Although the resorts of Golf del Sur and Amarilla Golf are both actively marketed as being two individual holiday destinations in their own right, for all intents and purposes they have now effectively merged to form the single resort destination, which is also the principal coastal development of the municipal district of San Miguel de Abona on the south east coast of Tenerife.

At it's nearest point, the resort of Golf del Sur is a mere 4km from the southern runway of the Reina Sofia International Airport, and although this means a very short transfer into the resort, it does however also mean that guests staying here with undoubtedly experience a considerable degree of aircraft noise during their stay.

Reina Sofia is open 24 hours a day, and experience has shown that throughout the night, a large number of heavy cargo planes will be using the facility in addition to the numerous charter flights landing and taking off. In all fairness to the authorities who run the airport, in order to minimise the disturbance, aircraft do tend to approach the airport from over the sea, and as a consequence landings are somewhat quieter than takeoffs.

As a direct consequence of this close proximity to the airport, and in preference to a tour operators coach transfer, many of the guests staying at Golf del Sur will either arrange to collect a pre booked hire car upon landing at the airport, or alternatively opt to make the short 10 minute journey into the resort by one of the many taxi stationed outside of the arrivals hall.

Although these taxis do all operate on a fixed price basis, we have known this "fixed price" to vary from anything between 8€ and 15€ for the same journey, all depending upon the number of suitcases, the time of day or night, and of course the number of passengers carried.

It's also worthwhile mentioning that as a rule, taxis do not normally carry child seats, so very small children will have to sit on their parents knees for the journey.

If this is a cause for concern, we strongly recommend that you make arrangements for a pre-booked taxi to be waiting for you, and clearly specify at the time of booking that a child seat is needed for the journey. Pre-booked taxis are often a little more expensive, although as with all things in life, you only get what you pay for.

Whatever method of transport you ultimately decide upon to make this transfer, and as with the other resorts on the island, we have put together the basic route for the journey, complete with links to maps where appropriate, and this is available from the Route Map link on the left hand frame of this page.

Once you are in the resort, and have settled in to your accommodation, you will very quickly realise that Golf del Sur is really little more than a collection of golf courses, around which a number of 4 star hotels, timeshare, and residential accommodation has been built. Although the resort does have a very small shingle beach, it does unfortunately lack any other non-golfing attractions, and unless they have a keen interest in golf, I suspect that most children or young teens will be hopelessly bored within 15 minutes of arriving in the resort.

In recent years the area has certainly benefited from the construction of the 3,500m2 San Miguel Marina complex, which is situated a little to the west of Golf Del Sur and the resort of Amarilla Golf. With a total built cost in excess of 10 million euro, the San Miguel Marina has an 870 metre jetty, providing 350 moorings for boats from 10 to 20 metre berths, and is now recognised as being the largest leisure marina in Tenerife.

The San Miguel Marina is now the mooring point of The Sub Fun Cinco submarine. For the technically minded, the Sub Fun Cinco is 1 of only 5 Mark II tourist submarines that were built by the Mobimar Corporation of Finland and is 18.5m long, can safely dive to a depth of 60m and cruise at 2 knots, whilst carrying a maximum of 48 passengers plus a crew of 2. A trip on The Sub Fun Cinco usually lasts around 50 minutes, during which you will normally be submerged for around 40 minutes, and departs throughout the day from 10am.

Returning to dry land and Golf del Sur, the commercial centre of the resort is actually a little to the east of the geographic centre, almost opposite the Hotel Tenerife Golf, and is known as CC San Blas. It's here at CC San Blas that the resort nightlife, such as it is, takes place around the main square. During the day, if you're not out playing golf, you'll find a reasonable selection souvenir shops, a couple of supermarkets, and a small selection of restaurants and bars that supplement the facilities already provided by the hotels in the resort.

As we have already briefly mentioned above at the beginning of this guide, a little to the west of Golf del Sur is the smaller, and much older, development known as Amarilla Golf. As part of the San Miguel Marina development, a new promenade and road now joins the two centres. Previously this journey passed through the "attractive" Las Chafiras Industrial Estate, along roads which would challenge the suspension of most 4x4 vehicles. Along this promenade a number of very smart sea-front restaurants have now opened, most of which provide magnificent panoramic views over the Atlantic Ocean.

Prior to the construction of the San Miguel Marina, the area around Amarilla Golf had possibly the lowest real estate prices on the whole of Tenerife, as the three golf developments that are built here were once very remote, and outside of the facilities they provided for their guests, there were absolutely no other public amenities in the town. Nevertheless, Amarilla does have its own small resort centre, which is known locally as “The Dip”, and which over the past couple of years as seen the opening of a supermarket, a DVD hire shop along with a number of other small souvenir shops.