Flights to La Palma via Barcelona

Looking for flights to La Palma in the Canaries?

Santa Cruz de La Palma

First stop then is Thomsons for direct flights from both Gatwick and Manchester (Manchester in winter only).  They fly every Friday - but what if a Friday flight doesn't suit you?
Then there is a whole range of indirect flights to La Isla Bonita, this little known island in the Canaries.
A flight to Tenerife and then on to La Palma is a real favourite. From there you can either fly by Binter or Canary Fly, the inter-island airlines from the north of Tenerife or take a ferry with Fred Olsen or Naviera Armas from Los Cristianos in the south.

Naviera Armas ferry docked in Santa Cruz de La Palma

Another excellent way to get to La Palma is via Madrid or even Gran Canaria.
New kid on the block though are flights via Barcelona. Flights to La Palma from Barcelona start on Saturday, 1st June and continue throughout the summer. So if a Saturday flight to the Canary Islands is what you are looking for, check out Vueling flights.
For your flight to Barcelona from the UK, Skyscanner is - as always - a great website for finding some of the cheapest flights around. Just to give you a quick example, there are flights from Manchester to Barcelona from just 49€.
Whether you are flying direct to the Canary Islands or with an indirect flight - there are heaps of options out there. So take a break and head south to the Canaries!

Flight only to La Palma or an All-inclusive Package

If you are thinking of flying to La Palma, direct flights come up trumps for speed and convenience and are often the cheapest option too. But of course that's not always possible, especially as the direct flights from Manchester to La Palma go on pause at the end of April until they re-commence in Autumn.
Although you can still fly direct to La Palma from London Gatwick, Madrid, Netherlands, Germany and, intermittently, from France and Belgium too.

La Palma airport (airport code SPC)

 If you are not flying direct to La Palma, then probably the best indirect route from the UK is via Tenerife.

Just be aware though that there are two airports in Tenerife - international flights use the Reina Sofia airport in the south while the inter-island flights use the Los Rodeos airport in the north. You can find out more information on how to get from A to B on our website page Flights/Travel.

Flying from La Palma to Tenerife

As many people know there used to be two flight companies offering flights between the Canary Islands - Binter and Islas Airways. Unfortunately, Islas Airways ceased offering flights although theoretically they were going to make a comeback. That hasn't happened so far.
But now, there is a new airline, Canary Fly, with flights between the Canary Islands. You can check out their website here.
For those who are looking for an all-inclusive holiday to La Palma, then head on over to Thomsons website who have various options around the island. There you'll see that apart from all-inclusive, they also offer half-board and self-catering holidays. The price for flight and hotel only starts at £356 per person.

Hope you'll find an option to suit you and you'll soon be on holiday in La Palma!

Winter sun in the Canaries

Are you the sort of person who likes statistics? I know I am. And of course with pre-Christmas and New Year statistics immediately followed by post-Christmas and New Year statistics, we haven't been short of a few figures. You name it - super Saturday, black Friday, wibbly Wednesday and any other day of the week they want to throw at us! (OK, so I made the Wednesday one up ..)

So you might like to know that in 2013, in the month of December alone, over one million foreign tourists chose the Canary Islands for their holidays which was an increase of 13.2% over 2012. British tourists who travelled to Spain in that month increased by 20.3% with 46% choosing the Canary Islands for their holidays. Yay, winter sun!

Puerto de Tazacorte in December

However, the reason that I find the figures interesting is not so much that I believe them, disbelieve them or am about to do anything about them, but because of the mental picture they conjure up. I can just image crowds of people patiently waiting for the day to arrive when the statistics say they buy presents, take their presents back or book their winter holiday. It's not allowed to go before or after! So whilst you might think that you are 'home alone' booking your holiday in the sun - you might be at home, but you're far from alone!

There is one thing that's clear though, if you're thinking of a holiday to La Palma for Christmas or New Year, whether it's flights or accommodation that you are looking for, don't wait to be a part of the peak, get in there early!

A guide to Santa Cruz de La Palma Airport

As airports go, Santa Cruz de La Palma airport - airport code SPC - is quite user friendly in that you can't get too lost. Ah yes, I have 'done' Madrid airport a couple of times and think I have earned the sticker it deserves. And been lost of course. But at least La Palma airport only has one terminal and that obviously helps. However, as it is laid out over several levels, it can initially be difficult to understand the layout ... hence this blog post.

