Minimum hire
Twenty-four hours, charged in whole days. A morning costs a full day, and Monday morning to Tuesday afternoon is two.
Car hire in Los Cristianos
Car hire in Los Cristianos, delivered to where you are staying. See the deposit, the cover level and the cancellation terms on each car before booking.
Prices are in euros. The deposit and the cancellation terms are shown on each car before you book.
Los Cristianos is a harbour town as well as a resort, and the ferries out to La Gomera, La Palma and El Hierro leave from its own port rather than from somewhere you have to drive to.
All of which means the case for a car here is different from the case in the newer resorts. You do not need one to eat well or to reach a beach. You need one for the days you want to be somewhere else by ten in the morning, and for that the car comes to you: Los Cristianos is a delivery point, so somebody brings it to the address you give and the handover happens at your door. If you would rather have the keys from the moment you land, picking the car up at the airport instead puts thirty-three minutes of motorway between you and the beach.
Can I just take a car for a day?
You can, but understand what a day means. The minimum chargeable rental period is twenty-four hours, and it is counted in whole days: a car collected on Monday morning and returned on Tuesday afternoon is two days, not one and a half. That is not a surcharge and it is not a local quirk: it is the first clause of the conditions every booking here runs under.
In a town like this one, that usually makes a car for one specific outing worth booking for two days rather than squeezing the trip into a morning. Take the Teide run as the obvious example: it is fifty-three minutes up to the Parador, you will want three or four hours at the top, and coming back down a mountain road against the clock to save a day's hire is a bad trade. If you decide halfway through that you want to keep it longer, you have to inform the agent in advance rather than announce it at the return.
This is also where the money argument sits for a short stay. Two days in a busy week is priced as a busy week, and the cheap end of the list is the first thing to disappear in the run-up to Christmas and half term. If price is the deciding factor, cheap car hire in Tenerife South is a question of booking early and of knowing where the Canarian incumbents beat us, which they do.
Parking and fuel in a town that was not built for cars
The old centre is narrow and one-way in places, and the streets behind the beach are the first to fill. The covered car park on Calle Valle Menendez is open all day and night with a 2.2 metre height limit, which is the number to check if you have booked anything with a roof rail load or a van roof. Beyond that, the Spanish colour system applies: blue lines are metered with a time limit, unmarked white is free, yellow is no parking.
For fuel there is a BP on Bulevar Chajofe open around the clock, which is close enough that topping up on the way back to the airport is a stop rather than a plan. That matters because the car goes back with the fuel level it came with; less and you pay the difference at the supplier's rate, more and nobody thanks you for it.
Who is allowed to drive it?
The minimum age and the minimum driving experience are set per car rather than per company or per site, and two cars that look identical on the page can ask for different things. They are listed on the car, and the agent may decline at handover if the driver in front of them does not meet the requirement for that particular vehicle, so this is worth reading before booking rather than after.
The main driver is the one whose licence and card have to match the booking. If somebody else in your party will drive, ask about it while you are booking rather than at the kerb: the age and experience requirements apply to whoever is at the wheel, and what a supplier offers for a second driver is theirs to state. None of this is unusual, but it is easier to settle at a laptop than on a pavement with a suitcase.
What the car is for once you have it
West first. Playa de las Americas runs into the back of Los Cristianos and needs no car at all, though the far end of that strip is eleven minutes away and worth the drive. Costa Adeje is fourteen, which puts La Caleta and the restaurants above it inside an evening. Both towns work as this one does, with car hire in Playa de las Americas and delivery into Costa Adeje bringing the car to an address you give. Los Gigantes and the cliffs are thirty-four.
Inland is the better argument. Vilaflor is half an hour straight up the mountain and it is the highest municipality in the Canaries at roughly 1,400 metres, with pine forest and a temperature drop you will feel in the car. Keep going and you are in the crater in under an hour. The crater floor runs about eleven degrees below the coast on an annual average and around fourteen in January, so a January morning that is eighteen on the beach is single figures at the Parador: take a coat, not a jumper.
East, the short hop up to El Medano is twenty-four minutes and is where the island's wind lives, which is either the point of the trip or a reason to stay in the car with the windows shut. The airport sits on the same road on the way there, so the eastern end of this coast is a morning rather than a day, and it is the direction nobody staying in Los Cristianos thinks of first.
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 carPlaya de las Americas10 min
El Medano24 min
Costa Adeje14 min
Free-flow driving times from Los Cristianos.
Your Los Cristianos drive
Extending
If you want to extend the rental period, you must inform the rental agent in advance.
Age and experience
Set per car, not per site. Both are listed on the car, and the agent may refuse at pick-up if the driver does not meet that car's requirement.
Free cancellation
Offered on many cars and shown on each listing, with the number changing as stock moves. The search is where to read it.
Useful answers
Los Cristianos is the one southern town where a car is optional rather than assumed, so the questions here are mostly about whether and for how long.
Is there an office in Los Cristianos?
No. It is a delivery point, so the car is brought to the address you give inside the town and handed over there.
Can I hire a car for half a day?
Yes, but you pay for a whole day. The minimum chargeable period is twenty-four hours, so a half day is billed as a full one.
Do I need a car to get to the ferries?
No. The ferries leave from the port in Los Cristianos itself. Fred. Olsen sails to La Gomera in about fifty minutes, and to La Palma and El Hierro as well.
Where can I park in the old town?
The covered car park on Calle Valle Menendez is open around the clock with a 2.2 metre height limit. On the street, blue lines are metered, unmarked white bays are free and yellow means no parking.
How cold does it get up at Teide?
Colder than the numbers suggest. The crater floor averages about eleven degrees below the coast across the year and roughly fourteen in January, so an eighteen degree morning on the beach is single figures at the Parador.
Is the drive up the mountain difficult?
It is a good road and a long climb, through Vilaflor at roughly 1,400 metres and on up to the crater. A small car with four adults is working hard for a good part of it, and coming down in the dark is slower than the map suggests.