La Palma Holidays

Nothing whispers under-the-radar quite like Spain's La Palma. It’s neighbours with Tenerife, but that’s practically where the similarities end. This place has stuck with the natural look, with just a handful of settlements and hotels nosing out from the banana plantations and pine-covered hills. Even the bigger towns, like Santa Cruz de la Palma and Puerto Naos, are cut from a classic Canary Island cloth.

The beaches are a tell-tale sign of the island’s volcanic back story – they’re black-sand numbers, and a few come with Blue Flags poking out of them. Away from the volcanic sands, the peaks of Teneguia and San Antonio rear up in the south, and the pine-clad Caldera de Taburiente National Park dominates the northern landscape. Hiking trails are threaded along the Cumbre Vieja ridge, with views that are a solid 10. Call in at the village of Fuencaliente, and you can hike the hillside trails down to a hundred-year-old lighthouse.

La Palma’s home to one of the world’s largest telescopes. Bulb-like observatories peek above the clouds on the island’s ridge-like spine, and come into their element when night rolls around. It’s all thanks to the glassy sky, which is so clear after dark that the stargazing conditions are among the best on the planet. UNESCO's slapped a protected tag on the entire island, making it a biosphere reserve from top to toe.