Flights to La Palma, Travel and Tips

Hello there and welcome to our blog about flights and ferries to La Palma, tips and travel. However, for new posts, our blog has taken a bit of a hike on over to our main website:
www.holiday-lapalma.com
I do hope you can join us, we're having a lot of fun with accommodation, walking holidays and La Palma information in general!
See you soon :)
Ann and David

Brilliant time to rent apartment on La Palma, thanks to strong pound

13.05.2015

Are you thinking of renting a holiday apartment on beautiful La Palma? If so, you’ll be pleased to learn that it’s now far more affordable to do so, because the pound to euro exchange rate has hit a 7-year high. To be specific, sterling recently touched 1.4256 against Europe’s common currency, its strongest since November 7th 2007.

What this means for you is that, when you exchange currencies to rent a rural holiday home on the Canary Islands, you’ll get far more euros than in the recent past. For example, if you exchange £2,500 to spend a fortnight enjoying yourself on La Palma, you’ll now get +€560 more than if you’d done so back at the start of 2014, when the pound was far weaker.

In other words, that’s +€560 extra sitting in your pocket, at no additional cost to you, just because the exchange rate has risen! With that sort of money, you could extend your rural holiday on La Palma a day or two, splash out, in brief really make the most of what the Canary Islands have to offer!

Moreover, it could soon become even better value to rent a rural Canarian home, if sterling climbs higher versus the euro. The pound could exceed this 7-year high, first, if Greece exits the Eurozone, as looks entirely possible. Second, the pound may also continue to climb, because the UK economy is easily outpacing the Eurozone’s.

With this in mind, make the most of this advantageous exchange rate, and book your holiday on La Palma today!

By Peter Lavelle

Pure FX

http://www.purefx.co.uk

+44 (0) 1494 671800

peter.lavelle@purefx.co.uk

Flying to La Palma by Norwegian Airlines

The direct flights to La Palma with Thomsons are just great - with flights from Manchester and London Gatwick, it makes a really easy way to get to La Palma.

Flying over La Palma

Other options are flying via Tenerife, Madrid, Gran Canaria plus Germany, Holland and Belgium. You can read about the logistics for this here - http://www.holiday-lapalma.com/transport.html
But now .. ta da! .. we have Norwegian Airlines.
Incredibly cheap prices - yes, you can fly from London Gatwick direct to La Palma for under £100 per person return including taxes. It's amazing! 
Check out their website here - http://www.norwegian.com/uk/
Other airports they operate to/from are Edinburgh and Manchester to La Palma.
You can also fly with Norwegian airlines to other Canary Islands (Tenerife and Gran Canaria) from the UK. Lots of options - do give me your feedback on the option you have found best for you whether it be one of the other Canary Islands or a direct flight to La Palma.
As always, don't forget that the airport code for La Palma is SPC.
Happy flying!

New cabin baggage rules flying with Ryanair

Go Ryanair! Yes, they've come good, the airline that is the most loved to be hated. They are renown for their high hold luggage costs, their lengthy booking procedure with a sales pitch for hotel/car/Ryanair cabin bag at every turn and their zealous checks on the size of hold luggage.
But now they really are being trying to be the darling of the airways. And - by the way - they are a big favourite with me especially as I virtually never check in luggage.

Ryanair flights to the Canaries

Last year when flying from Manchester to Tenerife, I was very pleased to see that a second bag for duty free was allowed as cabin luggage. I made sure that I kept the receipt just in case I was asked to prove that two books, a sandwich and a drink had in fact been bought at the airport.
And whilst queueing, I was even more interested to hear from the girls in front of me that they had a friend who, on returning from a holiday on Tenerife, that she filled her duty free bag with the overflow from her suitcase, but that she was well and truly rumbled by the airport staff.
Now though there is even better news in terms of extra hold luggage when flying with Ryanair - in addition to one bag, a second bag is allowed.
These are the details:One cabin bag per passenger weighing up to 10kg with maximum dimensions of 55cm x 40cm x 20cm, plus 1 small bag up to 35 x 20 x 20 cms. Yay, skip, hop, skip, hop!But be warned, it is not guaranteed that your cabin baggage will actually be able to go with you in the plane as space is restricted. In some situations, it will have to go in the hold although there is no charge for this.Easyjet on the other hand says that your cabin luggage will always go in the cabin with you. But they only allow ONE item of cabin baggage per passenger. If you bring ONE piece of cabin baggage no bigger than 50 x 40 x 20cm including handles and wheels, they  guarantee it will always travel with you either in the overhead locker or, if necessary, under the seat in front of you.  http://www.easyjet.com/EN/Planning/baggage

Jet2 also only allow one cabin bag. This should weigh less than 10kg and it should be no bigger than 56x45x25cm, including wheels and handles.
So next time you are searching for flights to the Canary Islands, you might want to bear this in mind. Happy flying!

