Tenerife
 

I'm planning a trip to Tenerife and am thinking of staying in the north of the island.

Would Santa Cruz or Puerto de la Cruz make a good base? How would you compare them? Which would you choose?

Thanks for any help you can give ...

Steve

I have stayed in Puerto de la Cruz - it is an excellent base for the North, but the access to the southern side is rather limited (long driving/bus times). It wasn't a disadvantage for me but worth mentioning.
I also recommend not to rent a car for the entire time but for a few destinations. The Tide and the caldera around it are not well served by Titsa buses so renting a car is definitely useful there. On the other side buses are frequent, fast and dirt-cheap on the routes along the coast, so a car is a waste of money there. Taxis are also very cheap for short distances (about 3 Euro to anywhere in Puerto de la Cruz - I pay so much for a tram ticket at home).
The downside of Puerto de la Cruz is that it is mostly a tourist town. It consists almost only of hotels, and often huge, ugly ones as well. The locals live higher above the coast, in towns like La Orotava (well worth visiting btw.) In this sense, Santa Cruz as the island capital has more on offer in regard to culture and non-tourist (day/night) life.

We stayed just outside Puerto de la Cruz, here: http://www.fincaelrincon.com/

Take the trip up Mount Teide, if you have chance. The landscape round the volcano, which at over 12,000 feet is the highest mountain in Spain, is realy wierd and fantastic.

Puerto de la Cruz is a tourist town but has a more Spanish feel than the purpose built southern beach resorts. There is a nice botanic garden in there, apparently one of the oldest in Europe, with all sorts of exotic plants growing outdoors. There were also some nice terraced gardens and some old Canarian houses with carved balconies in Orotava and the hotels and houses all had colourful gardens too. We didn't go near any of the big southern resorts, when we were in Tenerife, they really don't look enticing to me.

We stayed just outside Puerto de la Cruz, here: http://www.fincaelrincon.com/

Take the trip up Mount Teide, if you have chance. The landscape round the volcano, which at over 12,000 feet is the highest mountain in Spain, is really wierd and fantastic.

Puerto de la Cruz is a tourist town but has a more Spanish feel than the purpose built southern beach resorts. There is a nice botanic garden there, apparently one of the oldest in Europe, with all sorts of exotic plants growing outdoors.

There were also some nice terraced gardens and some old Canarian houses with carved balconies in Orotava and the hotels and houses all had colourful gardens too. We didn't go near any of the big southern resorts, when we were in Tenerife, they really don't look enticing to me.

In trying to edit my reply, I seem to have managed to post it twice - sorry for that. I've no idea how to (or if I can) delete one of them!

I second Teide - but make sure you have
a) good shoes (I have seen people in flip-flops up there... PLEASE NOT!)
b) enough water
c) warm clothes
d) good sun shades (like for skiing on a clear day)

and be ready to go straight to the cable car down if you get the first signs of the altitude sickness (headaches, blur around the edge of vision, a feeling like you don't get enough air). My GF got it and we decided to stay an hour or two longer - she needed almost an entire day to get well again afterwards.

Good advice from Maria and altamiro re Mt. Teide. There was snow on the top when we went over Christmas one year but the views were beautiful.

Thanks for your input, folks.

I generally prefer less touristy places - so from your comments I'm leaning towards Santa Cruz.

Thanks again :)

Steve

I suppose it depends what you are looking for but I'd be tempted to stay somewhere smaller like La Orotava, Icod de Los Vinos or even Garachico.