The straightforward, boring truth: Tenerife is always one hour ahead of the UK. Always. See? That’s it. You can relax. Your 3 PM crisis in Bristol will be a slightly warmer 4 PM crisis in Playa de las Américas. One hour — the same gap between you hitting snooze and actually getting out of bed.
But wait, there’s a plot twist. The UK plays a silly little game called Daylight Saving Time (BST), where we pretend an hour exists, then take it away in autumn to make us all miserable. Tenerife, being a sensible Canary Island, does not play that game. When the clocks go forward in March in the UK, Tenerife stays put. When they go back in October? Tenerife just shrugs and stays put again.
So from late October to late March, Tenerife is on Western European Time (WET), which is the same as GMT. You British lot are on GMT too. Zero difference. But from late March to late October, the UK is on BST (GMT+1), and Tenerife is still on WET. Suddenly, Tenerife is one hour ahead. It’s like the island is smarter than the whole of the UK. It probably is — it has better weather and better bananas.
