Lanzarote Tourism Guide - Car Hire Lanzarote

Top Tips Car Rental in Lanzarote

It's an easy pick up for your car hire from Arrecife Airport. You'll see the car hire desks right next to baggage reclaim. Retreiving your car hire is easy too, and the car hire pool isn't a sprawl due to the fact that some of the car rentals sit over at Terminal 2 where Binter and inter-island flights depart from. When returning your hire car to Arrecife Airport you'll need to head for arrivals for drop off. Just follow the signs for Allegardas/Arrivals, although they're up in English too so you should have not problem. Salinas is departures.

Top tip for those hiring a car from Arrecife Airport and staying in Costa Teguise - you'll be travelling north past Arrecife. You'll see from the map of Lanzarote that there is a bypass which avoids Arrecife centre. Shortly after you depart north after leaving the airport you will be given a road choice of 'Circumnavigation' or Arrecife. Take the 'Circumnavigation' route in the left hand lane and you'll bypass Arrecife centre and shortly pick up signs for Costa Teguise. Don't panic if you do end up missing it and travelling through Arrecife - it's slightly longer but a pleasant cruise along the coast. Just keep heading up north through Arrecife along the coast, past the docks and you'll eventually arrive at signs for Costa Teguise.

The Circumnavigation is a point worth noting as you'll be tired from you're flight, and forewarning on this helps a great deal. Access to Puerto del Carmen, Playa Blanca and inland should give no problems.

Lanzarote Car Hire - Out and About

With a car in Lanzarote the island, with it's many cultural and historical attractions, as well as it's fascinating volcanoes in the Timanfaya National Park, and it's selection of glorious beaches and wide choice of windsurfing, kite surfing, surfing and diving are all easily accessed.

A week's car hire, or two weeks even better, in Lanzarote affords plenty of time to explore all the island has to offer including the artwork of renowned Lanzarote guru Cesar Manrique - on his menu of influence attractions include the Manrique Foundation (his one time home), the Cactus Garden, the Jameos del Agua Caves, Mirador del Rio to the north designed by Manrique and offering spectacular views across to La Graciosa island and there are various sculptures dotted about Lanzarote (particularly on roundabouts), so if you're out and about in your car hire you're likely to take in a few of these!

Attractions for families abound. Head down to Rancho Texas Theme Park near Puerto Del Carmen for crocodile shows, spook, parrot shows and more. There's a good, small friendly waterpark near Costa Teguise offering a great family day out, or to the north at Guinate take in the Guinate Tropical Park, another animal park with parrot shows, bazaars, a restaurant and more.

On top of these attractions, Lanzarote is particularly good for it's choice of watersports. Diving and boat trips/submarine and glass bottom boat excursions abound around Puerto Del Carmen. Windsurfing fans head to Costa Teguise, they get good winds up here, and surfers head to Famara on the north coast for some of the best surfing conditions on the Canaries. Art lovers won't be disappointed, and Lanzarote's range of contemporary art galleries, including San Jose (an old fort) just north of Arrecife, are easily accessed with car hire. Check out two some excellent museums - the emigration museum at Santa Barbara/Teguise (Teguise also has a superb Sunday morning market), and the Whales and Dolphins Museum in pretty Puerto Calero near Puerto Del Carmen.

Driving in Lanzarote

As with all the Canary Islands and mainland Spain, in Lanzarote you drive on the right, overtake on the left and at roundabouts remember you give way to traffic coming from the right. It is recommended that you carry both your passport and driving license with you in case you are routinely stopped by the Police - they have the power to demand to see them. Seat belts must be worn at all times by law, inclusive of rear seats. Carry you driving licence, some ID (usually your passport) and car rental documents with you at all times - local police can demand to see them at any time. If you don't want to carry your passport around with you, take a copy and take that.

It is illegal to throw anything out of the window (it is believed that the source of forest fires around some of the Canary Islands with extensive pine forests are caused by cigarettes thrown from windows!). It is also prohibited to use mobile phones whislt driving. The police on the Canaries have the authority to issue on the spot fines, which if paid immediately are usually 20 percent cheaper. The speed limits on Lanzarote are the same as all the Canary Islands - 120kph (75mph) on motorways, 1000kph (70mph) on dual carriageways and 90kph (55mph) on other major roads. For built up and residential areas the speed limit comes down to 60kph (35mph). Watch out for alternative speed limits, especially on roads which are under construction - they often have a very low speed limit and are monitored with cameras!

There are no mammoth motorways on Lanzarote, so in general driving around the island is in no way stressful, and extremely pleasurable and scenic - particularly in the interior and around Timanfaya, as well as on the west coast where you'll find yourself ploughing through fascinating lava flow remains or Malpais/bad lands. There are numerous roundabouts, many with a Manrique sculpture in the middle of them, but few traffic lights. For parking, blue lines indicate parking meters and payment needed (usually fairly cheap/1 euro and hour approximately), yellow lines and white lines mean no parking and unmarked is usually fine. Just don't park in front of rubblish skips or bins as you may well be towed away. It's one to watch this, as often there is no indications that you shouldn't park there!

Roads are in excellent condition on Lanzarote, with good signposting to all the major attractions. The only place usually where you're likely to encounter a traffic jam is during peak periods (early morning and evening shopping times) is in the capital Arrecife, although compared to either London or central Manchester this hardly figures in the ricktor scale of traffic jams! Most car hire firms will give you a good map of Lanzarote when you pick up your car. These maps are pretty good, and in less conjested Lanzarote you'll find you'll use the car hire map probably more than an AA or pre-bought map. Lanzarote resort parking can get a little conjested, especially very near the beaches, but there's usually availablility slightly away from the beach or centre - just watch for the blue lines which mean a small parking fee usually in a nearby parking machine with ticket for display.