Before embarking on this trip we both tried to find motorhome specific information about Fuerteventura and quickly realised there isn’t a great deal. This is possibly because it costs so much to get from Europe to the canaries that nobody really bothers.

Having spent 10 days motorhoming around the island I hope the following is useful to anyone considering it, I’d also recommend it, I’ve never been anywhere quite like it.

CHEMICAL TOILET DISPOSAL

Lets start with the thing everyone wants to know, how do I get rid of the chemical waste. Unfortunately this Island isn’t really geared up for this aspect of motorhoming. I should imagine the caravan club would be horrified at the few official facilities, we found 3 locations which I will list and describe below.

Corralejo – GPS Co-Ordinates N 28 degrees 42.728′ W013 degrees 52.465′

You can empty both chemical waste and grey water here, there is no water to fill up your tanks, the entrance had a barrier that always appears to be open, look for a painted blue concrete square, drive onto it, empty your grey water and pour your chemical down the obvious sewer inlet, there is room to empty 2 motorhomes at once, there was never a queue.

Improve the experience by bringing food to feed the squirrels.

Near the airport – N 28 degrees25.289′ W013 degrees51.917′

This is a Disa petrol station heading away from Peurto del Rosario, pull up opposite the car wash lanes in front of the small motorhome disposal sign, head into the garage and inform the attendant you want to empty your chemical toilet, this is the phrase in Spanish.

Me gustaria vaciar mi inodoro quimico (courtesy of google)

You will either be given the pole to lift the manhole cover yourself or the attendant will do it, it’s a direct link to the sewer, pretty grim and loads of opportunity to get splashed by your own waste, there is a toilet and hand washing facilities inside the garage, you’ll probably need them. If you decide to wash your van for 1 euro you can also empty your grey water (unofficially).

You can fill up with water here too, 1 euro a go…

Tarajalejo – N 28 degrees 11.535′ W014 degrees 07.079′

These co-ordinates will take you to some rough ground that looks to be being used as a car park right by the beach, park up, take out your cassette and walk back up the street you came down until you come to a number of bins on your left, look carefully just before where the first bin starts and you’ll see a square wooden cover, lift that and you have access to the sewer and this is the official disposal site, there are no hand washing facilities but less opportunity for splash backs, I’d still wear disposable gloves.

GREY WATER

The only official place we found is mentioned above in Corralejo. The owners of the motorhome we rented advised pulling onto waste ground and emptying the tank as it’s only dirty water, we did this a couple of times, didn’t feel great about it but there were no other options, the car wash is a good way to get rid if you’d rather the water went into a proper drain, there are lots of car washes and I didn’t figure this out till the last day.

FRESH WATER

Most garages you visit have fresh water for motorhomes, some charge, some don’t, the most we ever paid was 2 euros. If it’s not immediately obvious where the water hose is, ask. Sometimes the water hose is hidden away and attached to a meter so they can measure how much you have used and charge accordingly, others you need to buy a token, usually 1 euro. We found it useful to have a couple of extra water containers to fill up so you don’t use the onboard water supply for washing up or sterilising bottle, more water for showers 🙂

CAMPING

There are no campsites on the island so you are wild camping for your stay. There are various places you can stop, we stuck to either car parks on the beach or firm rough ground near the beach, we had no-one banging on our doors and made sure we left no trace of our visit. We also headed out before midday (most of the time) so we didn’t get blocked in or cursed for taking up loads of space. The worst place we parked was in a town called Gran Tarajal, it was the spar car park and at around 22.00 about 20 vehicles turned up revving engines and blaring out tunes, we moved to a quieter location on a dirt road just away from the car park, problem solved. As there are no campsites there is nowhere to plug in for electricity so you are relying on the leisure battery in your vehicle. If you hire a vehicle for your stay it will most likely have solar which works very well, there is also usually a 240v inverter installed. In stationary use this will drain the leisure battery but if you use it while driving the alternator keeps a charge going into the battery as well as the solar. You can charge phones, tablets and go pros off the 12v leisure battery without an issue, I used the inverter to charge my drone batteries.

HIRING A MOTORHOME

Lolly took care of this bit but it’s no different to hiring a villa or hotel room, there are a number of companies on the island that will rent you a classic v dub camper, a T4 or a full blown whale like we did rented through trip advisor. Check how much they charge you if you don’t return the vehicle cleaned, it varies, some charge you 40 euros, some charge you 100 euros. We paid a 300 euro deposit on arrival and spent the last morning of our trip frantically cleaning the van, we got all our deposit back but if we hadn’t of cleaned the motorhome it would have cost 100 euro. They usually insist all the grey a black water is emptied, you can do all of this at the DISA near the airport, if you don’t it’s another 50 euro charge, check the small print.

WIND

It really is windy, when finding a place to spend the night take into account what the wind is up to and if possible find somewhere sheltered, while it’s nice to open your door to the beach, for a good nights sleep it’s sometimes better to park with your windscreen facing the beach, trust me, the wind keeps you up. Also if you have a drone keep an eye on it, I have a DJI Spark and only took it out when it wasn’t “that” windy, I didn’t lose it, bonus….

SATNAV

If you have a satnav that covers the island make sure it is up to date, there are new major roads and these didn’t show up on my satnav which I last updated about 3 years ago.

All of the above is correct at the time of writing and based on our personal experience, we hope you find it useful.