Words by Andi Cross. Photography by Adam Moore.

Meeting Marie

I’d never seen colors like it. Red, orange, and yellow coming together over water. Resting over the horizon with a calm and still cerulean ocean below. The air smelled like coconut, probably because that’s all we’d been eating for a week, and probably because coconuts can be found everywhere in Vanuatu. I sat on the shore with Marie, her hand in mine. Hers were large, strong. Callused from years of experience. My other hand traced patterns in the sand, as if I might never touch this exact place again. And the truth was, I probably wouldn’t. That’s the struggle with being on a multi-year expedition around the world: you have to get good at saying goodbye to the people and places you fall in love with.

We sat in silence for a while before Marie asked me to read her the story I’d written about my partner, Adam Moore, and I diving her Little Bay. No one had ever gone far enough past the wave break to see what was out there, and she wanted to know what we’d found. After all, she spent her entire life protecting this stretch of ocean without ever catching a glimpse beneath its surface. I suspected she didn’t know how to swim, as that was common for Indigenous women of the South Pacific islands.

A sense of nerves washed over me. What if she didn’t like it? What if my descriptions didn’t land? These are the things that run through your mind when you step into different cultures, into alternate worlds. You’re always wondering when your welcome will run thin. I was hesitant to start, but I couldn’t deny the request. She had been so gracious hosting us for over a week, as if we were two of her own.

I cleared my throat, and with a shaking voice, began by describing the will power it took to get there in the first place. I had been the one to reach out to Marie wanting to learn more about the bay. I’d seen a single photo of it online in my research of the region, and in turn, found her—appearing as nothing more than an email address. I had no idea who she was or what she looked like. If she’d even respond at all to my random fascination with her home, in what some would call the middle of nowhere.

Marie had to travel 45 minutes from her village in the north of Espiritu Santo down to the provincial capital, Luganville, to even begin our correspondence. Our conversations came in fragments, half-understood words. There was a significant amount of waiting between messages. But after a few months, we had somehow made a plan. She agreed to open up one of her bungalows to me, and I agreed to show up.

Our instant connection was uncanny, despite coming from completely different worlds. Me, a New Yorker who had moved to the other side of the globe to become a scuba diver. Her, a ni-Vanuatu from a nation comprising 83 islands. I found immediate comfort in her warm smile. In her welcoming gift of a road-side coconut. She hugged me so tightly upon our first meeting, as if we were kindred spirits.

I went on to recount the small pranks she played on us throughout our stay. All our shared laughter. I told her how I felt more relaxed than I can remember sleeping in her handmade beachside bungalows—the sound of the ocean rocking me to sleep every night. How her cooking—from the coconut crab the size of my head to the fresh fish caught just down the road—would be forever embedded in our memories. I told her how both Adam and I valued every detail she so meticulously planned, all to ensure we felt like Vanuatu was a place we could call our own. Even if we all knew it never would be.

Looking back on that first plunge into Marie’s Little Bay, we were met with a reef untouched by time. Vibrant and alive, unlike anything we had seen. Colors that only nature can create, much like the Vanuatuan sunset, flooded our senses. It was hard not to get emotional. Adam and I had seen so much damage underwater—where even the most iconic reefs are struggling with bleaching, pollution, degradation. But this place was free from those scars. I was thankful to see something so wholesome and resilient could still be found in this hard world. Both on land and out to sea. The reef reminded me of Marie.

I paused and looked over at her. She was crying, trying to hide away the tears rolling down her rounded face. “No one has ever written a story like this for me. I never knew what was in my Little Bay. Now you’ve shown me. My work protecting it was worth something. I’ll never forget you for this.”

For Marie, this newfound knowledge meant she had the ability to open her bungalows to divers. An alternate livelihood she, and her entire community, so desperately needed. The pandemic had hit Vanuatu’s tourism businesses hard, like it did throughout most of the Pacific Islands. She walked me through her grand plans. I had helped make them actionable and sustainable. And on my end, I was starting to realize Adam and I were on to something bigger with this expedition concept we’d conjured up. I’d envisioned a future where my calling was here, on the edges, helping people see what might be out of sight, even in their own backyard.

