Seeing Lanzarote from the saddle

Most people come to Lanzarote for the beaches and the volcanoes, and see them the usual way: from a sunbed, a coach window or a viewpoint car park. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is another way to take the island in that suits it unusually well, which is slowly, at the pace of a walking horse, out where the coaches do not go. This is what that is actually like, and what to expect if you have never done it.

Why the island suits a walking pace

Lanzarote is a landscape built for looking at slowly. The black lava fields, the rust-red craters, the way the light moves across the ground and changes its colour hour by hour, none of it lands properly at forty miles an hour with a windscreen in the way. On horseback you are up high, unhurried, with nothing between you and the view, and the only sounds are the wind and the hooves on the ground.

It turns out a walking horse is just about the right speed to take a place like this in. You notice the small things you would drive straight past: the pale lichen creeping over the black rock, the sudden green of a fig tree in a sheltered hollow, a distant crater lining up perfectly with the one in front of it. People often say afterwards that it was the first time on the trip they properly felt the size and the strangeness of the island.

The different kinds of ride

The landscape gives you a few very different experiences depending on where you point the horses.

Out across the lava and the interior, you ride with the craters ahead of you through the kind of scenery that makes people go quiet. Down on the coast and the beaches, you walk along the shoreline and, on the longer rides, actually into the shallows with the horses, which is a strange and wonderful feeling and the thing everyone talks about afterwards. And in the low evening light, a ride timed for the sunset finishes with the whole sky turning colour over the water. You can read more about the island’s volcanic landscape and where to catch the best sunsets if you want a sense of the settings.

What it is like if you have never ridden

Here is the part that stops most people, so let us be plain about it: the large majority of visitors who ride here have never sat on a horse before. It is the normal way to arrive, not the awkward exception, and the whole morning is built around that rather than around experienced riders.

You get on in the yard, on flat ground, with someone holding the horse, not out on a hillside. You walk a few slow circles until sitting up there stops feeling strange. You are on one of the calm, steady horses, chosen for you on the day from your height, your build and how much you have ridden. A guide goes with the group the whole way, and the pace is set by whoever is least sure, so nobody is pushed and nobody is left behind. If you would rather the guide held a lead rope for the entire ride, they hold it for the entire ride. Nobody is talked into a trot, let alone a canter.

If you already ride and want more, that is easy too: say so when you book, and once the guide has seen you have control, there is open ground to pick up the pace on.

Riding with children and mixed groups

One of the things this kind of outing does best is take a family with different ages and nerves out together. The minimum age to ride a horse is seven: from seven to fourteen they ride their own horse with an adult alongside, and from fourteen they ride on their own. For the littlest ones there is a gentle ride inside the grounds. A nervous grandparent, a fearless teenager and a small child can genuinely all have a morning out, each at their own pace. There is more on family days in things to do in Lanzarote with kids.

What to wear and bring

You need very little. Long trousers and closed shoes are the only things to bring, and certified helmets are included. Add sun cream and a hat, because the light here is strong, and water. That is genuinely the whole list. There is nothing to buy in advance and nothing specialist to organise.

The animals come first

A good ride depends entirely on horses that are fit, rested and well looked after, and any decent stable should be happy to talk about how that works: how many hours a day each horse works, how much rest they get, when riding stops in the summer heat, and how many riders go out with each guide. Ask us anything along those lines. We would always rather show you at the yard than make claims on a website.

If it sounds like your kind of morning

None of this is a hard sell. Plenty of people read something like this, decide it is not for them, and have a wonderful holiday on the beach instead, which is exactly as it should be. But if a slow morning out in the landscape, on a calm horse, with no pressure and no experience needed, sounds like the sort of thing you would remember, it is one of the more rewarding ways to see a side of Lanzarote that most visitors drive straight past.

You can see the different rides, with prices and times published in full, on the rides page, and if you have never ridden and want to know exactly how the first hour goes, start here. Either way, take it at your own pace. That is rather the point.