Where to stay in Gran Canaria: the sunny south, Las Palmas or the mountains, area by area

At the island's southern tip, the Faro de Maspalomas, first lit in 1890, stands where the beach ends. Behind the sand lie the palm oasis, the Charca lagoon and more than 400 hectares of protected dunes. Playa de Maspalomas is 2.7 km of golden sand with a Blue Flag in 2026; round the point it becomes Playa del Inglés, the same beach under another name, with quieter, partly nudist stretches between.

From the lighthouse, the dunes viewpoint by the Charca is 12 minutes on foot and Playa de Meloneras 26. Global's direct buses reach the airport in 40 minutes for €4.05, and line 30 runs to Las Palmas two or three times an hour by day. By road, off-peak, the airport is 32 minutes.

The cost: the tourist board calls this one of the most visited stretches of coast in Europe, and evenings mean the promenade, not a town.

Three of ours are here: Seaside Grand Hotel Residencia, villas in the oasis 8 minutes' walk from the sand, for couples, from about €505 for two with breakfast in June; Seaside Palm Beach, the design hotel with a kids' club, 4 minutes from the beach; and Hotel Faro, adults only, beside the lighthouse plaza, room only from about €210, with the dunes a walk along the sand, not on its doorstep.

Meloneras starts where Maspalomas stops. From the lighthouse plaza a seafront promenade runs west past hotels, restaurants and terraces, and the council's tourism site calls it stylish and modern, made for dinner on the promenade and a swim at sunset. The beaches below are short: Playa de Meloneras is 283 metres of boulders, gravel and golden sand, with Red Cross lifeguards and a Blue Flag in 2026, and Playa de las Mujeres lies in front of Villa del Conde.

From Playa de Meloneras, the lighthouse is 26 minutes on foot along the promenade and the Faro de Maspalomas bus station 27. By road, off-peak, the airport is 30 minutes and Puerto de Mogán 25.

The cost: pebbles and gravel underfoot, and the long sand of Maspalomas 17 minutes along the promenade from Villa del Conde's garden gate.

Lopesan Villa del Conde Resort & Thalasso is ours here, for a pool and spa week: a resort built as a Canarian village, with a twin-towered church modelled on one in Agüimes for its lobby, six pools and a seawater thalasso, from about €200 for two with breakfast in June; with 561 rooms, the loungers go early. Hotel Faro, beside the lighthouse plaza where the promenade starts, counts as Maspalomas: the sand of Playa de Maspalomas begins at its corner.

Playa del Inglés is the big resort town behind the eastern half of the beach. The tourist board counts its sand among the most visited and crowded on the island, wide, with areas protected for children, and says the nightlife runs all year. The Yumbo Centre, shops by day, is known across Europe as a gay night spot, and the Pride parade passes through these streets. Blue Flags fly in 2026 here, at Playa de las Burras and at San Agustín, the quiet eastern end, which the tourist board pitches at winter regulars who come back for the peace.

Much of the town sits back from the sand. From the Yumbo Centre, the sand at Anexo II is 20 minutes on foot and the Mirador Las Dunas 25; by road, off-peak, Playa de las Burras is 10 minutes, San Agustín and the Maspalomas lighthouse 11 each and the airport 28. Global's line 30 stops at the Yumbo on its direct run to Las Palmas.

The cost: crowds on the main beach, a walk to reach it, and the Yumbo as the south's night-time hub, so light sleepers should check where a room sits.

None of our ten is here: our three on this beach stand by the lighthouse, 11 minutes west by road.

Puerto de Mogán is the last resort on the south coast before the island turns north: a harbour village and marina laced with narrow canals and colourful streets, one of the tourist board's ten highlights of the island. Playa de Mogán is small and busy, 209 metres of golden sand with calm, clear water, lifeguards and a Red Cross post. East along the coast road, Playa de Amadores is 15 minutes by car and Puerto Rico 16.

From the beach, the marina is 7 minutes on foot and the bus station 6. Global's line 91 runs direct to the airport in an hour for €6.80 and on to Las Palmas, and lines 32, on weekdays, and 33, at weekends, run to Playa del Inglés by the Maspalomas lighthouse. By road, off-peak, the airport is 44 minutes, the Maspalomas lighthouse 28 and Vegueta 61.

The cost is distance from everything in the north and east, and a small beach for the number of people who want it.

Hotel Cordial Mogán Playa, a garden-village resort on the valley floor behind the village, is the family pick: a mini club for 4 to 12-year-olds, Family Rooms with two bathrooms, a MICHELIN-starred restaurant and a garden gate 4 minutes from the sand, from about €190 for two with breakfast in June.

