The Lanzarote Active Club offer a fabulous service to tourists who want to discover the natural side of Lanzarote, with informative guided walks, boat trips and bird watching excursions including food tasting to try our local gastronomy and wines.

I’ve been out with them on many activities and I always return having learned something new. I recently met with Carmen, the owner of Lanzarote Active Club who explained that she would like to start a special club for residents. This new club “Friends of Lanzarote Active Club” would be aimed at Lanzarote residents who want to discover new places, learn about the history, geology & nature of the island and expand their circle of friends to meet other like minded people.

The residents club will start with two activities per month, these are the first four events scheduled for August & September.

August

Volcanology Walk – Sunday 10th August 10€ per person (for residents with or without DNI)

Discover Lanzarote’s volcanic history with a guided walk to the magnificent Caldera Blanca in Tinajo. You need to walk up to view the interior of Caldera Blanca and appreciate how beautiful this old volcano really is. It’s not Lanzarote’s tallest volcano, but it is the widest, the crater is over 1km in dimension and sits in the black ocean of lava that flowed from Timanfaya in the 18th century. The group will also visit the Timanfaya Visitors Centre situated close by.

Los Lobos Boat Trip - Friday 22nd August 35€ per person (for residents with DNI & residence certificate) 41€ per person (for residents without DNI)

Spend a day on  read more »

Over the last two decades, Lanzarote’s population had steadily increased year on year until 2009, where the figure has remained in the region of 141,000-142,000 residents.

According to the density of population figures published for 2013, the municipality of Arrecife has the highest number of residents with 55,673 and Haría the lowest at just 4,782 people. In municipalities with holiday resorts, Teguise (Costa Teguise) is the most populated with 21,152 residents, Tías (Puerto del Carmen) second at 20,451 and Yaiza (Playa Blanca) in third place with 15,571 residents.

You can see the evolution of Lanzarote’s population from  read more »

Many people who fall in love with Lanzarote often end up buying a property here – either as a holiday home, or in some cases as their primary residence.

Buying a property in Lanzarote shouldn’t be difficult, but it is different to the process in many other European countries, so we’ve listed the steps below, with pointers on each, so that you should know what to expect.

Financing

Assuming you haven’t already arranged financing in your home country, then the banks here are beginning to lend money for mortgages again, but they are pretty cautious about that lending, so we’d recommend a visit to a local bank before you start house hunting in earnest. They will tell you what terms you can expect, and what paperwork you will need to provide. The amount they will lend here is based very much on the value of the property, not the selling price, so at the early stages they will only be able to give you a very general idea of how much you are likely to be able to borrow.  read more »

From today, early retiree expats will no longer be able to apply for the residual S1 to entitle them to healthcare within European countries.

Previously it was possible to carry an entitlement of up to 30 months of UK funded healthcare, if you retired early or were without employment in Spain or another EEA country.  Anyone who has successfully registered in the system here, using the old E106 / S1 form and below retirement age will know the difficulties of trying to use the paperwork locally. It was possible to  read more »

NB. This meeting has now been confirmed as Wednesday 25th June at 17:00.

The Mayor of Tías, Pancho Hernández invites local residents and business owners from the municipality of Tías to attend a meeting on Tuesday.

This meeting is entitled Mejor@ndo Tías, which translates to Improving Tías and is aimed at networking with the English speaking residents and businesses of Puerto del Carmen and municipality of Tías. The meeting is  read more »

Talleres Viajar Lanzarote is an English speaking garage in Lanzarote offering professional motor services and specialising in electrical mechanical repairs. Owners José & Teresa have recently moved to the island from Madrid to set up this new garage equipped with the latest technology, bringing with them 25 years of experience in the automotive trade.

The couple launched the Viajar brand in Madrid, first with a small workshop of 150m2 in July 2004, then expanding in December 2008 to launch Talleres Viajar Boadilla in the Parque Empresarial Prado del Espino with premises of 1500m2 and 10 staff. The name Viajar which translates to travel is actually a combination of José & Teresa’s surnames. Having spent time working in Houston and Milton Keynes, their English is excellent, Teresa runs the administration whilst José and Domingo, a mechanic who relocated with them from the mainland, will concentrate on the workshop.

Last year the couple took time out from their busy life in Madrid to have a holiday in Lanzarote, and like lots of us, they fell in love with the island and  read more »

Earlier this year we told you about a sale on vines and of a course to learn how to maintain them. The Association that organised this course is the “Asociación de amigos del vino y el queso”, or The Friends of Wine & Cheese Association.

I have come across that name in the past in several occasions, so I spoke to Ana María Martín, one of the Association's representatives and this it what I found out: the Association which is based in Haría was established on the 1st of July 1993 and it has about 160 members. Their main aim is to learn, collaborate and have a good time. They organise events around, well, wine and cheese, with some activities restricted to their members and others open to the public.

All their events are  read more »