Tenerife South Airport to Puerto de la Cruz
The long haul at 85 km; TITSA's 343 express links both airports to Puerto de la Cruz for about €13.55 in roughly 90 minutes.
Tenerife's original resort on the green northern coast — Lago Martiánez seawater pools, the black sand at Playa Jardín, banana terraces climbing behind the town and Teide looming above it all.
Every way to get there
Our verdict: for Puerto de la Cruz, a private transfer is the easiest door-to-door option (from €85). Travelling light on a budget? The bus is cheapest (from €13) but slower, with a change in the city.
What it costs for your group
The bus is charged per person, while a taxi or private transfer is one price for the whole car — so the more of you there are, the better door-to-door value looks.
| Group | Bus (per person) | Private transfer | Best value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo · 1 traveller | €13 | €85 | Bus |
| Couple · 2 travellers | €26 | €85 | Bus |
| Family of 4 · 4 travellers | €52 | €85 | Bus |
Which option should you choose?
| If your priority is… | Our pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest price | Bus | From €13, though slower with a change in the city. |
| Speed & comfort | Private transfer | Door-to-door, fixed price, a driver waiting for you. |
| A group of 3–4 | Transfer or taxi | One flat fare splits cheaper than several bus tickets. |
| A late-night arrival | Transfer or taxi | Both run 24/7 when buses and the tram have stopped. |
By transport mode
Bus / shuttle
Around €13.55 cash and up to 30% less on a tenmás card. It runs to a sparse timetable rather than every half hour, so this is the one line where you genuinely need to check departures against your landing time.
Where to catch it: The 343 is the airport express: it runs Puerto de la Cruz–Tenerife Norte–Tenerife Sur with very few stops in between, boarding at the arrivals-level stands.
Best for solo & budget travellersTaxi
Reckon on €70–90 by meter before any night supplement. Worth pricing a fixed transfer against it, because on a journey this long the two often come out level.
Where to catch it: The rank will take it, but at 85 km this is the most expensive standard run on the island.
Best for small groups in a hurryPrivate transfer
Books as one price for the car. The real argument for it here is the 343's thin timetable — if your flight lands between departures, a transfer saves you a two-hour wait for a €13 bus.
Where to catch it: The drive climbs across the island and drops through the northern cloud belt, so it's a genuinely scenic 75 minutes rather than motorway all the way.
Best for families, groups & late arrivalsCar rental
A car makes real sense for a northern base: Teide, Anaga, La Orotava and Icod are all day trips from here and the bus network is slower once you leave the main corridor.
Where to catch it: TF-1 north, then the TF-5 across the top of the island — well surfaced, but the north is cloudier and wetter than the south you just left.
Best for travellers who want to explorePuerto de la Cruz & Tenerife in photos
Buying tickets in Tenerife
Tenerife has no rail at all, so everything runs on TITSA's green guaguas. Buy a tenmás card for €2 from the machines or the TITSA desk and top it up with any amount: it takes roughly 20% off short hops and up to 30% off long intercity runs such as the airport to Santa Cruz or Puerto de la Cruz, and one card can be tapped for several passengers. Without a card you pay the driver in cash. Airport lines are 111 (Los Cristianos, Playa de las Américas, Costa Adeje), 343 (the express linking both island airports with Puerto de la Cruz), 450, 40, 415 and the 711 night service. The 343 runs to a sparse timetable, so check departures against your landing time rather than assuming a bus will be waiting.
Taxi scams & safety in Tenerife
Spain regulates taxis tightly and Tenerife is a low-risk airport: fares are metered, the rank outside arrivals is marshalled, and drivers are licensed. Take the next car in the queue rather than accepting an approach inside the terminal. Two legitimate charges surprise visitors and are not scams — the supplement after 22:00, and per-item luggage charges — so check the tariff card displayed in the vehicle rather than assuming you are being overcharged. The genuine risk here is car hire: always photograph the vehicle from every angle before leaving the lot, and be wary of counters offering a heavily discounted rate with a large fuel or excess deposit attached. Local firms such as Cicar and Autoreisen quote insurance-inclusive rates and are the safer default.
Getting from TFS to Puerto de la Cruz
Eighty-five kilometres, and a change of climate. Puerto de la Cruz sits on the northern coast, where the trade winds pile cloud against the mountains and everything is green — banana terraces, laurel forest, black sand. You have just landed in the dry south, where it is brown and hot and looks like a different island. The drive between the two takes about eighty minutes and is genuinely worth watching out of the window, but the practical question is narrower than that: can you get on the 343, and if not, what then?
The 343 is a real express, and it runs to a thin timetable
TITSA's 343 is the airport express — Puerto de la Cruz to Tenerife Norte to Tenerife Sur, very few stops in between, roughly ninety minutes end to end. It costs about €13.55 in cash, up to 30% less on a tenmás card, and it is comfortably the sensible way to make this journey. The problem is frequency. This is not the half-hourly 111. The 343 runs a handful of times a day, spaced to catch the flight peaks, and if your arrival falls between departures you can be looking at a two-hour wait for a thirteen-euro bus. Of every TITSA line serving TFS, this is the one where checking the day's timetable against your landing slot is not optional.
Puerto de la Cruz was doing this before the south existed
It helps to know what you're going to. This was Tenerife's original resort, developed for northern Europeans in the nineteenth century when the southern coast was still empty scrubland, and it retains a town centre that predates tourism rather than one built for it. The Lago Martiánez seawater pools by César Manrique, the black sand at Playa Jardín, the old harbour, a plaza with a bandstand. Teide sits above it. The practical consequence for arrivals is that the streets are older and tighter than in Adeje, hotels are woven into the town rather than set in grounds, and drop-off points are correspondingly fiddlier.
Taxi and transfer come out level, which is unusual
The rank will take you — €70 to €90 metered, before any night supplement, making this the most expensive standard run on the island. Pre-booked transfers quote €85 to €115 for the vehicle. Those two brackets overlap, which almost never happens on shorter routes where the meter clearly wins or clearly loses. On a seventy-five-minute crossing the sensible move is to price both before you fly and pick on the strength of the timetable rather than the euros. If the 343 lines up with your flight, take it and spend €13. If it doesn't, the gap between waiting two hours and paying eighty pounds is the actual decision, and only you know how you value that.
The northern base makes a hire car a different proposition
Around €22 to €45 a day, collected at the terminal, and this is one of the few Tenerife destinations where picking one up on arrival is straightforwardly right. From Puerto de la Cruz, the Orotava valley climbs behind you, Icod's dragon tree and Garachico's rock pools are along the coast, the Anaga forests are an hour east, and the road up to Teide starts at your back door. The bus network handles the main corridor well and everything else slowly. The one thing to note is weather: the north is cloudier and wetter than the south you flew into, and the mountain roads collect fog in the afternoon. Neither is a problem, but both surprise people who packed for the south.
Getting the timing right, in one paragraph
The 343 also calls at Tenerife Norte airport, which is worth knowing for a different reason. If you have any flexibility on which airport you fly into — and plenty of inter-island and mainland Spanish flights use Norte — landing there puts you twenty-five minutes from Puerto de la Cruz instead of eighty-five. It won't help if you're already booked to TFS, but for a return leg or a second visit it changes the maths entirely. Check both airports before booking rather than assuming Tenerife means the southern one.
Bottom line: this is the one route on the island where the timetable, not the price, makes the decision. The 343 at €13.55 is excellent when it exists and useless when it doesn't, and there is no half-hourly fallback behind it.