Discovering Our Edge

I met Marie in 2023, not fully understanding the gravity of that moment. I didn’t yet know that Adam and I would go on to meet many more people like her on what we had started calling the Edges of Earth expedition—an idea that first surfaced years earlier, in 2019. I didn’t know how many times we’d have to say goodbye. How often we’d leave places we had come to love.

It all started when I moved from the east coast of the United States to the far-flung remoteness of Western Australia. Perth, the only major city in the state, felt rugged in a way I couldn’t fathom coming from a city of nearly nine million. People went barefoot to the supermarket. Kangaroos were just as much neighbors as humans. Status wasn’t tied to what you earned, but instead to the size of the waves you could surf. At least, that’s how I came to understand it through Adam.

The more we explored this wild west, the more a question began to follow me: what else is out there? In the vastness of a state the size of half the US, with only three million people spread across it, I tapped into an insatiable curiosity. One that came less from ambition, and more from a desire to understand what I did not.

At the time, Adam was working brutally long days as an accountant while I was in strategy, selling things that didn’t feel like they mattered, to people who didn’t really need them. We had built clear, defined skills over the course of our twenties. But the way we were using them didn’t sit right. Was this really it? Was this how we were meant to spend our lives? Slaves to a computer screen? Selling our souls to whatever mega company we were to work for next?

As our relationship grew, so did our time mulling over those questions. We’d brainstorm on long car rides looking for surf about the life we wanted. And about what we could actually contribute to the cause we both passionately cared about: Earth. As we contrasted our workdays with weekends spent on Western Australia’s white-sand beaches, we watched as two completely different versions of life were unfolding.

At the same time, I was diving nonstop—what had brought me here in the first place. I was spending nearly as much time underwater as I was on land, documenting places like the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Triangle whenever I could. And with every dive, I started to notice where there was beauty, there was also destruction. Plastic caught in coral and damage where there should have been life. Every dive reminded me of the tension my life now held. The endless consumer products of my origins and the wilderness of my new home.

I was living in two worlds that didn’t reconcile. New York was the place that shaped me—centered around consumption, ambition, and always-on speed. And then there was Perth—a place that stripped things back, reconnecting me to nature while pulling me further from everything familiar. I couldn’t fully belong to either. I felt stuck between them, trying to figure out how to make sense of both without turning my back on one.

My dive guides, often locals, would unknowingly cut through that internal battle. They spoke about their work with a kind of actualization I didn’t have. Their lives were centered around protecting their home. They were fixated on restoring reefs by hand, removing waste piece by piece, pushing for policies to safeguard what remained. Not for recognition and certainly not for reward. Just because it was theirs to protect. They were doing it out of love.

I was struck by these narratives. By how deeply they could commit to a place, while I still had a foot in two worlds. Of all the questions building in me about our planet in decline, my purpose, and where I fit into any of it, one rose above the rest. Why weren’t these stories from the edges being told?

By 2023, Adam and I couldn’t ignore these questions anymore. We both wanted to feel something different in our work, and we wanted to understand how other people were building lives that felt aligned with what mattered to them. So we sold most of what we owned, cancelled our lease, and packed our lives into two bags. One for dive gear, the other for everything else.

The plan was to move from one edge to the next. Spend time with people doing the hardest work in the field. Instead of leading or talking, we were to listen and learn. And our hope was, with the skills and connections we had, we could help carry their impact further. A few people took a chance on us in those early days. Marie was one of them.

A New Way of Life

The rest of 2023 was spent moving through the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, each step across the eastern hemisphere testing us in ways we hadn’t anticipated. We learned quickly how to adapt—to unfamiliar food, to constant movement, to discomfort that slowly became routine. Nights on the floor of a makeshift cabin with Kanak families in the north of New Caledonia toughened us. A cliffside shelter in the Solomon Islands, with torrential rain hammering down for a week straight, showed us how little we actually needed. Sleepless nights camping in Thailand, sea lice lighting our skin on fire, made us appreciate our health in a way we never had before.

