To round out the end of 2025 (and ring in the new year), I took a few weeks of vacation with my childhood friend, Justin. It was his first true international trip, and I was excited to show him a good time. He's been working in construction for the past year or so, and due to the constant travel he's accumulated enough reward points to pay for his flight and a few nights at a luxury hotel. With that in mind, our primary destination was the Canary Islands, since they looked to offer a healthy mix of traditional beach vacations as well as adventuring.

Aside from a variety of activities, the islands are a territory of Spain. I was excited to jump back into a Spanish-speaking country. I've been diligently practicing my Spanish with apps and friends, but I haven't been truly immersed since my time in Costa Rica in December 2022. It was really awesome seeing how far I've come, and how much my Spanish has improved since then.

Aside from the islands themselves, we also spent a night or two in Amsterdam and then Madrid on either leg of the trip. Rather than make separate entries for those brief visits, I've collapsed them into this post. That said, most of this trip was spent exploring the island rather than grand adventures. Much of what I've got to share this time around is in the form of photography, rather than stories.

On our way into the islands, we spent a day in Amsterdam. We managed to cram quite a lot of activities into this single night, including a canal tour. We got lucky and happened to be there during the weekend kickoff of the Festival of Lights, which made for some nice sightseeing.
After Amsterdam, it was off to the islands! Justin was still dealing with jet lag, but I wasted no time getting out and exploring. Some folks from the hostel were going on a hike to Pico de Bandama, a caldera that was accessible by bus. Here's a photo from the trailhead.
The caldera was super interesting, and offered a pretty wild variety of textures and scenery. It was also really lush, thanks to some serendipitous rain storms that were going on the week or two before we arrived. So we had some really lucky timing on this part.
Here's another interesting photo I captured from the caldera, highlighting the really lush greenery coupled with the striking textures and colors on the rocks.

After the caldera hike there was enough time to keep exploring. Thanks to my rental car, I was able to recruit some friends from the hostel and make our way up to Pico de las Nieves in time for the sunset. As you can see, the peak rose high above the clouds.
Pico de las Nieves was truly stunning, and I was able to capture some really great photos.
As the sun crept towards the horizon, the pictures just kept getting more dramatic. Here you can see the famous Roque Nublo in the foreground and Tenerife in the distance.
I really cannot put into words just how beautiful this sunset was. The rolling clouds and dramatic peaks shoving through them truly felt like something from a dream.
The sun taking it's final dip below the horizon.
And one last photo of Roque Nublo and Tenerife, as the setting sun cast its orange glow across the sky. I couldn't decide if I liked this photo better, or the previous one with the blues and purples of the early evening. So I've included both!
That night, we went out for a couple drinks with some guys from the hostel. I had specifically picked the city (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) and the hostel because I read that it was more social and had a better night life. NYE was right around the corner, and we wanted to party!

NYE was a bit uneventful for the majority of the day, actually. My friend Alek was coincidentally in Portugal surfing, and decided to make a spontaneous trip down to the islands to ring in the new year with some friendly faces.

Unfortunately, his flight got delayed which hampered some of my afternoon plans. And then it turned out that there was a NYE marathon happening, which resulted in multiple road closures (including the main highway through town). As such, the vast majority of my day was spent stuck in a car...but catching up with a good friend, so that was nice! In any case, while the day was a wash the night was not.

While walking around downtown, we happened across these break dancers. Interestingly, this isn't the last time I saw break dancers on this trip, with some more again in Madrid. Maybe it's seeing a resurgence in Spain, or maybe it never died?

Someone from the hostel suggested that we go for a midnight plunge to ring in the new year. A few of us stripped down to our undies and raced into the water right as the fireworks started. What a fun (and cold) way to start 2026.

The next day, me and Alek headed down to Maspalomas for one of my most anticipated events: riding camels through the sand dunes. Unfortunately, this ended up being a total tourist trap. The dunes themselves were underwhelming, and the poor camels were clearly being mistreated. We ended up snagging a selfie, and then throwing our tickets in the trash.
Instead of riding through the dunes, we just walked along the coast for a bit and snagged some photos. While it's not the epic adventure I had in mind, it was still a relaxing start to the day!
After dropping Alek off at the airport, I recruited some more friends from the hostel to join for a road trip up north. It was a bit of a dreary weather, but it made for a dramatic lighting of the coastline. Here's a shot of the coast, somewhere around Playa del Risco.
We eventually made our way to La Aldea Beach, which had some nice scenery.
In addition to the scenery, there was also a nice kitty!
Sunset on the beach was really beautiful, which was a recurring theme for this trip. For some reason this photo keeps getting compressed and causing the clouds to look odd and grainy. Perhaps it'll go away with final upload, but here's the full resolution photo.
After sunset, we ate at the nearby restaurant. The kitty seemed to really like me in particular, following me all the way to the restaurant and then hopping in my lap for some cuddles.

I spent the last night in Gran Canaria relaxing on the rooftop, playing a cheap little kid's guitar that someone had left behind. One of my favorite things, especially when there's people around who are enjoying the tunes.

With that, our time in Gran Canaria came to a close and we island hopped over to Tenerife. Our first few nights were an abrupt shift away from the social atmosphere of the hostel and instead into a nice Airbnb tucked away in the mountains. This was a really nice place, and wonderful to relax.

