Tenerife South Airport to Costa Adeje
The drive from Tenerife South Airport to Costa Adeje: thirty minutes on the TF-1, which exit to take, where to fill up, and whether a car beats a transfer.
Thirty minutes and twenty-two kilometres, all of it on one motorway, with no tolls and no junction you have to think about until the last one. Where the car is waiting when you land is the arrival area, so the handover happens before you have left the airport. There is very little to the drive after that, and the only two things worth knowing before you do it are which exit you want and why the times on this page are the least you should allow.
The road, junction by junction
Out of the terminal, the airport access road meets the TF-1 and you turn south-west. From there it is one motorway the whole way, the same road that carries almost everything on this side of the island, so there is no junction to think about until the one you want.
The first exit that matters is the one for Los Cristianos. The times here are to the towns rather than to the junctions, which is why they do not run in the order the exits do: Los Cristianos is about nineteen kilometres and thirty-three minutes from the terminal, and Playa de las Americas is thirty, because its centre sits nearer the road while Los Cristianos runs down to a harbour. The two are effectively the same built-up area approached from different ends. Costa Adeje is thirty minutes and twenty-two kilometres, and it covers Fanabe, Playa del Duque and La Caleta.
The part people underestimate is the last one. Costa Adeje spreads over several kilometres of coast, so it is worth knowing before you set off which end of it you are staying at rather than working it out on a slip road, and putting the hotel's own address into the map before you leave the car park. The TF-1 junction that serves the far end is at La Caleta, where there is also a filling station.
Driving times from the terminal, for the whole southern strip: El Medano about twenty minutes, Playa de las Americas thirty, Costa Adeje thirty, Los Cristianos thirty-three, Playa Paraiso thirty-seven, Los Gigantes fifty. These are free-flow estimates that leave out traffic, so check a live map on the day and allow extra time.
When is the traffic bad on this road?
Every time quoted on this site is a routed free-flow figure, and the routing behind it does not model traffic at all, so it cannot say when this road is slow. Treat each figure as an estimate that leaves out traffic, not as the time the drive will take on the day.
What that means in practice is a habit rather than a timetable. Before you set off, put the route into a live map, which does see the traffic on the day, and plan on whichever figure is larger. It matters most on a flight day, when a fuel stop, parking and the walk to the terminal all come on top of the drive itself.
Going the other way, the routed figure is the same free-flow estimate whatever time you leave. What an early start gives you is more margin: check the live map before you leave and set off accordingly.
Fuel at either end
At the airport end there is a Repsol on the access road about four hundred metres from the terminal, open around the clock, and a BP on the TF-1 about a kilometre and a half north at Carretera Atogo, also open all night. Either is a short detour on the way back, which matters because the car goes back with the fuel level it came with: below and you pay the difference at the supplier's rate, above and you are not compensated.
At the resort end, Costa Adeje has a BP at Siam Mall open around the clock, a DISA at San Eugenio that closes in the late afternoon, and a TGAS at the La Caleta junction where the motorway comes off. Playa de las Americas has a BP on Avenida de los Pueblos.
For parking at the airport itself there is one general car park, P1, open around the clock and a few metres from the terminal door, with 2.2 metres of headroom on the covered spaces. That figure is the one to check if you have booked anything tall, because the walk is short enough that nothing else about the car park is worth planning around.
Is a car better than a transfer for this?
For this drive alone, a transfer may well be the cheaper answer, and the only comparison worth having is the one you run on your own dates. If your holiday is a hotel, a beach and the restaurants you can walk to, a transfer does the job and a car is a parking problem.
The calculation changes the moment you want to be anywhere else. Costa Adeje to Los Gigantes is twenty-seven minutes; to Masca twenty-nine, when the road in is open; to the Parador in the Teide crater fifty-two. None of those is a comfortable taxi and all of them are an ordinary morning in a car. The minimum chargeable rental period is twenty-four hours, so hiring for one day out is possible, though hiring for the week saves you a second handover and is worth pricing both ways.
The other half of the comparison is the luggage. A car collected at the terminal carries the cases from the belt to the hotel door once. A transfer plus a later rental means a second handover and somewhere to keep the car afterwards. That is the practical case for Tenerife South Airport car hire over a transfer, and the handover involves less than the word suggests: no desk, no counter and no office to walk to.
Your dates. Your starting point.
Compare the cars available for your trip, then check the payment card and deposit requirements for the one you choose.
Find a carFree-flow driving times from Tenerife South Airport.
The two exits before Costa Adeje
The Los Cristianos exit comes first and leads to the harbour the ferries to La Gomera, La Palma and El Hierro sail from. It is three minutes further from the airport than Costa Adeje, despite coming first on the road.
Playa de las Americas is between the two and runs into the back of both. It has the deepest car supply of any place on the island outside the two airports. From Playa de las Americas, Costa Adeje is ten minutes up the coast, and because the two are one continuous strip in practice whatever the signs say, car hire in Costa Adeje is brought to an address at either end of it without the boundary mattering much.
Whichever exit you take, these towns are delivery points rather than offices: the car comes to the address you give in the town. At the airport, the named handover point is the arrival area.
The first hour, in order
Off the plane, through the belt, and into the arrival area, which is the named handover place and the whole of the description available. Keep the phone number you gave at booking reachable, with the right country code: it is a rental condition, it applies from the day before pick-up, and it is how a late flight stops being a problem.
Have the licence card itself out, in the main driver's name and in Latin script; copies and electronic licences are not accepted. Have the card ready too, and know before you fly whether the booking requires a physical embossed credit card in that name.
Then take ten unhurried minutes with the car before you drive it. Photograph the wheels, the underside, the windscreen and the fuel gauge, check the V-16 beacon is in the car, and find the lights and the wipers before you are on a motorway looking for them. After that it is half an hour of easy dual carriageway, and if the price rather than the timing is what you are weighing, booking ahead rather than on arrival is where most of the difference actually sits.
Useful answers
Most of these get asked in the arrival area, so they are the ones worth reading on the plane.
How long does the drive take?
Thirty minutes and twenty-two kilometres in free-flowing traffic, all on the TF-1. That is an estimate that leaves out traffic, so check a live map on the day and allow extra time.
Is there a toll?
No. Tenerife has no toll roads at all, so the only cost of the drive is the fuel.
Which exit do I want for Costa Adeje?
It depends which end of it you are staying at, because the resort runs several kilometres and the far end is served by its own junction at La Caleta. Work out whether you want the Fanabe end or the La Caleta end before you set off.
How long from wheels-down to driving away?
The baggage belt decides that, not the handover, and no credible source publishes a figure for any airport. Keep the number you gave at booking reachable and a late arrival is a phone call rather than a lost car; the conditions require that number to be reachable anyway.
Can I hire a car for just one day out?
Yes, but the minimum chargeable period is twenty-four hours, so it is billed as a full day. Whether a longer hire works out cheaper per day is worth checking in the search rather than assuming.
Where do I fill up before returning the car?
The Repsol on the airport access road is about four hundred metres from the terminal and open around the clock, and there is a BP on the TF-1 a little north of it.
Is there a rental office at the airport?
No. You are met in the arrival area, which is the named handover place. There is no counter and no office to walk to.