And it didn’t ease up. In Cambodia, relentless storms left us unsure what we’d wake up to. In Vietnam, pollution was inescapable—on land and underwater. The Andaman Islands brought food poisoning that stopped us in our tracks. In the Philippines, we came face-to-face with illegal fishing fleets that shook us to our core. It was physically draining in a way that could have broken us. But what hit us harder was the weight of what we were seeing.

It’s one thing to read about a changing climate. It’s another to live inside it. To see, up close, how the most vulnerable communities are carrying the consequences of decisions made far beyond their control. They would often be living among trash that has washed in from other countries that were far more populated than their slice of island. They would experience intensifying storms that would destroy their homes and deplete them of their savings. Large in part due to a warming planet that they had very little to do with based on their carbon footprint.

We’d lie awake at night, silent, trying to process it all. The damage and scale of it. The responsibility we started to realize was in our hands to ensure we weren’t extracting and giving as much as we could instead. By morning, we were exhausted—not just from the harsh conditions, but from our endless cognitive processing of what we had seen.

And still, we never questioned being there. Because every day, we were alongside people who refused to give up. We were diving, trekking, documenting alongside scientists, First Nations communities, conservationists, and activists. And over and over, there it was: that same connection I had felt with Marie. It didn’t matter where we came from or how different our lives looked. We were always welcomed with open arms when able to communicate our shared commitment to protect what was still here.

What was most potent, however, was the outlook of those we met. These were people living on the frontlines of the climate crisis, watching their ecosystems change in real time. Despite the drama of this loss, their stories weren’t well known; they weren’t social media stars and the contents of their days weren’t clickbait. And yet, their sense of purpose was unwavering. Instead of being stuck in place, paralyzed by what was happening to them, they were acting on it. It forced us to look at ourselves differently. When we showed up exhausted or overwhelmed, carrying the weight of the problem, while they carried only solutions, we had to check ourselves.

Take the Tetepare Descendants Association of the Solomon Islands. They pushed to keep their ancestral homeland free from the logging industry—one of the only successful holdouts of 1,000 islands in the country to do so. Or Andaman Discoveries of Thailand, helping the once nomadic Moken people reclaim their seafaring ways after the government revoked them in 2004. Or Marine Conservation Cambodia, which was warding off illegal trawlers that were killing off the country’s marine life.

These people became our colleagues and our friends. Our guiding teachers and our definition of heroes. Because of this, our expedition work was far from some pursuit of discovery, or a claim to something new—which is how we once understood expeditioning to be. This instead was a journey to stand alongside those already doing the hardest work, and to help it reach beyond the edges they were fighting to protect.

Finding the Positive Outliers

By 2024, we found ourselves driving the length of Central America in a car that was barely street legal, crossing rough borders from Panama to Belize. Along the eastern coast of Mexico, we dove the world’s deepest blue hole, spending time learning from the fishermen who had first discovered it on how they were now planning on protecting it. Further north, we dove through the cenotes—sacred sinkholes and caves that the Mayans called their underworld. We crossed the country to see how marine protected areas were being created and enforced by local communities, those deeply connected to this land so rich with biodiversity.

In South America, we moved through Patagonia and out to the Falkland Islands / Malvinas, where king penguins wandered close without hesitation. Off Argentina, elephant seals stretched across the shoreline, unfazed by our presence. It often felt like we had arrived at exactly the right moment for the perfect wild encounter. But for us it was never about that. We were always searching for the human connection.

By the time we reached the southernmost tip of the Americas, two years in, we had documented close to 200 of these progressive case studies. We called them this because, to us, they were blueprints for a better future—repeatable models that others could use, if experiencing similar challenges, in similar environments. Through this, we had met over 1,000 positive outliers, as we started to call them. People and teams facing their ecological and cultural challenges head on, and making a real difference despite the odds.

When we immersed ourselves in places far removed from what we once called “normal,” the more living at the edges began to change us. It was showing up in what we chose to eat, forcing us to reduce our meat and fish intake. It crept up in the conversations we were having, finding ourselves in heated conversations about the challenges of open-net salmon farming instead of what’s trending on Netflix. It even started showing up in how we looked, as we rotated through four outfits and washed our clothes in buckets. We didn’t care. We loved it.

