Why Tenerife is your best bet for last-minute winter sun

Hurrah! At last the UK government has lifted quarantine restrictions for the Canary Islands, meaning British visitors no longer have to spend a fortnight in isolation when they get back to Blighty. Spanish authorities simply require you to take a rapid-result Covid test upon arrival.

For sun-starved Britons, this is great news. Warm and sunny all year round, barely four hours away by plane, with all the mod cons of mainland Spain, the Islas Canarias are the ideal winter sunshine destination. I’ve been half a dozen times and each trip has been a blast.

So which island should you head for? Well, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura are both dramatic, but the place I like best, and keep returning to, is Tenerife. No surprises there – the largest and most populous island in the archipelago, it’s always been a firm favourite with British tourists – but most Brits head for the southern shore, and the brash modern beach resorts of Los Cristianos and Playa de las Américas.