La Pal­ma (via La Gomera) depart sev­er­al times a week.

…via Tenerife-North (TFN)

The ones who booked a par­tic­u­lar­ly favourable flight to Tener­ife often real­ize too late that the plane they are sit­ting in is head­ing towards Tenerife-North/”Los Rodeos” (TFN). But that’s not the end of the world. Two Canari­an air­lines, Bin­ter Canarias and CanaryFly, fly from TFN to San­ta Cruz de la Pal­ma sev­er­al times a day. The dura­tion of the flight is about 30 min­utes and includes spec­tac­u­lar views of Tenerife’s famous vol­cano “Pico del Tei­de” (3814 m).

…by ferry

For cen­turies San­ta Cruz de la Pal­ma was famous for its ship­builders, who were said to be the best of the world – amongst oth­ers the “Amis­tad” was built here, one of the last Span­ish slave ships. There’s no more ship­build­ing today, life is laid-back in the har­bour: The Canari­an fer­ries of Fred. Olsen and Naviera Armas are land­ing sev­er­al times a week, the Trasmediter­ranea (Acciona) is tak­ing import goods to the island, and a small mari­na is wel­com­ing sailors from time to time, who have a break on their route to the Caribean.

The Canari­an-Nor­we­gian com­pa­ny Fred. Olsen is run­ning the pas­sage Los Cris­tianos – San Sebastián de la Gomera – San­ta Cruz de la Pal­ma almost dai­ly. With the mod­ern “Benchi­jigua Express” the pas­sage varies from 2.5 hours (direct fer­ry) up to almost 3.5 hours (via San Sebastián de la Gomera). Trav­el­ling with the tri­maran can be quite bumpy. The pas­sage (one-way) costs about 50 Euros per person.

Trav­el­ling with the “Vol­can de Taburi­ente” (Com­pañia Naviera Armas) from Los Cris­tianos to San­ta Cruz de la Pal­ma costs about 45 Euros and takes abour four hours (via San Sebastián de la Gomera).

Car rental at best price

La Gomera, El Hierro, La Palma: three Canary Islands