In return, we leaned into our role on behalf of those on the edges. We were never in these places to lead conservation work, but rather, to help move it forward. To connect these teams with the exposure and support they needed—whether through funding, media, or simply getting the right people to pay attention. We had the ability to do that because of our previous corporate careers, which was largely why I didn’t want to turn my back on home. Home gave me something valuable—a tangible skill and the work ethic to back it up. It just had to be harnessed and curated in the right way. Towards something that provided value to people who needed it most. And because of that, the relationships we built didn’t end when we moved on. If anything, they deepened.

I remember a stretch of road through Patagonia on the Chilean side, asking Adam if we’d ever be able to live like we once did back in New York, or even Perth. Perth felt large now. Would we care about what we wore, what we owned, how big our house was? Could we go back to small talk about the weather? Would we always be thinking about the intensifying storms we’d seen on expedition instead? Could we eat the same processed foods, knowing the true cost with every bite?

By the time we had crossed five countries in South America and were on our way to Africa, we had our answer. There was no “going back.” Even our physicality had changed—hardly recognizable to fair-weather-friends who knew us in another life. Our face and limbs were always lightly dusted with dirt. Hair knotted and sunbleached, from too much exposure to the elements. Our hands had hardened. They reminded me of Marie.

Our Future on the Edges

Today, we are three years into this global voyage. Six continents, 47 countries, 250 communities, and counting. We’re still meeting people on all kinds of edges, from the most remote to the most urban. Positive outliers exist everywhere, if you’re willing to look closely enough.

We measure success differently now. In the relationships built and in the tears we shed upon a goodbye. When we get to share with a woman, for the first time, what sits beneath the surface of her Little Bay that she spent her life protecting. That’s success. Marie was the one who showed us what life on the edges could be. She reframed why we explore. While it was never about the perfect shot, or the dopamine hit of Instagram likes, we didn’t have a full handle on the “why.” She showed us that, to explore, means to forge deeper human connection. Exploration means helping people see what has always been there, even if just slightly out of reach.

What we didn’t expect was how hard it would be to carry that way of living back with us. To sit in a city and not think about the coastlines we’ve seen changing. To have conversations that skim the surface after years spent in places where everything discussed is painfully deep about our planet’s future. To exist within systems of overconsumption and resource extraction that we once moved through so easily, now seeing them for what they are. We’re still learning how to live with that tension. How to exist in both worlds without turning away from either. How to let them benefit one another, instead of letting the never-ending contradictions pull us to shreds.

Escaping one life for another was never the grand plan. It was to understand how to bring them together. To take what we’ve learned on the edges—the way people commit themselves to something bigger than they are—and apply it to the lives we came from. To think more boldly and to question what we know. To act with intention, which we certainly didn’t fully grasp before this journey. Back then, we were more fixated on ourselves—what we needed and wanted—oblivious to the fact that even our smallest actions cause ripple effects reaching the ends of the Earth.

We’re not finished. There are still more positive outliers to meet and more case studies to carry forward. But our burning questions have changed. Gone are the days of chasing “what’s out there?” or “where do I fit in?” Those questions feel selfish now. Instead, we’re asking how far stories of human ingenuity can reach. Can they outshine the clickbait? Can they shift culture? Can they open our eyes to what we stand to lose if we don’t change our ways? We will keep showing up to play our part in it all. At home and on every edge that welcomes us next.

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About the Cover Conservationists

Andi Cross and Adam Moore are the co-founders of Edges of Earth, a multi-year global expedition documenting the people, places, and practices shaping the future of ocean and land conservation. Three years in, they have traveled across six continents, 47 countries, and 250 communities, working alongside the scientists, First Nations leaders, conservationists, and local stewards they call positive outliers. Andi writes and leads the storytelling side of the expedition; Adam handles photography and field direction. Follow their journey at edgesofearth.com.

Blue plus yellow creates green. Remove the blue, and the green disappears. That is the color-theory argument at the core of a Brazilian creative campaign that has spent the past six months making an unusually elegant case for marine protection, using screen printing, mineral pigments, and a very deliberate reimagining of the national flag.

