Car Rental Puerto Rico Gran Canaria: The Southwest Coast by Car

Puerto Rico, Amadores and Puerto de Mogan by hire car: steep resort roads, the GC-500, an airport an hour east.

85 cars on the island

28 automatics, book early

58 take a debit card

Up to 50% cheaper than portals

What a week on this coast teaches people

Three drivers, the same two lessons: gearbox and gradient.

“We took a manual to save a few euros and then met the hill up to our apartment in Puerto Rico. First gear, every evening. Next time, the automatic.”

Marta, Leeds

“Landed at Gando at eleven at night and still had the hour along the GC-1 to Amadores. Fine in the end, but take the morning flight if you can.”

Tomas, Prague

“The coast road to Puerto de Mogan is worth doing slowly once, then the tunnels every other time. The little harbour is the best evening on the island.”

Aoife, Cork

Three resorts on one road, and where the car sleeps in each

Puerto Rico, Amadores and Puerto de Mogan sit minutes apart on the GC-500 and share an airport transfer of about an hour. What separates them is the ground they are built on, and the slope between the road and your door decides whether the car is a pleasure or a chore.

Resort	The ground	Where the car sleeps	From the airport
Puerto Rico	Terraced apartments up two valley walls; streets climb from the beach in switchbacks	Ramp garage under the complex, or the paid car parks by the beach and marina	About an hour on the GC-1
Amadores	A gentler bowl around a sheltered, man-made bay; one road in and out	Hotel car parks; little on the street	About an hour on the GC-1
Puerto de Mogan	Flat at the harbour, steep the moment you leave it; harbour lanes closed to cars	Paid car park by the marina, or your hotel	A little over an hour, the last part on the GC-500

Four numbers that matter more here than in the dunes

28 of 85

cars are automatic

The other 57 are manual. In a flat resort that is a preference; in Puerto Rico it decides your evenings, because the streets to the upper complexes climb in switchbacks with a stop line at every turn. If you have not driven a manual since your test, pay for the automatic and book it before the 28 are gone.

Automatic car hire on the island

4-16

EUR a day, the cheapest we sampled

Real, but one or two listings rather than a class. The lower quartile is 20-30 EUR and the median 25-39; a compact from the lower band copes with these hills.

The price floor, explained

take a debit card

Out of 85, and 49 accept a young driver. Both are supplier rules, not island rules, so filter for them before comparing prices.

Debit card hire

Nothing on the listing delivers, so collection day is the decision

Delivery is zero, and so are electric and four-wheel-drive. The car is collected, and the choice is where: at Gando on landing, with an hour of motorway and a resort hill still ahead, or later in the south through the resort pickups around Maspalomas. Landing after dark tilts it towards the second.

The GC-1 and the GC-500 reach the same places at very different speeds

The GC-1 is the motorway. It leaves Gando on the east coast, runs south past the turn for Maspalomas and its dunes and the larger hotels of Meloneras beyond them, then swings west and spends most of its last stretch inside the hills: a chain of tunnels with the sea showing between each pair. It is how this coast is reached from the airport, about an hour door to door, and how you get back east for an evening without touching a resort roundabout.

The GC-500 is the coast road the motorway replaced. It threads through every resort in turn, Arguineguin, Patalavaca, Puerto Rico, Amadores and finally Puerto de Mogan, with a roundabout at each and a sea view at most. Inside the resorts it is a town road at 50 km/h, slower on a Saturday changeover, and it is the road every hotel entrance actually sits on, so you will drive it whether you planned to or not.

Use both. Take the motorway for anything more than a resort or two apart, drop to the coast road for the last few kilometres, and check which exit your complex is signed from before you set off: the exits are spaced by resort, and a missed one means a tunnel to the next. Open road is 90 km/h, the motorway 120, and fuel is noticeably cheaper than on the mainland because the Canaries charge IGIC instead of VAT.

The day trip from here: north up the west coast to Agaete

From the dunes the classic day out is the interior; from this coast it is the west coast, because you are already at the start of it, and the far end is a different climate.

Leave Puerto Rico early, on the GC-500

West through Amadores to Puerto de Mogan takes minutes. Coffee at the harbour while the lanes are quiet, then fill the tank in Mogan: the next proper town is La Aldea.

Climb out of the Mogan valley

Inland and up, then back to the coast high above the water, ravines on one side and terraces on the other. Narrow, winding and slow; a compact manual lives in second gear.

La Aldea de San Nicolas

A farming town in a wide valley of tomato greenhouses, the one real town on the west coast and the place for lunch. North of here a tunnelled road has replaced the old cliff road.

Agaete and Puerto de las Nieves

The harbour village below Agaete: natural pools in the rock and the Tenerife ferry from the quay. The cloud bank locals call the panza de burro often sits on the hills behind; the north is greener and cloudier than the coast you left.

Home by the loop, or the same road

Back the way you came is the slow road in reverse. The loop runs east along the north coast to Las Palmas, then the whole GC-1 south and west: more kilometres, less time, the entire island by dinner.

Tejeda, Roque Nublo and the GC-60 are the other day, on a page of their own.

Questions people ask about the south-west coast

Fifty-seven of the 85 cars are manual and 28 automatic, so a manual is what you get unless you filter. The streets to the upper apartment blocks climb in switchbacks with junctions on the gradient. Fine if you drive a manual at home; if not since your test, book one of the 28 early.

About an hour to Puerto Rico and Amadores and a little more to Puerto de Mogan: the GC-1 from Gando, then the GC-500 for the last few kilometres. That is a daytime figure with the motorway clear; a Saturday changeover or a night arrival stretches it.

Both, for different jobs. The GC-1 runs in tunnels behind the resorts and covers distance, back to the dunes or up to the airport. The GC-500 is the old coast road every resort sits on, 50 km/h through the built-up parts. Use it for the last stretch and the view.

Puerto de Mogan keeps cars out of the harbour lanes: the paid car park by the marina, or your hotel. In Puerto Rico it is the ramp garage under your complex or the paid car parks by the beach and marina. Ask about a space before you book the car.

Yes, and it is the day trip this coast is best placed for: slow and winding to La Aldea de San Nicolas, then tunnelled to Agaete and Puerto de las Nieves. Come home the same way or loop east along the north coast to Las Palmas and down the GC-1.