Me and Justin spent both our evenings digging into a board game I brought along. The game was Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth. It's a two-player strategy game, and we both had a lot of fun just sipping beers and hanging out.

Flights to Tenerife were serviced by relatively small propeller planes, and thanks to some rough storms the turbulence was...exciting. At one point the whole plane suddenly seemed to hit a wall of air and drop roughly a foot, which was terrifying!
Our Airbnb had a washer, but no dryer. I didn't realize the missing dryer until it was too late, and all my clothes were soaking wet. In order to have something to wear for the day, I resorted to drying them in the oven. That gave me a good giggle - there's a first time for everything, and I wonder if I'm the first to do this?
Here's a photo, not too far from me and Justin's Airbnb. We were staying in a relatively rural area near the town of Pedro Alvarez.
The first day in Tenerife, we met up with Sarah and Sonja. We had met Sarah in the first hostel, and she was following a nearly identical itinerary as us! The weather in the northern part of the island was cold and overcast, so we went for a road trip sightseeing tour. The whiteout from the clouds made for some fun photos, like this selfie into nothing.
Sarah captured this funny photo of the three of us, all seemingly looking in different directions at absolutely nothing. Silly times!
Luckily, the total whiteout didn't last the entire day. As the weather started to clear up a bit, we were greeted with some really amazing views.
The whole gang, out for sightseeing!
And, of course, stopping long enough to goof around with my good friend.

After a relatively brief stay on the northern part of the island, we headed down south to Costa Adeje. Since we had a few hours to kill before we could check into the hotel, we decided to take the mountain route through Teide National Park.

The northern part of the park was still very foggy, which actually made for some really awesome photos when it wasn't pure white-out from the clouds.
The rocky landscape was absolutely insane.
Some areas were covered in so much volcanic rock that it felt like you were on another planet.
A funny random passerby struck this pose with his dog, and then kindly did it again when I asked. He told me to call him if this gets published in National Geographic.
Ermita de las Nieves, a very scenic church near the peak of Mt. Teide.
This is perhaps one of my favorite photos from the whole trip. Something about the composition and the mountains emerging dramatically from the clouds really captures the essence of the mountain, and the trip as a whole.
The trip ended up taking a bit longer than expected, and we arrived in town right around golden hour. It was a beautiful way to enter into the warmer southern half of Tenerife.
After a few days in the cold and rainy north, it was really great to be on the coast and with some warm weather. And check out those billowing clouds!
The next day, me and Sarah went out kayaking with a group from an online rental tour. Here's a seaside cave that we passed by, shortly before snorkeling. The water was frigid, and there really wasn't much to look at. But still a fun time!

Making our way to shore, we were lucky enough to spot a pod of dolphins making a show under a rainbow. The video is rather shaky, on account of me being on a kayak in the ocean 😝

After a late lunch and some wandering around, we watched these surfers catching the last of the evening waves. This was a truly beautiful moment. The sunset was gorgeous, the surfers were entertaining, and a busker nearby was playing some soft guitar. Lovely!
The following day was dedicated to sheer laziness. I slept in, read a book by the beach, and generally just lounged. I'm always keeping myself busy, and as much as I love adventuring and socializing, it's also great to set aside a day to just relax.
Once again, the sunset didn't disappoint. My day of relaxation was successful!
After my day of relaxation, Justin booked us a whale watching excursion from Los Cristianos. Naturally, we chose to set sail on the pirate ship! Arrrr, mateys!
Due to some insane traffic near the port, we ended up missing the intended departure. Luckily, Justin was able to call and reschedule us onto a later departure. So we relaxed by the beach for a while before heading out to whale watch.
Here's a shot of a competitor's boat, this one themed like a viking ship.
I was feeling pretty confident about my Spanish, but this was a humbling experience. In an attempt to simply order two beers, I somehow blundered and ordered a sangria. In an attempt to correct that mistake, I somehow ordered a nonalcoholic San Miguel. Finally, the third try was the charm and I managed to get us both a couple of beers! I think my bad Spanish was partly at fault, but I do think the waitress was partly at fault here as well.

With that, our time in the Canary Islands was virtually over. We made our way back up north, and stayed at a lovely little art hostel. At this point, Justin was starting to come down with a nasty cold and the energy was kind of low. So the night was a bit uneventful, and the next day we caught a flight to Madrid.

Me and Justin were mostly relaxing in Madrid, and playing board games. The following afternoon, I went out walking around town to do some sightseeing. It was rather uneventful, but I did catch this cool photo along the way.
For my only night in Madrid, I got the opportunity to cross an item off my bucket list: watching a futbol game in Spain. This was Getafe vs. Real Sociedad. The home team lost, but that was okay because I had no stake in either team. And we ended up scoring the ticket resale lottery, with front row seats!
Lastly, I didn't do the best capturing food that I ate along the way. But here's some of the foods from the Canary Islands. As you can imagine, it was all delicious. On the top we have some tapas from a few restaurants, and in the bottom left is some grilled octopus I enjoyed. The photo on the bottom right is a barraquito, a local coffee with a few types of milk, rum and a slice of lemon. It was really sweet, and absolutely delicious!
As is tradition, me and Justin went out for Korean BBQ. The presentation of this restaurant was really unique, bringing out slices of beef on this faux coat hangers. Delicious!