The campaign is called No Blue, No Green. It was created by Droga5 São Paulo, the Brazilian office of the global creative agency, for SOS Oceano, a Brazilian coalition of NGOs working to expand the country’s marine protected areas. Phase one launched at Rio Ocean Week in October 2025, when the agency stripped the blue and green from the Brazilian flag and let the absence do the work. Phase two, which rolled out in early April 2026, moves from subtraction to craft: six original screen-printed artworks, produced in collaboration with Black Madre Studio and Joules & Joules Laboratory, each one pairing a marine species with its terrestrial counterpart inside the yellow diamond of the Brazilian flag.

A Campaign Built Through Craft

Screen printing was chosen for its chromatic precision and layered ink application, which together allow the prints to honor the tradition of Brazilian naturalist illustration while landing the campaign’s political message with clarity. More unusually, the pigments themselves are natural mineral-based, developed over months of research with Joules & Joules Laboratory to achieve accurate hues without any synthetic solvents. A campaign about reducing marine pollution, produced with no petrochemical inputs, is a different proposition from one that merely names the problem.

Each of the six prints draws a visual equivalence between marine and terrestrial ecosystems: a humpback whale alongside Amazonian flora, coral structures set against forest canopy, reef fish interlaced with rainforest birds. The yellow diamond of the flag remains the framing device in every piece, a visual constant that gives the series its unity and grounds the argument in national identity rather than abstract environmental appeal.

The Coalition Behind the Campaign

SOS Oceano is less a single organization than an alliance. Its seven member groups include Sea Shepherd Brazil, Rede Pró-UC, Instituto Baleia Jubarte, Divers for Sharks, the Seaspiracy Foundation, Núcleo de Educação e Monitoramento Ambiental (NEMA), and Projeto Golfinho Rotador, with support from the Blue Marine Foundation. Their shared advocacy focuses on expanding Brazil’s marine protected areas and aligning the country’s policy with UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, Life Below Water, alongside the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

For context on the stakes: Brazil’s coastline runs more than 7,400 kilometers, but the country’s coastal marine protections have faced sustained pressure from development, industrial fishing interests, and shifting political winds over recent years. Public awareness of ocean conservation in Brazil, despite the scale of its maritime territory, remains significantly lower than awareness of Amazon deforestation. Campaigns like No Blue, No Green are one of the ways the coalition is trying to shift that imbalance.

The Creative Reasoning

Diego Limberti, Chief Design Officer at Droga5 São Paulo, described the throughline across both phases:

“The beginning of this project showed that design can condense a complex environmental truth into a single, felt symbol. In this phase, the elements of the flag remain part of the campaign’s visual process, but they are now reinterpreted to emphasize the animals that live in marine parks and their relationship with the forest. One biome depends on the other, and this is highlighted by the colors of Brazil’s greatest symbol.”

André Maciel, Creative Director at Black Madre Studio, framed the underlying logic more plainly:

“The project is rooted in color theory. When we say without blue there is no green, we’re working with the fundamental logic of primary and secondary colors: blue and yellow create green.”

The Science Behind the Metaphor

The campaign’s central claim, that terrestrial life depends on a functional ocean, is not rhetorical flourish. The ocean absorbs approximately 30 percent of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions each year and produces somewhere between 50 and 80 percent of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere, figures tracked consistently by NOAA and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Marine ecosystems regulate global temperature, drive the water cycle that sustains terrestrial rainfall, and hold the majority of the planet’s biological carbon stocks. Degrade the ocean as a functioning system, and the conditions that allow forests, agriculture, and human settlement to exist begin to degrade with it.

Put more directly: the color metaphor at the heart of the campaign is, in ecological terms, almost literal.

Where to See the Work

The six original prints are on view at Galeria Plano in Barra Funda, São Paulo, and the campaign is running nationally across billboards, newspapers, and magazines. A short film documenting the project, produced with Black Madre Studio and sound design by Bumblebeat, is available below.

A complete project gallery, with high-resolution views of each print and the full list of production credits, is hosted on Black Madre Studio’s Behance page.

