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Guide · 01
A fishing village that grew into a resort without entirely stopping being a fishing village. Here is what is actually worth your time - starting with what you can reach from the apartment door.
Ten minutes or less
A ten-minute walk. An open-air centre built to look like a Canarian village - supermarket, pharmacy, shops, restaurants and bars, plus a market on Thursday and Sunday mornings. It is where you go for the first big shop and the last-minute forgotten thing.
Two of the best on the island are next to the complex. Board hire, wetsuits, bike parts, fins, repairs. If you brought the wrong kit, this is a five-minute problem rather than a day trip.
Blue Coral, Cafe Amarena and Bistrot del Mar are all under a kilometre - a genuine ten-minute stroll. Handy on the first night when you have landed, shopped, and no longer want to think.
The nearest beaches, both around 1.6 to 1.7 km. Small, rocky in places, quiet. Not the postcard dunes, but they are twenty minutes on foot and you will often have them largely to yourself.
The main event
Around 2,600 hectares of protected dune field running down the east coast from the edge of town. Cycle or drive the FV-1 south and stop wherever it looks good. Early morning and the last hour of light are when the sand does the thing everyone photographs.
The long white beaches on the dune side. Shallow, turquoise, and enormous - walk five minutes from the road and the crowd thins to nothing. Very little shade and almost no facilities, so take water and something to sit under.
The kite and windsurf end of the dunes. Worth going even if you have no intention of getting in the water - on a windy afternoon it is a decent free show. Schools operate here through the season.
The old harbour beaches in town. Small, sheltered coves right next to the restaurants - shallow and calm, which makes them the practical choice with young children.
The Atlantic here is not the Mediterranean. Currents and shore break on the exposed beaches are real, lifeguard cover is limited outside peak season, and the wind picks up through the afternoon. Green, yellow, red - take them seriously.
Two Bergamont bikes come with the apartment, one hybrid and one mountain bike, plus a lock. The coast road south into the dunes is flat, scenic and the single best use of them.
After dark
Corralejo has two personalities and they are geographically separated, which is useful.
The northern strip - the main avenue - is the loud one: bars, chain restaurants, people handing you flyers. It has its place, particularly if you want to watch football or find something open at one in the morning.
The old harbour, twenty minutes' walk from the apartment, is the other one. Low white buildings, boats on the sand, and the small streets around Calle La Iglesia where the seafood restaurants are. Fresh fish sold by weight, cooked plainly, eaten outside. This is the walk to do on your first proper evening.
Order this: papas arrugadas with mojo rojo and mojo verde, whatever white fish is on the board that day, and the local majorero goat cheese - Fuerteventura's cheese is genuinely one of the best things about the island, and it is often better in a small local shop than in a restaurant.
Practical
Fuerteventura airport (FUE) is about 38 km south, roughly 40 minutes by car on a good road. Hire cars, taxis and the shuttle are all options - the shuttle is available through us and charged on use, so ask when you enquire and give us your flight times.
For Corralejo itself you do not need one - the bikes and your feet cover it. For the rest of the island you do. A common approach is to hire for three or four days in the middle of the stay rather than the whole fortnight.
Corralejo harbour runs the short crossing to Isla de Lobos, and a longer one to Playa Blanca on Lanzarote - close enough to be an easy day out. Lobos entry is capped and requires a free permit booked in advance, so check the current rules before you plan the day.
Fuerteventura means "strong wind", and the name was not chosen at random. Temperatures are mild year round and rain is rare, but the afternoon wind is a fixture. It is why the kitesurfers come, and why you should pack a light layer even in August.
El Campanario holds a market on Thursday and Sunday mornings, and there is a larger flea market elsewhere in town during the week. Days do shift seasonally, so it is worth a quick check locally rather than trusting a page written months earlier.
The north shore around Corralejo and El Cotillo is the island's surf heartland, with reef and beach breaks to suit most levels and a good number of schools. Autumn and winter bring the bigger north-west swells. Ask in the sports shops next door - they will tell you honestly where to go on the day.
Next
Corralejo is the base. Fuerteventura is 100 km long, largely empty, and much stranger and more beautiful than the north coast lets on.