Meticulous research, excellent writing, plus absolutely stunning photographs, makes Real Tenerife Island Drives the very best on-the-road guide to Tenerife.

After 15 years on the island, I've seen a lot of guide books. Jack and Andrea Montgomery's Real Tenerife Island Drives is one that actually lives up to all it's promise. They've spent three years researching the island's history and culture (as well as travelling it's roads and visiting it's countryside, towns and villages) to produce this beautiful volume and, it shows.

Those wonderful little facts that make it so interesting are not just the usual re-hashed, regurgitated information covered in every other guide book and that, almost invariably, is wrong.

Jack and Andrea kindly sent me a copy of the book to have a look at and it's obvious to me that they have gone back to the source and done original research. Consequently, when you take yourself off one one of their 6 carefully planned trips, you get an accurate and complete guide.

This is kinda important, if you don't want to get lost (mind you that's pretty hard on an island), but the fascinating facts that you'll be rattling off to your friends will open their eyes to Tenerife in an entirely new way.

You'll discover Hidden Depths and Forgotten Roads; places that Francis Drake sacked or or Nelson attacked, but you'll also know how long it takes to get there and where to eat, park and find the loo when you arrive.

There are just the right amount of driving and other tips that you need to know and the book is written in a readable and amusing way, giving you an insight into the island's culture. Such as this on the use of horns:

"Horns are rarely used in aggression; instead used mainly as a greeting to friends, a warning at blind corners on narrow roads, or when Tenerife FC win a match."

To be fair, they don't get much use in that final capacity, so where I live, car horns are also used for other announcements of almost similar importance, such as politicians winning their seats back at elections.

The more I dip into the book, the more impressed I am actually with the depth and detail of the things they have managed to discover - and then condense so beautifully - in just a three year period. You can be sure that you will not miss important items that make your visit truly memorable.

This 66 page, soft-cover, book has all the information you need for exploring Tenerife by car, without bogging you down with too many facts and it's size makes it small enough to carry around or fit in the glove compartment.

More information and ordering, visit, Real Tenerife Island Drives


New Monthly Tenerife Feature

The other piece of good news is that we've pressed the authors of Real Tenerife Island Drives, Jack and Andrea Montgomery, into providing a new monthly feature here at Secret Tenerife, which may be about happenings in a particular month, or excerpts from the routes. (Finally, some good and interesting writing here!) The first of these features is upcoming.

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