Las Palmas is the capital, a working city rather than a resort, and Las Canteras is its beach: three kilometres of sand from La Puntilla, the last stronghold of the city's fishermen, to the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus, with a promenade along it. La Barra, a limestone reef along more than half the beach, acts as a breakwater, so the water inside is calm; the city's tourism site sends families to Playa Chica and surfers to La Cícer, at the southern end. There are lifeguards.

From Parque Santa Catalina, the beach is 8 minutes on foot, the Mercado del Puerto 14 and La Puntilla 17. The Santa Catalina bus station, 4 minutes away, has Global's buses to the airport in 30 minutes for €2.95, line 30 direct to Maspalomas and line 91 to Puerto de Mogán. By road, off-peak, the airport is 24 minutes and Vegueta 9.

The cost: a city beach shared with the city, and in summer the trade winds bring low cloud, the panza de burro, which the city credits with sparing Las Palmas the heat waves.

Bull Reina Isabel & Spa is on the promenade, with a pool on the roof and a spa free to every guest: a beach holiday with a city attached, from about €145 for two with breakfast in June.

Las Palmas was founded in 1478, and Vegueta and Triana are its historic centre: Vegueta has the narrow old streets, the cathedral of Santa Ana, the Casa de Colón and the market, Triana the pedestrian Calle Mayor de Triana. Ciudad Jardín, the garden city, lies north, on the way to the port.

From the cathedral door, the Casa de Colón is 4 minutes on foot, the Mercado de Vegueta 5, Calle Mayor de Triana 5 and the San Telmo bus station 16, where Global's airport buses arrive in 20 minutes for €2.30. By road, off-peak, the airport is 20 minutes and Las Canteras 12.

The cost: no beach within an easy walk, and a city's traffic beyond the pedestrian streets.

Two of ours are here. Hotel Veintiuno, an 18th-century house about 50 metres from the cathedral, with 17 rooms for guests of 16 and over and a rooftop plunge pool facing it, is the least expensive of our ten, from about €85 for two in June. Santa Catalina, a Royal Hideaway Hotel, the city's grand hotel, founded in 1890 and rebuilt and reopened in 1952, stands in Parque Doramas, 39 minutes' walk north of the cathedral and 15 from Las Alcaravaneras beach, with two MICHELIN-starred restaurants; rooms without breakfast start at about €170.

Salobre Golf is an estate of villas, fairways and volcanic ravines in the hills north-west of Maspalomas, about 7 km in a straight line from the lighthouse. There are two courses: the Old Course of 1999, and the New Course, cut into the ravines, which the hotel says returns to 18 holes in winter 2026/27. Nobody comes up here for street life: a supermarket at the estate entrance is 19 minutes' walk from the hotel, with an Italian restaurant a minute beyond, and past them everything is a drive.

There is no practical bus, so plan on a car or taxis. By road, off-peak, Playa de Meloneras is 15 minutes, the lighthouse and the Yumbo Centre in Playa del Inglés 17, Puerto de Mogán 29, the airport 34 and Vegueta, in Las Palmas, 51.

The cost: no sand, no promenade and no evening stroll to a choice of restaurants.

Salobre Hotel Resort & Serenity is ours here: a golf and spa resort with an adults-only infinity pool for guests of 16 and over at the highest point of the resort, looking down the ravines to the sea and the dunes, and a daily shuttle to Maspalomas beach. Spa entry is not in every rate, and rooms start at about €210 for two with breakfast in June.

Cruz de Tejeda is the pass at the centre of the island, about 1,500 metres up, where a stone cross stands and the land drops into the Tejeda caldera, with the Roque Nublo on the skyline. UNESCO listed this landscape in 2019 as the Risco Caído and the Sacred Mountains of Gran Canaria, and Tejeda, below the pass, belongs to the association of Spain's prettiest villages.

The car park at La Goleta, where the Roque Nublo path starts, is closed: park at Cruz de Los Llanos, 10 minutes away by car, ride Global's line 18 to the path, and book a slot for entry between 9am and 5pm. By road, off-peak, Tejeda village is 12 minutes, Artenara 21, Vegueta 52, the airport 52 and the Maspalomas lighthouse 79, all on mountain bends.

The cost: the tourist board says the weather changes dramatically as you climb inland and the peaks reach the clouds, so the view is never promised, and the beach is more than an hour away.

The Parador de Cruz de Tejeda stands on the pass, with trails from the door and a spa pool facing the caldera, €35 a person for a 90-minute circuit: a base for two or three nights of walking, from about €100 a midweek June night for two, without breakfast.