Why the Work Matters Beyond Brazil

There is a broader argument embedded in the campaign that is worth naming. Environmental advocacy often struggles because the science feels abstract and the rhetoric feels tired. No Blue, No Green sidesteps both traps by letting the image carry the argument and following through with craft that matches. The prints can be looked at as design, read as advocacy, and held as a physical object, each of those modes reinforcing the others.

For the coalition behind SOS Oceano, which still has to do the slower and harder work of policy change, that kind of layered visibility is the real prize. A campaign that gets attention in design publications and award shows can travel into classrooms, government offices, and international press in ways that a conventional advocacy message rarely does. The coalition structure itself, with multiple organizations working under a shared visual identity, also points to something replicable: civil society groups pooling their advocacy through unified creative strategy rather than competing for the same attention.

The yellow diamond, reframed as a site of ecological argument, can carry new content indefinitely. That is a useful thing for a coalition still in it for the long haul.

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Learn more:

• SOS Oceano coalition members: Sea Shepherd Brazil, Instituto Baleia Jubarte, Divers for Sharks, Projeto Golfinho Rotador, and others
• Campaign film: vimeo.com/1178605134
• Full project on Behance: behance.net/gallery/247332271/SOS-Oceano-No-blue-no-green
• Exhibition: Plano Estúdio, Barra Funda, São Paulo (on view now)

south coast does exactly what it promises. But Tenerife is an island of extraordinary geographical and ecological variety, and the version of it visible from a resort terrace is perhaps the least representative of what the island actually is.

Tenerife is home to Spain’s highest mountain, three distinct rural parks, a UNESCO biosphere reserve of ancient laurel forest, villages perched at elevations above 1,400 metres, volcanic landscapes that look like the surface of Mars, and a western coastline of sheer black cliffs falling 600 metres into the Atlantic. It has colonial cities with 16th-century architecture, cave-dwelling communities, stargazing sites that rival professional observatories, and natural tidal pools carved into lava rock where locals have swum for generations, completely uninterested in tourism. The island has a population of around 930,000 people living real, varied lives, and understanding a little of that life makes a visit significantly richer.

This guide is for travellers who want more of that Tenerife.

Understanding the Island’s Geography

Getting oriented matters here, because the island’s regions are genuinely distinct and travelling between them takes time. The central volcanic massif, dominated by Mount Teide at 3,715 metres, divides the island climatically: the north is wetter, cooler, and dramatically green; the south is dry, sunny, and more arid. The three main rural areas — Anaga in the northeast, Teno in the northwest, and the Teide highlands in the centre — each offer a completely different landscape and character. A rental car is essential for exploring any of them independently, and it is worth noting that many mountain roads are narrow, steep, and genuinely demanding to drive.

Where to Stay: Choosing Your Base

The most interesting places to base yourself are not on the resort strip. Here are four alternatives worth considering.

La Laguna (northeast) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most beautiful colonial towns in the Atlantic islands. It was the original capital of Tenerife and its historic centre is a grid of 15th and 16th-century streets filled with carved wooden balconies, baroque churches, and a genuinely lively student population from the nearby university. Staying here puts you within easy reach of Anaga Rural Park and Santa Cruz, without sacrificing urban infrastructure. Hotel Laguna Nivaria, housed in a 16th-century mansion, is one of the finest small hotels on the island. 1

Garachico (northwest) was the most important port in the Canary Islands until the volcanic eruption of 1706 destroyed much of it and permanently altered the coastline. What remained was rebuilt thoughtfully, and today it is arguably the most architecturally coherent small town in Tenerife. The natural lava pools at El Caletón, formed in the same eruption that destroyed the port, are now a beloved public swimming area. Boutique Hotel San Roque, an 18th-century mansion facing the sea, and Hotel El Patio, a 16th-century farmhouse set in a 60-acre banana plantation, are both exceptional places to stay. 2

Vilaflor (central highlands) at 1,400 metres above sea level is the highest municipality in Spain, and sitting within it feels genuinely remote. Pine forest surrounds the village, the air smells of resin and altitude, and Teide National Park is just a short drive away. For travellers prioritising time in the volcano landscape, basing yourself here rather than driving up from the coast every day changes the experience entirely.