Flights to La Palma via Barcelona

Looking for flights to La Palma in the Canaries?

Santa Cruz de La Palma

First stop then is Thomsons for direct flights from both Gatwick and Manchester (Manchester in winter only).  They fly every Friday - but what if a Friday flight doesn't suit you?
Then there is a whole range of indirect flights to La Isla Bonita, this little known island in the Canaries.
A flight to Tenerife and then on to La Palma is a real favourite. From there you can either fly by Binter or Canary Fly, the inter-island airlines from the north of Tenerife or take a ferry with Fred Olsen or Naviera Armas from Los Cristianos in the south.

Naviera Armas ferry docked in Santa Cruz de La Palma

Another excellent way to get to La Palma is via Madrid or even Gran Canaria.
New kid on the block though are flights via Barcelona. Flights to La Palma from Barcelona start on Saturday, 1st June and continue throughout the summer. So if a Saturday flight to the Canary Islands is what you are looking for, check out Vueling flights.
For your flight to Barcelona from the UK, Skyscanner is - as always - a great website for finding some of the cheapest flights around. Just to give you a quick example, there are flights from Manchester to Barcelona from just 49€.
Whether you are flying direct to the Canary Islands or with an indirect flight - there are heaps of options out there. So take a break and head south to the Canaries!

Flight only to La Palma or an All-inclusive Package

If you are thinking of flying to La Palma, direct flights come up trumps for speed and convenience and are often the cheapest option too. But of course that's not always possible, especially as the direct flights from Manchester to La Palma go on pause at the end of April until they re-commence in Autumn.
Although you can still fly direct to La Palma from London Gatwick, Madrid, Netherlands, Germany and, intermittently, from France and Belgium too.

La Palma airport (airport code SPC)

 If you are not flying direct to La Palma, then probably the best indirect route from the UK is via Tenerife.

Just be aware though that there are two airports in Tenerife - international flights use the Reina Sofia airport in the south while the inter-island flights use the Los Rodeos airport in the north. You can find out more information on how to get from A to B on our website page Flights/Travel.

Flying from La Palma to Tenerife

As many people know there used to be two flight companies offering flights between the Canary Islands - Binter and Islas Airways. Unfortunately, Islas Airways ceased offering flights although theoretically they were going to make a comeback. That hasn't happened so far.
But now, there is a new airline, Canary Fly, with flights between the Canary Islands. You can check out their website here.
For those who are looking for an all-inclusive holiday to La Palma, then head on over to Thomsons website who have various options around the island. There you'll see that apart from all-inclusive, they also offer half-board and self-catering holidays. The price for flight and hotel only starts at £356 per person.

Hope you'll find an option to suit you and you'll soon be on holiday in La Palma!

Winter sun in the Canaries

Are you the sort of person who likes statistics? I know I am. And of course with pre-Christmas and New Year statistics immediately followed by post-Christmas and New Year statistics, we haven't been short of a few figures. You name it - super Saturday, black Friday, wibbly Wednesday and any other day of the week they want to throw at us! (OK, so I made the Wednesday one up ..)

So you might like to know that in 2013, in the month of December alone, over one million foreign tourists chose the Canary Islands for their holidays which was an increase of 13.2% over 2012. British tourists who travelled to Spain in that month increased by 20.3% with 46% choosing the Canary Islands for their holidays. Yay, winter sun!

Puerto de Tazacorte in December

However, the reason that I find the figures interesting is not so much that I believe them, disbelieve them or am about to do anything about them, but because of the mental picture they conjure up. I can just image crowds of people patiently waiting for the day to arrive when the statistics say they buy presents, take their presents back or book their winter holiday. It's not allowed to go before or after! So whilst you might think that you are 'home alone' booking your holiday in the sun - you might be at home, but you're far from alone!

There is one thing that's clear though, if you're thinking of a holiday to La Palma for Christmas or New Year, whether it's flights or accommodation that you are looking for, don't wait to be a part of the peak, get in there early!