Do You Need a Hire Car in Lanzarote?

Most articles about hiring a car are written by people who would like you to hire one. So here is the answer first, in the form it actually takes on this island: for the half of your holiday that happens on a beach, you do not need a car. For the other half, the bus will not take you there.

Lanzarote is small, and it has a real public bus network, not a token one. What it does not have is a bus to the places people come for. That is the whole decision, and it is worth looking at properly before you either waste money on a week’s hire or waste days waiting at a bus stop in Yé.

What the bus network actually covers

Intercity Bus Lanzarote runs the island’s guaguas, and the resort connections are genuinely good. Line 1 links Arrecife with Costa Teguise, line 2 with Puerto del Carmen, line 3 joins the two resorts directly, and line 6 runs Arrecife–Puerto del Carmen–Playa Blanca. Several lines serve the airport, and line 161 runs from Terminal 1 down the coast to Puerto del Carmen, Puerto Calero, Yaiza and Playa Blanca. Departures from Terminal 1 start at 7:30 AM and then run about every half hour until 4:30 PM, hourly after that, with the last at 9:30 PM. One quirk worth knowing: within Puerto del Carmen the line does not pick up passengers travelling only inside Puerto del Carmen.

There is a Bono General travel card: €2 for the card itself, top-ups of €5 to €50, and 10% off the ordinary fare. You can buy it on board. Ten per cent is a modest saving, so buy it for convenience rather than economy.

Teguise’s Sunday market is the one excursion the network takes seriously: four dedicated lines run to it, from Costa Teguise, from Puerto del Carmen, from Playa Blanca and back to Arrecife. Line 12 runs on Sundays only — which tells you exactly how the timetable is built. It serves residents on weekdays and one famous market on Sunday.

What it does not cover, and this is the point

Read the line list and notice what is missing. There is no line to Timanfaya. None to El Golfo. None to Papagayo. None to Mirador del Río. Those are four of the five things most visitors write down before they arrive.

The north makes the case on its own. Mirador del Río sits above Yé, and the nearest bus stop is in the village itself. Line 8 from Arrecife to Yé leaves the bus station at 12:10 PM, 2:45 PM, 7:10 PM and 9:30 PM — four departures, the last two useless for a viewpoint that shuts at 5:00 PM with last admission at 4:40 PM. At weekends line 8 does not run to Yé at all; you take line 7 as far as Máguez and continue with the operator’s on-demand Taxi-Guagua service.

Line 9 to Órzola is better — 7:20 AM, 10:15 AM, 11:30 AM, 3:30 PM and 5:00 PM — and it does stop at Jameos del Agua, though not on every run. Three departures towards Órzola and two back skip that stop entirely. So Jameos is reachable by bus if you read the timetable carefully, and Mirador del Río, further round the coast and high above it, effectively is not.

What the alternatives cost per person

This is where the arithmetic turns, because a guided day out is not a consolation prize here. It is often the better product.

The full-day island highlights tour is €51 per person for nine hours, rated 4.7 across 3,265 reviews — the most-reviewed coach trip in our inventory. The Timanfaya volcanic craters tour is €59 for five hours with 2,740 reviews, and more of them sit on our Timanfaya and volcano tours page.

Now put a number against the same day self-driven. Entry to Montañas del Fuego is €30 for adults and €15 for children aged 7 to 12, with under-7s free, and that ticket includes the 35-minute Ruta de los Volcanes coach inside the park, the geothermal demonstrations, parking and Wi-Fi. Two adults driving themselves pay €60 at the gate before fuel. Two adults on the guided tour pay €118 and someone else deals with the time slot — because the park is booked in timed slots chosen when you buy online, and you must be at the ticket office 15 minutes before yours or admission is not guaranteed.

For one or two people, on one or two days, the tour usually wins. For four people over several days, the car wins easily. That is the real dividing line, and it has more to do with how many of you there are than with how far you are going.

Who should not hire a car

Cruise passengers. One day in port is not the day to negotiate a rental desk. Buy the time instead: Timanfaya and the Green Lagoon for cruise passengers is €49 for two and a half hours with 2,154 reviews and is built around getting you back.

Anyone whose plan is the beach. If Playa Blanca or Puerto del Carmen with the occasional boat trip is the holiday, a car sits in a car park depreciating your holiday budget.

Anyone going to La Graciosa. There are no asphalt roads on the island and you cannot take a hire car over. The ferry from Órzola is €29 with free parking on the Lanzarote side, or take the return ferry with bus pickup at €40 and skip the drive to Órzola altogether.

Anyone under 21, or under 23 with some firms, and anyone who has held a licence for less than two years. The decision has been made for you; the ages and the paperwork are in our article on excess, deposit and counter charges.

Who should — and for how long

Hire if you are four people, if you are travelling with a small child and a pushchair, if you want Famara and the north, or if you want to see El Golfo and Los Hervideros without a coach timetable deciding when you leave.

Hire for two or three days, not for the week. This is the specific recommendation for Lanzarote and it follows from the size of the island. Timanfaya, El Golfo and the south fill one day. The north — Teguise, Haría, Mirador del Río, Jameos — fills another, and we have laid that one out as the drive that is actually worth it. A third day covers Famara and La Geria. After that you are paying for a vehicle to sit outside your apartment. Compare rates for a short hire against the equivalent guided days before you book the full seven.

Two caveats before you do. Papagayo is reached by an unsurfaced track with a €3 barrier per car, and rental conditions here commonly forbid unsurfaced roads outright — the details are in how to reach the Papagayo coves. And Timanfaya is the one place where having the car changes nothing: everyone rides the park’s own coach, as our lava fields by car piece explains.

In one line

Do not hire for the whole stay. Hire for the two or three days when you are actually going somewhere, and let the bus, the ferry and the coach handle the rest — because for Timanfaya, La Graciosa and a day in port, they genuinely do it better.

Bus lines, departure times and the Bono General are as published by Intercity Bus Lanzarote and read on 18 September 2026; Timanfaya prices and conditions are from CACT Lanzarote’s online ticket shop on the same date. Timetables change. Tour prices are from our own Lanzarote inventory on 18 September 2026.