Anaga villages (northeast) — in particular Taganana, the oldest agricultural settlement in Tenerife, set in a steep valley running down to a black-sand beach — offer a different kind of immersion. Accommodation here is small-scale and basic, but the location inside the biosphere reserve, with walking trails directly from the door, is hard to match.

The Three Landscapes You Must Understand

Teide National Park and the Volcanic Interior

Teide is the obvious centrepiece, and it deserves its reputation. The national park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most visited natural sites in the world, but it is large enough that you can find solitude if you walk beyond the car parks. The caldera, known as Las Cañadas, is a 17-kilometre wide depression formed by the collapse of a previous volcanic edifice, and the landscape within it — lava rivers, ash plains, volcanic cones in shades of ochre and rust, and the extraordinary Roques de García rock formation — is unlike anything else in Europe. 3

The summit of Teide itself requires a permit to access the final 200 metres to the crater rim; permits are free but must be reserved well in advance through the national park website. The Telesforo Bravo trail, when an entry permit is obtained, is one of the most extraordinary hikes on the island, ascending through multiple volcanic zones. For those without a summit permit, the trail around Roques de García is an accessible and genuinely beautiful alternative, taking roughly ninety minutes and offering Teide in full view throughout.

After sunset, the altitude and absence of light pollution make Teide one of the finest stargazing locations in the northern hemisphere. The Mirador de Llano de Ucanca and the Portillo area are good spots for amateur stargazing; guided telescope tours depart from various operators in the park. 4

Anaga Rural Park: The Ancient Forest

Anaga is, in a very literal sense, one of the oldest living things in Europe. The laurisilva — the laurel forest — that covers much of this UNESCO biosphere reserve is a relic of the subtropical forests that covered much of southern Europe and North Africa before the Pleistocene ice ages. When those forests vanished from the continent, pockets survived in the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Azores. Walking through Anaga’s mist-covered ridges and moss-draped trees is not merely walking through an old forest; it is walking through a landscape that has not fundamentally changed in millions of years. 5

The trails here range from gentle ridgeline walks with Atlantic views in both directions to more demanding descents into the deep barrancos (ravines) that separate the Anaga massif’s many ridges. The trail from Punta de Hidalgo up to the cave village of Chinamada — where several families still live in traditional cave houses carved into the hillside, some of them inhabited for centuries — is one of the most culturally and scenically rewarding hikes on the island. The coastal walk from the hamlet of Benijo to the Faro de Anaga lighthouse and back through Chamorga is longer and more demanding but offers one of the most remote feelings achievable in Tenerife. 6

The Cruz del Carmen visitor centre, at the main road through the park, is a useful orientation point and has staff who can advise on trail conditions.

The Teno Massif: Cliffs, Gorges, and Masca

The Teno Rural Park in the island’s northwest corner is geologically the oldest part of Tenerife, and it looks it — angular, layered, deeply eroded by millennia of wind and rain. The main road through the Teno mountains to the village of Masca is one of the most dramatic drives in Spain: a single-lane road that clings to cliffsides above thousand-metre drops, with a viewpoint that looks out across the Atlantic toward La Gomera.

Masca itself is a small village of stone houses that seems to cling to the mountainside by force of will. It has become increasingly popular in recent years, and an early start is strongly recommended to avoid the worst of the crowds. From Masca, the descent into the Barranco de Masca gorge to the black-sand beach at its base is one of the island’s iconic hikes, though it requires an advance permit and careful planning; boat collection from the beach rather than the return ascent is the standard approach. 7

Elsewhere in the Teno, the Chinyero Special Nature Reserve protects the site of the last volcanic eruption on Tenerife, which took place in 1909. The lava fields here are still raw and largely unvegetated, and the circular trail around the Chinyero cone gives a visceral sense of the island’s ongoing geological life. 8

Cultural Touchstones

Outside of nature, several experiences offer genuine insight into Canarian culture. La Laguna’s historic centre merits at least half a day of unhurried walking — the cathedral, the convents, the narrow streets of the Casco Histórico, and the Aguere cultural space. La Orotava, a town in the Orotava Valley on the northern slope of Teide, has some of the finest examples of traditional Canarian architecture anywhere in the islands: carved pine balconies, stone mansions, cobbled streets. The Casa de los Balcones is the most visited building in the town, though the whole historic centre is worth wandering. The valley below, filled with banana and potato terraces and still farmed in traditional strips, is a reminder that Tenerife had a complex agricultural life before tourism arrived.

