Ditch the stress at a Spanish eco-retreat by visiting beautiful Lanzarote
HOLIDAYS with little kids can sometimes feel less of an escape and more of an endurance challenge.
Yet our latest family trip managed the impossible — taking the stress out of travelling with children.
I confess I didn’t expect it to.
Desperate for some winter sun, we’d plumped for the Canary Islands. With an anti-social husband whose idea of hell is a packed resort, we’d found family-run company Lanzarote Retreats, which specialises in environmentally-friendly off-beat holidays.
A “sustainable” holiday in an eco-retreat powered by solar and wind energy, in which guests drive electric cars and stay in yurts might sound very woke — but not particularly relaxing or luxurious.
How wrong could I be? Because it turned out to be an oasis for exhausted young families.
When we got off the plane from rainy London, we were greeted by 27C sunshine and a man clutching cold Cava and a cooler of beer. The holiday had begun!
Just a 20-minute drive later, we bounced down an unmade track and stumbled tipsily out at the new Villa Palacio, just a few minutes walk from the crashing waves of the Costa Teguise and surrounded by the black sand of Lanzarote’s strangely beautiful, lunar landscape.
The six-bed villa is billed as perfect for big parties and comes with a main villa plus additional rooms in a garden suite and a yurt. Our collection of siblings, children, grandparents, aunts and uncles all definitely got the memo about letting their hair down.
Sleeping up to 16 adults plus extra children, there was a private solar-heated pool and a shaded gazebo as well as a hot tub, pool table and table tennis.
Our villa was near the town of Arrieta in the north-east, just a 30-minute drive from popular Puerto del Carmen, but a world away from its packed beaches and bustling bars.
While this end of the island might be quieter than the touristy south, it certainly wasn’t boring.
On our first day we headed down to the beach just a few minutes’ walk from our villa, and found the sand white and the sea warm enough for a dip — if you could weave your way past the kids taking part in the annual surf competition.
That night (with the kids safely tucked up with granny-turned-nanny) we enjoyed a seafront fish supper before weaving our way to the local bar — a fairy-lit VW campervan-turned-mojito shack. Its siren call of live music and lethal cocktails seemed to have tempted out everyone in a ten-mile radius.
The next morning, we cleared our heads by hiring some bikes, and peddled down the road to check out the Finca, a collection of 17 Mongolian yurts and stone cottages which is the centre of Lanzarote Retreats.
'MORNING YOGA'
It is in a secluded spot, walled off from the bracing island winds, and there is so much within the compound that, if you wanted to, you’d never have to leave. I went to a morning yoga class in the exercise yurt and found a tent full of mums trying to stretch away hangovers.
My husband got the short straw and went to the playground, where I found him trying to snooze in the pirate ship while the kids ran amok around him.
Back on our bikes, we explored the sleepy village of Punta Mujeres, cycling between the white-walled, low-rise houses and stopping for a bracing dip in the natural bathing pools carved into the rock.
With the week’s exercise done, we headed back to the villa, where we spent a few days doing as little as possible.
GO: LANZAROTE
GETTING THERE: BA flies six times a week to Lanzarote from Gatwick in winter and five times a week in summer. £85 each way in January and February, from £36 each way in December. See .
STAYING THERE: Lanzarote Retreats has a selection of villas as well as yurts and stone cottages at Finca de Arrieta. Villa Palacio is available from £596 per night, based on six sharing.
Additional guests from £30pp pn. One night’s stay at the Finca de Arrieta eco village is from £93.81, based on two sharing. See or call 00 34 928 826720.
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My four-year-old Ralph spent so long in the hot tub he turned into a lobster, there were terraces for the grandparents to escape to, a pool which was perfect for my fitness-mad uncle to swim laps, and a big outdoor dining table for boozy dinners under the stars.
Feeding the group was no problem with Lanzarote Retreat’s “fridge fill” service, which allowed us to avoid the usual day one supermarket dash, and also delivered various pre-cooked meals to our fridge.
Every child who stays at the Finca is given a baby cactus to plant there, and on our last day we stuck our spiky little plants in the black sand next to lolly sticks with the kids’ names on them — confident that we’ll be back to see how they’re growing next year . . .
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