Lanzarote sits the farthest east of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, and is just under 80 miles away from the coast
of Africa.  While the Canary Islands are autonomous from the mainland, they remain Spanish, and as such Lanzarote is the easternmost part of Spain. Lanzarote enjoys warm temperatures all year round, and on average only experiences rain 16 days a year. The island is cooled during the summer by a constant breeze, and mild during winter.  These conditions maker the island popular with tourists all year round, with many German and British pensioners choosing to spend the winter months in Lanzarote. The constant breeze, and frequent strong winds that cool the island during the summer mean that Lanzarote island is a popular destination for windsurfers – and on the coastline that faces out into the Atlantic, surfers. 

There are established and suitably accredited schools that can develop the skills of the beginner and intermediate windsurfer, although the relatively mild nature of the average winds on the island mean that the conditions are perhaps of limited appeal to expert windsurfers. Lanzarote is, in many parts of the island - a new island.  Much of the land mass that comprises modern day Lanzarote is the result of a series of massive volcanic eruption in the 18th Century.  These eruptions resulted on the creation of 32 new volcanoes along an 18 km stretch, and countless smaller volcanic plugs and vents.

These eruptions significantly increased the size of the island – also covering a quarter of the existing land mass – and Lanzarote still quite visibly bears the marks of this legacy.  Many of the beaches on Lanzarote are a mix golden sand blown over from the nearby Sahara, and black volcanic dust. The landscape of much of the island has variously been described as ‘Lunar’ and ‘Martian’, and provides many interesting sites for tourists to explore that you simply will not encounter elsewhere on your average Mediterranean holiday.  Perhaps the most dramatic of these is the Timanfaya National Park, which takes in the highest volcanic mountain range on the island.  Elsewhere on the island, aquatic volcanic caves and plugs have been well developed as attractions, many of them bearing the artistic influence of one of the islands most famous sons – and contemporary of Picasso – Cesar Manrique. If you like the idea of exploring a landscape that is far from ordinary in between beach time on your annual vacation, there are Lanzarote holidays offered by many of the established package holiday providers like Thomas Cook, making it relatively easy to get off the beaten track.