The Drago Milenario in Icod de los Vinos — a Dracaena draco, or dragon tree, estimated to be between 500 and 1,000 years old — is one of the botanical landmarks of the Atlantic islands. The species is endemic to the Canary Islands and Madeira and was sacred to the indigenous Guanche people; its red sap was known as dragon’s blood and had ceremonial and medicinal uses. The tree in Icod is the largest specimen known. 9

For an encounter with the island’s pre-Hispanic past, the Pyramids of Güímar in the east of the island are a genuinely puzzling site: six stepped pyramidal structures of uncertain origin, oriented to the solstice sun. They were brought to international attention by the explorer Thor Heyerdahl, who believed them to be of pre-Columbian significance. The on-site museum presents multiple interpretive perspectives with appropriate caution.

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Suggested 7-Day Itinerary

This itinerary is designed to move through the island’s distinct regions at a pace that allows genuine engagement with each. A rental car is essential throughout.

Day 1 — Arrive, La Laguna Check in to La Laguna. Spend the afternoon walking the historic centre. Evening in the city’s restaurant and bar scene.

Day 2 — Anaga Rural Park Full day in Anaga. Morning: drive the Anaga mountain road with stops at viewpoints above Taganana and the Cruz del Carmen visitor centre. Afternoon: hike the Punta de Hidalgo to Chinamada trail (roughly 4 hours round trip, moderate difficulty). Return to La Laguna.

Day 3 — Santa Cruz, then drive north to Garachico Morning in Santa Cruz: the Tenerife Auditorium, the Mercado Nuestra Señora de África, and the seafront. Early afternoon: drive to Garachico (roughly 1 hour). Check in. Explore the town and swim at El Caletón tidal pools before sunset.

Day 4 — Teno Massif and Masca Early start. Drive the Teno road to Masca (arrive before 9am). Walk the Barranco de Masca if booked in advance, exiting by boat; otherwise explore the village and hike the Santiago del Teide to Masca ridge trail. Afternoon: Chinyero lava field walk.

Day 5 — Drive south via La Orotava, ascend to Vilaflor Morning in La Orotava: Casa de los Balcones, the old town, the valley viewpoints. Drive through Icod de los Vinos to see the Drago Milenario. Continue south and upward to Vilaflor. Check in to local accommodation. Evening: early night ahead of Teide day.

Day 6 — Teide National Park Full day in the park. Morning: Roques de García circuit (1.5 hours). If summit permit held: Telesforo Bravo ascent. Afternoon: explore the caldera floor. Stay until after dark for stargazing at Mirador de Llano de Ucanca.

Day 7 — Anaga coast or rest day, return Optional: drive to Taganana for a walk down to the beach, or return to La Laguna for a last morning in the city. Depart.

Sources

1. The Hotel Guru: Best Places to Stay in Tenerife, thehotelguru.com; Hotel Laguna Nivaria listing
2. Secret Places: Boutique Hotels Garachico, secretplaces.com; Hotel El Patio and Boutique Hotel San Roque
3. Our Wanders: Best Day Hikes in Tenerife, ourwanders.com, March 2026
4. Tenerife Excursions: Tenerife — stunning nature between Teide, Anaga, and unique landscapes, escursionitenerife.com, October 2025
5. Hiking Fex: Tenerife Hiking — 30 most beautiful hikes, hikingfex.com, September 2025
6. Moon Honey Travel: Hiking Tenerife Mountains, moonhoneytravel.com
7. Charlies Wanderings: The 7 Very Best Hikes in Tenerife, charlieswanderings.com, August 2025
8. Our Wanders: Best Day Hikes in Tenerife — Chinyero section, ourwanders.com
9. Let Y Go: Itinerary of the 6 Little-Known Villages of Tenerife — Icod de los Vinos section, letygoeson.it, July 2025