Any Tenerife experts around? Off the beaten track....

[Gloriously]

any suggestions? Never been, we like exploring, walking and eating in simple but quality local restaurants.

Where should we visit for day trips and where should we base ourselves?

I'm not going to be a lot of help as it's 40 years since I went there 😁. However I have great memories of exploring the caldera around Mount Teide and going up the volcano to the top (cable car most of the way, but the short walk to the summit was hard work as it is so high the air is thin.)
We stayed on the North coast which is lush and green. We didn't like the arid south so much.

The wild plants are really fascinating. Lots of euphorbia, echiums and look out for the amazing dragon trees.

Los Gigantes? And a day trip to La Gomera.

Have a look at Garachico and the surrounding area.

We stayed in La Orotava in a lovely old hotel.
We hired a car and drove around a lot.
We went to visit a friend who was a native who had returned and we really liked the island.
It was nothing like the Brit's abroad I'd been expecting.

Can echo the views of others here - Tenerife absolutely surpassed my expectations! Agree to base yourself on the north coast, it is far more beautiful than the dry, ugly, touristy south coast. We stayed in a gorgeous villa in Santa Ursula just outside of Puerto de la Cruz. Absolute must-sees:-

Mount Teide
Anaga Mountains
Masca
The cliffs of Los Gigantes
Punta del Hidalgo
Las Teresitas (one of the only white sand beaches on the island)

Keep an eye out for the brown 'Mirador' (viewpoint) signs on your road trips.

The food was pretty much amazing every single time we ate out, can highly recommend La Jola de Jorge Bosch, it was mindblowingly good!

The weather in the North can be significantly different from the weather in the south - it can be baking hot beach weather south and windy jumper weather in the North.

The super touristy hen party bits are Playa de Las Americas and the beaches around there but they're also the nicest beaches during the day.

We usually stay in Costa Adeje, it's NICE but close enough to the touristy bits to get to good beaches.

Hire a car.

Take a jumper (or two) if you go up the cable car on the volcano it's much much colder than you can imagine.

Don't do all inclusive or eat dinner in the hotel. There are tons of lovely restaurants and the food is much much nicer outside of hotels.

Have a great time!

We stayed at a finca near Icod los Vinos in the north, it was beautiful. Hire a small car to get around. The roads are steep and narrow, but fine. The tourists in the north tend to be walking/swimming/sightseeing and it’s a wonderful place to stay but far cooler than the west/south- but that suited us. I haven’t got any further recommendations except the underground geological trip in the north which was fascinating.

Long time since I've been but there's a beautiful swimming lagoon at Los Gigantes that's sort of half in a cave. It has a nice lively harbour and the whale/dolphin watching trips from that part of the coast were wonderful. Hire a car and visit The Loro Parque

Here now, we are staying at hotel catalonia punta del ray Las caletillas, we regularly walk to candelaria which has absolutely beautiful local restaurants and a huge cathedral with lots of history, there are many many trips of the beaten track around here including Mount teide. There is only one hotel here so not touristy at all it is full of locals. If we do have a bad day we tend to stop in the hotel which has an amazing animation team but that has only been one day of the holiday this time

This is brilliant - thanks so much - love the enthusiasm. Love the idea of a day trip to La Gomera as always wanted to go there.

Any fav restaurants recommendations would be appreciated.

We are going in 2 weeks, staying on costa adeje. No beach exactly but a ladder into the sea where we are staying which suits me as I don't like sand!

We'll rent a car a couple of days and explore the island. But we wanted to be able to chill out too, ai is just easy though I choose places with multiple restaurants for variety (our hotel has 6)

As well as La Bola de Jorge Bosch, we had fantastic food at:-

Vinoteca Con Pasion in Puerto de la Cruz
La Nueva Cazuela in Santa Cruz
Al Contrario in Puerto de la Cruz
Restaurante la Cabana in Buenavista del Norte
Brunelli's Steakhouse in Puerto de la Cruz

Sorry that should be La Cazuela in Puerto de la Cruz not Santa Cruz!

go north, stay away from the overdeveloped south

you can base yourself in puerto de la cruz or santa cruz, both brilliant to explore

i never get a car and only use public transport to go everywhere, it's getting busier these days, but i still managed to get almost anywhere i wanted

do mountain trips, both in teide park and in anaga, completely different but amazing experiences

explore laguna, orotava, icod etc and plenty other smaller villages with an authentic feel

give a miss to anything over touristy (siam park, loro etc), also avoid restaurants & bars with english menus outside, just go for the local ones, i've had good food everywhere that way