But first of all, where is La Palma airport? Some years back, the airport was located inland above the capital of Santa Cruz. Now however, it's located at sea level, just 9km south of Santa Cruz, the historic capital of La Palma. Incidentally, in between the two, lies the small resort of Los Cancajos with a selection of hotels, apartments and three excellent beaches.

The small and charismatic airport served La Palma very well, but a couple of years ago it was replaced by a larger airport with underground parking as opposed to outdoor parking. This is certainly an improvement although it does lead to confusion over which level your car is parked on or where you should go to collect your hire car. But once you get an understanding of what's where, it's quite straightforward.

The main entrance is the ground floor (Floor 0 in the lift) and this is where you will find the following:
Check-in desks
Arrivals and baggage re-claim (4 carousels)
Shopping (pharmacy and Jerónimo (funky clothes and gifts:)
Airport information desk (sometimes with free bananas)
Flight information offices for Iberia, Condor, Air Berlin and Binter where you can make enquiries, buy tickets and make a late check-in if your gate is closed (not a popular move by the way).
Car hire offices - we highly recommend booking your car hire in advance because otherwise you will have to queue up just to ask the price as prices are not displayed. (Or you can just book a rental car with us and you will be met with your car in the airport car park on the S2 level.)

The 1st floor (floor 1 in the lift) is departures.

Once through control (no photos please ... oops, sorry about that) there is also a snack bar and vending machines. From here there are flights to fourteen destinations - London Gatwick, Manchester (winter only), Stuttgart, Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Bonn, Brussels, Berlin, Amsterdam, Tenerife North and Gran Canaria.

The three subterranean levels are reached either by escalator or a glass-sided lift. Actually the lifts, two of them at the side of the escalators, is a bit difficult to spot, simply because they are glass sided. These are the basement levels:
Level S 0 is the entrance to the car park where you collect your ticket
Level S1 is staff parking and for certain hire cars
Level S2 is public parking, and the main bulk of hire cars
Level S3 is to the small sea pools set in the rocks by the waters edge.

 Taxis are available immediately outside of the airport building or you can pre-book a taxi here - www.taxilapalma.com. The website also has a very useful list of prices and guided tours of La Palma.
There is also a regular bus service, the number 500 bus, between the airport and Santa Cruz de La Palma. Generally, it runs every 30 minutes except weekends and fiestas when it is every hour - except for the big fiestas such as the Los Indianos fiesta when it runs more frequently. Here is the bus website.
If you're keen to find out more information about La Palma airport itself, here is the website:  La Palma Airport website.
Happy travels! 

Transport between Tenerife South Airport and Tenerife North Airport

Here I am, just off the trail between the UK and La Palma. And of course, there's nothing quite like a recent journey by train, air and bus to make you notice the little foibles along the way that can derail even the simplest journey.
Not that I am claiming flying to La Palma via Tenerife is an entirely simple journey. But if the direct flights to La Palma, currently from London Gatwick, Manchester (winter only), Gran Canaria, Madrid, Germany, Holland and Belgium don't suit, then Tenerife can be a good, cheap option.
However, like all seemingly easy options or good buys, there's usually a catch of varying proportions and in the case of flying via Tenerife it's that you'll need to change airports from the south international airport to the north inter-island airport, except in the case of flights via Madrid. Which means going via the Santa Cruz bus station in the north of Tenerife.

I have of course posted a blog about this before, probably several times (!) because it can seem incredibly daunting. But in fact it is easier than you might think.
So whilst I have done this journey between the two airports many times, I have to confess to almost being de-railed this time - not by anything major such as a delayed flight, snow on the road (as if!) or other such calamity. No, this time it was a lack of change for the bus.
You see, normally I use the Bono Card which is a pre-payed card to the value of 15€, or more for frequent bus users. But this time, I hadn't got a card and was quite resigned contented to use cash, even though it is a couple of euros more expensive. And since the half-hourly bus to Santa Cruz de Tenerife main bus station had just arrived at the front of the airport terminal, I was pretty keen to catch it and so certainly wasn't going to wonder off and buy a Bono Card.

