Parque Natural de Corralejo

The park was declared in 1982 — originally as one protected area together with the neighbouring islet of Isla de Lobos, separated administratively in 1994 — and covers a little over 2,600 hectares along the north-east coast. Despite the local story, the sand did not blow in from the Sahara: it is organic, ground down over millennia from marine shell and skeletal material and pushed inland by the trade winds. That origin is why it reads pale, close to white in places, rather than the red-brown of a continental desert.

The dunes are alive. They move, slowly and constantly, which is why the road crossing them has to be cleared of drifting sand. The interior is protected habitat — sparse salt-tolerant vegetation and ground-nesting birds — so keep to obvious paths rather than cutting across untouched dune faces. Two large hotels stand directly on the beach inside the park; they were built before protection came in and have been the subject of a long-running legal argument ever since. Everything else along this coast is undeveloped, and a couple of hundred metres from the road you hear nothing but wind.

The seaward edge of the park is one long run of beach, and this is where most visitors actually spend the day. Grandes Playas is the wide white stretch nearest the hotels, big enough that it never feels crowded even in February. Further north, Flag Beach is the wind-sports end, with kite and windsurf schools working off the sand. Naturist bathing is common and unremarkable along the quieter sections.

Two things to plan around. The wind is the reason the dunes exist and it blows hard here most afternoons — a windbreak is the difference between a good beach day and an abandoned one, and sand at ankle height stings. And this is the open Atlantic: the water is beautiful and often shallow near shore, but exposed sections carry real shore break and current, most of the park has no lifeguard, and there is no shade anywhere. Swim where other people are swimming, watch children closely, and carry more water than you think you need.

The laybys along the FV-1 are the only parking, unpaved and free, and they are a known target for opportunist break-ins — leave nothing visible in the car. From the northern end you look across the strait to Lanzarote, and the town of Corralejo is five minutes away for lunch.