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Despite its predictably sunny weather and the wide variety of landscapes that attract millions of tourists every year, Tenerife has a bit of an image problem, thanks largely to the attentions of the package tourism industry. As a result the entire island is commonly, though rather mistakenly, assumed to be just a playground for the hordes of rowdy, booze-fuelled holiday-makers looking for sun, sea and often sex in the island's large resorts, particularly Playa de las Americas. And though most visitors largely content themselves with lazy days on the beach, there are plenty of opportunities to be more active and go surfing, windsurfing, sailing, diving or deep-sea fishing. Tenerife first established itself as a holiday destination over a century ago when it became a fashionable place for the aristocracy of Europe to spend the winter months. Since then, but particularly in the last fifty years, during which time mass-tourism has become a major global industry, the numbers of holiday-makers have vastly increased. Today the island gets over four million annual visitors who, together with the thousands of northern Europeans settling here, have significantly changed the personality of the island. Though commonly viewed by independent travellers as an aesthetic and social curse that has distorted the cultural landscape and cloaked vast areas in concrete, mass tourism has also guaranteed plentiful and excellent services in the resorts towns and cheap flights to the island. And if the resort honey-pots aren't to your taste, you'll find that it's easy to leave the mass of holiday-makers behind. Despite the compactness of the island that puts most areas of the island within an easy day trip of its resorts you won't find many other foreigners in the island's vibrant, unpretentious and distinctly Canarian urban centres and only a small stream of hikers in its mountainous regions . Here it's easy to find great quiet hiking trails , a couple of good climbing areas , as well as some quiet (though hilly) backroads and dirt roads for cycling and mountain biking . And for those wanting to get even further from the humdrum, there's the option of heading out to hike or bike on the strikingly precipitous and laid-back nearby island of La Gomera .
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