I thought I had got the change situation covered to be honest, after all I had a hand full of change and a five euro note. But I hadn't quite taken into account the 9€ bus fare for the 50 minute journey up to Santa Cruz and so was just short of the right money. And my 50€ note was not accepted. No change!
The alternative then was to go back into the airport terminal and get some change and then take the next bus. Luckily, a kind fellow passenger took pity on me and changed the 50€ note for me. Phew! Thank you kind person.
So the moral is, either take plenty of change, small denomination notes or get a Bono Card. Then you can sit back on the bus and enjoy the Tenerife scenery. Enjoy!

Canary Island Ferries

For those that are planning an island hopping holiday in the Canaries, there are some excellent deals about at the moment.
For example, you can travel between La Gomera and La Palma with Fred Olsen ferries for just 54€ for two adults. And if you want to take a car, it's only 6€ more! But do remember that if you have a hire car, normally they are not allowed to be taken off the island from where it was originally hired except when it is a large car hire company with branches in different islands. Best just check with the car rental company before you sail off with their car!

 I remember the time though when we went from La Palma to Tenerife by ferry, complete with in-laws and vehicle, one Christmas time. This was a bit of a mission as it was a five hour night-time crossing in those days and whilst it was far from being what I hoped for as our first Christmas in La Palma, ie to spend it in Tenerife, there were some family friends holding a festive get-together which couldn't be missed.

Having agreed to the trip, I was pretty determined to put my stamp on it by keeping costs to a minimum. Of course four seats on the ferry would be fine! This would practically be a luxury especially when I brought to mind the time I tried to sleep on an overnight ferry whilst on the floor under a set of stairs, thinking that even if I didn't get much sleep, at least I wouldn't get stood on. (Of course that was the exact effect it had on me - no sleep and I might as well have been stood on.) And since I am a child of cruise-loving parents, I've also had my fair share of great cabins too. No, seats were the answer and so I booked four 'butacas,' the comfortable reclining armchair seats and looked forward to falling asleep listening to the soft lull of the boat's engines.
When I arrived home with the tickets, the first question I was asked was, 'You did get a cabin, didn't you?' Erm, no. And with that I was dispatched back again to the ferry terminal in Santa Cruz to get a cabin for the four of us. Oh no, think of the cost!

 Having eventually managed to locate the office girl, who turned out to be an office man sat at the bar having a coffee, I explained that I would like to change the four seats for a cabin.
With a smile (could that have been a knowing smile?), he took the tickets from me, studied them and then set about entering details in the computer. (Did this mean we might be getting a cabin?) And moments later, four new tickets shot out of a machine.
Somewhat curiously, on top of the tickets sat a 5€ note and so I questioned what this was for. Apparently that was the difference in price between the cabin (complete with washbasin and wardrobe) and the seats - 5€ cheaper!
Incidentally, the crossing time between Tenerife and La Palma is now much faster and so you won't be needing a cabin, but you can enjoy the very comfortable butacas - and the low price too!

To Have or to Hold

We all have our little quirky ways when it comes to packing – what to pack, how and what in.

For me, I will do almost whatever it takes to travel with hand luggage only. As it happens, most of my flights these days involve flying from La Palma to the UK to stay with family where there’s no element of dressing up or a different outfit every day so my packing, whilst carefully thought out to maximise options, is minimal. Although, that said there have been a couple of notable occasions when I've still managed to get away with just hand luggage when the odds were clearly stacked against it – one being a three week trip to China a couple of years ago and the other last year to my son’s wedding. I must admit that I did get a few people worried that the mother of the groom was going to turn up in shorts and t-shirt!  

But of course there is method to my madness in just having carry-on luggage and that is a phobia of 1) waiting for luggage 2) lost luggage.

I realise that this minimal approach doesn't suit everyone but what I do strongly suggest to those who are checking in luggage is that you have a survival supply in your hand luggage that will last you two-days should you and your hold luggage not arrive at your destination together.

And for those of you with close connections, heck, any connections, where your luggage is supposed to be transferred from one plane to the next for you, it might be best to treat it as a foregone conclusion that you won’t be arriving together. I speak from other people’s experience! (Especially those flying to La Palma via Madrid and other hub airports around the world)

I leave it to you to decide what you can’t live without for two days but I would give it some serious thought. To have your luggage with you or put it in the hold, that is the question.