The Lesser-Known Canary Island That Stole the Trip

Next up: Japan in Springtime

As avid hikers, we’re always on the look out for destinations that offer decent multi-day hiking opportunities during the tricky December to March timeframe. Most of the epic hikes on our bucket list—the West Highland Way, Camino Portuguese, Via Francigena, just about anywhere in the Alps—are best experienced in the late spring or fall. This leaves us a little short on aspirational hiking adventures during the colder months. Last winter in Mexico, the sum total of our hiking was a couple day trips with an expat hiking group in Oaxaca involving lengthy drives in a crowded minibus.

That’s why our side trip to La Gomera was one of the successes coming out of this winter’s getaway to the Canary Islands. Sure, we loved our time in the more popular islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife, including a smattering of day hikes that brought us to beautiful spots across each island. But the big win was having a chance to immerse ourselves in nature with a 5-day hiking trip across La Gomera.

Just an ordinary morning on the trail

Off the Main Circuit

La Gomera is one the smallest of the eight Canary Islands and a lesser known destination among tourists (with the notable exception of enthusiastic German hikers). Perhaps due La Gomera’s lack of an international airport, this island escaped the mass tourism encroachment seen in Gran Canaria and Tenerife. Instead, La Gomera is foremost a hiking destination supported by a very light tourism infrastructure; there are just a handful of scenic towns, some decent inns, and a largely reliable bus system. And trails—lots and lots of trails.

This was the second most difficult hiking trip that we’ve planned (you can scroll further down to read about the most difficult one). First, simply getting to the island was a challenge. From Gran Canaria, we needed to take a series of buses and ferries to make our way to La Gomera. We ended up with a very pleasant weeklong stopover in Tenerife’s main city of Santa Cruz just to break up the journey.

Why we love hiking

A Logistical Puzzle

Next, we needed to plan our hiking route. While there are lots of places to hike across La Gomera, there isn’t one obvious trail encircling the island with conveniently placed inns along the way. Instead, Gillian spent long hours in Alltrails and on hiking blogs, trying to pick out the most optimal routes that would somehow stitch together—as long as we were willing to hop on a bus here and there.

Even more challenging was booking accommodations. To be honest, there were only a few inns that looked appealing to us; many of the local inns were very much on the rustic side. However, this short list became even shorter when we started to look for establishments that would also accept our dogs. Spain has proven itself to be less dog friendly than most of the other European countries we’ve visited.

In the end, we booked a few nights in a simple hiker’s hotel in Chipude, a village in the highlands. How simple, you may ask. Let’s just say that I was grateful when the concept of hot water in the bathroom returned to my life. We also had two nights in Vallehermoso, a popular tourist town near the coast. We closed the experience at a beautiful but painfully expensive Parador Hotel in the island’s major port town. While I’m always happy to pass the night in a high-thread count situation, the Parador was actually the only hotel in San Sebastian that would accept our dogs (charging a hefty fee for the privilege, of course)

Oh, the trouble they cause

The Reward

Logistics aside, the effort was well worth it. The views throughout our trip were breathtaking; steep volcanic mountains spilling down into the ocean; little villages with farming terraces dotting the hillsides. Often we were the only ones on the trail for hours at a time. For us, there is nothing more rejuvenating than setting off in the early morning with lunch in our backpacks and two happy dogs at our sides, ready to take on the challenge of the day. The biggest decision we needed to make that week was what to order for dinner after we’d kicked off our hiking boots.

For a look at what makes La Gomera such a special destination, we caught all the highlights in our latest video (watch here). And stay tuned, because our Canary Island series wraps in May with a video featuring an exciting month in Tenerife.

While we’ve only just recovered from our journey home from the Canaries—an exhausting affair involving three flights, two airport hotels and a lengthy layover in Charles du Gaulle airport— we’re already packing up for the next trip. Since Ontario is still cold and occasionally snowy during April, we’re headed to a faraway land that is already blossoming into spring: Japan.

We’ve had two previous visits to Japan. The first was an exploration in and around Kyoto, Nara, and Koyosan; the second was to undertake the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage, a five-day hike following ancient trails through the Kii Peninsula.

Always looking to experience a beautiful country in a new way, our interest was piqued when we learned of the Shikoku Pilgrimage. This pilgrimage visits all 88 temples dotting the island of Shikoku, following the path of 9th-century Buddhist teacher Kōbō Daishi. For hikers aiming to complete the pilgrimage in one go, this ambitious undertaking typically requires 40 to 60 days.

The Art of DIY Travel

Since we didn’t have a full two months to spare, we curated a selection of the most beautiful hikes and temples for a 8-day itinerary. Considering the massive language barrier, our trip planning was a true do-it-yourself masterpiece. We pushed our use of Google Translate to its absolute limit by making all our reservations direct with the inns on their Japanese-only websites (including concocting the Japanese phonetic versions of our names). Gillian grappled at length with the train and bus schedules and hunted down local taxi companies in order to get us to and from the sometimes-remote trails we’d be hiking each day.

With the logistics behind us, we’re looking forward to a special pilgrimage that is well known in Japan but hasn’t yet been discovered by the rest of the world. If it occasionally takes us two hours by bus, train, and taxi to get to the trailhead, I’m sure that a long, quiet walk to a lovely temple will more than make up for the hustle.

See you on the road,

Stephanie and Gillian