Gran Canaria advice

We’ve got flights booked, looking for a place to stay so where reasonably unspoilt with a few things to go (walks, beaches, mountains, towns etc) a bus trip away.

Not taking bikes, thinking of Puerto Mogan, any thoughts?

Mogan is quite nice (or it was 10 years ago when I was last there).
Only a short bus ride from Puerto Rico if you want a bigger town.

Lots of Crazy Golf courses in that part of the world too.

Mogan is one of the less unspoilt places on the island that still has decent restaurants and cafés. We’ve stayed at the hotel on the sea wall (forgetting the name) on a couple of occasions, but is pricey at peak times (we go end sept/oct) or stay in a villa in the village, roof terrace mandatory!
If you want unspoilt there’s a road/track that heads west over the headland and on to the next beach which has no facilities but you’ll have the entire beach pretty much to yourself (30 mins each way by bike or 2hr walk)

Maspalomas is best suited for what you want. Nice complexes with apartments and bungalows etc but only a 4/5 Euro taxi trip to playa del ingles for the night life, lots of retaurants, busy beaches etc.. maspalomas also has its own beach front (faro) which has some posh restaurants,hotels and bars…Really nice place to walk around at night. From maspalomas /playa you can get buses to the capital las Palmas in the north or peurto Rico, Puerto De mogan, anfi complex etc in the south. Wife and I have been about 8 times. Love the place but 3 kids have seriously curtailed foreign holidays so we are missing the place badly. I plan on retiring there if I ever get to retire that is!!

Maspolomas, unspoilt? Everything I read says otherwise…

I meant more that it’s good for a base to explore from. Compared to playa del ingles it’s unspoilt. The main problem with mogan etc is that despite them being lovely places, we visit them a couple of times each time we go, you would quickly run out of things to do as they are very small and quite isolated. That’s why we stay in maspalomas or playa. They have the business to keep you occupied but the quiet unspoilt places are only a bus trip away.

A camel stood on my Oakleys in Maspolomas. You have been warned.

Harry_the_Spider – Member

A camel stood on my Oakleys in Maspolomas

Probably a stealth hit from a stwer you annoyed 😛

Melia Tamarindos, Maspalomas is a nice hotel less than half an hour from the airport.

The hospital opposite (Clinica Roca) was very good too. They did a very good job of putting a plate on my Tibia!

Another camel incident?

No slipped walking into a swimming pool!

I like Mogan more than the other resorts but it’s more of a faff to get anywhere, particularly by bus it’s very much at (or beyond!) the end of the line for most of the bus routes. You may well end up getting the 1 back to Playa (or beyond) to get anywhere other than Mogan town. With a car it’s no hassle as the motorway goes that far now, and there are some nice road bike rides too (not so sure about MTB)

Tamarindos isn’t a bad call – although I’d say that’s San Augustin rather than Maspalomas. I wish I’d gone to Clinica Roca with my broken ankle – ended up at the hospital in Las Palmas who made a right pigs ear of it.

I usually stay in my parents house so don’t have any experience of actually staying in any of these places but have snuck in to use some of the pools…

Haha still blocking out my crap holiday so couldn’t even remember where I went although it does say Maspalomas on their paperwork.

Just avoid the weird shape swimming pool though and the steps into it!

Tamarind is San Augustin. I used to rep Gran Canaria – mainly Playa but Puerto Rico too – but late 90s so not sure anything I have to say (or can remember!) would be that useful.

I think you’ll struggle to find anything ‘unspoilt’ there, and as above Mogan is a long way round from anywhere else. If you want to sit on the beach and have options for the evening then Puerto Rico might be the better option. The beach is (was) better there than Playa (IMO). Otherwise Maspalomas is also a good option. Unless it’s changed a lot I’d avoid staying in Playa itself.

I think maspolomas is the polar opposite of unspoilt. It is indeed spoilt in a rather horrific way and is full of bloody foreigners
Edit-seems to have chopped off half my post and tongue in cheek faces. Was going to mention something about high rise apartments vs low rise in Mogan but now I can’t be bothered

I think maspolomas is the polar opposite of unspoilt.

As is the whole island, and lets not forget it’s volcanic and in the middle of the Atlantic so unspoilt doesn’t necessarily mean white sandy beaches and lagoons of crystal clear warm water.

I’m in Mogan now, it’s pleasant enough but I wouldn’t say unspoilt.

Went to Maspalomas dunes this morning, impressive and only 15 minutes away by hire car. Wished I’d have stayed back at our apartments though, sand gets bloody everywhere!

Some tasty looking hairpins on the opposite side of the valley, shame I don’t have my bike 🙁

Hire a bike from Free Motion. They are somewhere in Playa del Ingles, I got a road bike from them – Cannondale super 6 and rode it up the mountain – it was very good (and hot).

OP: My wife is from las Palmas so have been to the capital loads. Las Cateras is a nice beach, 6km long and not touristy as it is really set up for the locals. If you want really quite and unspoilt then head up into the mountains, but you will be isolated from stuff to do and it takes a surprising amount of time to drive down the twisty roads. Mogan is nice as is Agaete in the NW, but Agaete is very quite (apart from the ferry to Tenerrife).

Maspolomas (lots of pigeons is the translation) is developed but the lighthouse end (faro) is nice. Playa Del Ingles (Beach of the English) is pretty much how you would expect it to be given its name!

Spending some time with Mrs Haze, making up for all those lonely Sunday mornings she has so won’t be any bike hire for me.

Ta for the link though, hope to use them some time in the future 🙂

i did a few winters in arguinegan in the 80s, it was a lovely local village then complete with huge shanty town. really nice people and feel. masoplomas, puerto rico etc were/are tourist resorts.

i popped back for a look in the late 90s when i was doing a windsurf event out there and it had changed a lot, but it was still local to the other places.