El Jablillo or Famara: which Lanzarote beach wins
Published 2026-09-09. Conditions described are typical and never guaranteed.
Here is the short answer, because you deserve it before the scrolling starts. If you are travelling with small children, want a gentle snorkel, or simply want to get in the sea without a single anxious thought about currents, choose El Jablillo Beach in Costa Teguise. If you are a surfer, a walker, or someone who measures a beach by drama rather than ease, choose Famara Beach under its towering cliffs. These two shores are not competing for the same visitor. One is a sheltered reef lagoon built for calm. The other is a vast open Atlantic sweep built for wind, swell and space. Pick the one that matches how you actually want to spend the day, not the one with the better photograph, because Famara wins every photo and that is precisely the trap.
The two beaches in one breath
El Jablillo is small, protected and easy. A reef and a breakwater shelter the bay into a calm shallow lagoon, and a promenade of cafes and shops runs directly behind the sand. You can arrive, drop your bag, and be paddling within minutes. Famara is the opposite proposition in almost every way: six kilometres of golden sand that empties out at low tide into an enormous flat shore, backed by cliffs, fronted by real ocean, with the village of La Caleta de Famara behind it for lunch and a surf lesson. One is a swim. The other is an experience you respect from the edge as much as from the water.
So the honest framing is not which beach is better. It is which beach is right for the person reading this, on the day they are reading it. Let me contrast the things that actually decide it.
Sand and setting
Both beaches are golden, and there the resemblance ends. El Jablillo is a compact pocket of soft golden sand, easy to reach and easy to leave, with the full comfort of Costa Teguise at your back. It is a beach you use rather than one you explore. That smallness is its great strength and its one real weakness, which I will come back to.
Famara is scale you can walk into. When the tide drops, the shore opens out into a vast flat expanse that seems to go on until the cliffs stop it, and the wide low tide shore towards the village is the classic stretch for the views. If you love wide open space, big skies and the sense of standing somewhere genuinely wild, nothing on the sheltered east coast comes close. But there is little shade here, so the same openness that thrills you at ten in the morning can wear you down by three in the afternoon. Bring cover.
The water is where the decision is made
This is the heart of it. El Jablillo's reef and breakwater keep the lagoon calm, shallow and clear, which is why it is one of the best family swims on the east coast and a kind place to try snorkelling for the first time. The entry is gentle, the water stays settled when the open beaches are breezy, and children can paddle where you can keep them within reach. Do not expect a dramatic reef when you put your face in the water, but on a settled day there is enough to enjoy in the shallows. As ever, lifeguard cover varies by season and conditions are typical rather than guaranteed, so read the water and watch children yourself.
Famara faces the open Atlantic, and that means real swell and real rip currents. It is a surf and kitesurf beach, not an easy family swim, and the honest guidance is to treat the water as unpatrolled and to respect the currents at all times. You can paddle and swim with great care on a calm day, but the strong currents make it unsuitable for weak swimmers and for small children left alone. If your holiday hinges on relaxed daily dips, Famara will frustrate you. If you have come to surf, or to learn, this is the island's main surf beach and the swell is the whole point.
The simplest test: if the plan is to get in the sea and stay in, choose the lagoon. If the plan is to be near the sea, on it, or in awe of it, choose the cliffs.
Facilities and food
El Jablillo has good facilities close at hand. Showers and sunbeds sit by the sand, and the cafes, shops and restaurants of Costa Teguise line the promenade behind it, so a drink or a meal is never more than a short stroll. It is a low friction day, which is exactly what tired parents want.
Famara keeps its comforts in the village. La Caleta de Famara has bars, fish restaurants, surf schools and shops, and the well regarded El Risco is among the spots for fresh catch and a long lunch. Parking is on the streets in and around the village, free but limited, so it fills on bright weekends and through the surf season. Arrive earlier for an easier space and walk the short distance onto the sand. On the beach itself, remember there is little shade, so plan for that rather than assume you can buy your way out of the sun.
Crowds and rhythm
El Jablillo is popular precisely because it is calm, and because it is small it fills quickly on summer weekends and through the high season. Arriving earlier in the day genuinely helps you claim a patch of sand. Out of peak times it is much quieter, and the sheltered lagoon stays gentle whatever the crowd. If you hate a busy beach, treat this one as a morning proposition in July and August.
Famara absorbs people far better because it is enormous. Even on a busy day the sheer length of sand means you can walk to your own patch of quiet. The constraint here is parking rather than the beach itself. So the crowd equation flips: at El Jablillo the sand runs out before the day does, while at Famara the spaces run out before the sand does.
When the other one wins
I promised specifics, so here they are. The surfer or kitesurfer should choose Famara without hesitation, and beginners do best on the gentler days and in a lesson, with schools based in the village. The walker who wants a long, wind blown march along a wild shore should choose Famara too. And anyone chasing the island at its most cinematic, cliffs and space and weather rolling in off the Atlantic, will find El Jablillo far too tame.
Now the reverse. Families with young children, nervous swimmers and first time snorkellers should choose El Jablillo, and it is not close. Anyone who wants the sea and a coffee within the same fifty metres will prefer it. And on a big swell day, when Famara is all foam and warning, El Jablillo may be the only comfortable swim of the two by a wide margin. The weather is the switch. A calm, light wind morning narrows the gap. A day of Atlantic swell or brisk wind widens it dramatically in the lagoon's favour for swimmers, and in Famara's favour for surfers.
If neither quite fits
Costa Teguise gives you a natural plan B a few steps from El Jablillo. The island's windsurf headquarters, Las Cucharas Beach, is bigger and breezier, so families wanting more room and watersports fans can try both bays on the same day. For a calm golden bay with a Blue Flag and a seafood village behind it in the quieter north, La Garita Beach pairs family friendly water with real facilities and a play area. And if you want a calm swim wrapped around a city day of tapas, the capital's El Reducto Beach is a sheltered, shallow Blue Flag option close to the airport. We compare that one directly with the lagoon in our guide on El Jablillo or El Reducto if the two calm choices are your real shortlist.
For more on the wider island, our Lanzarote beach hub lays out the coast by mood, the family friendly shortlist is worth a look if children are the deciding factor, and the season guide will tell you when the wind and swell are likely to tip the balance one way or the other.
The verdict, one more time
El Jablillo is the calm, easy, family swim. Famara is the wild, dramatic surf and walking beach. Neither is overrated, but Famara is the one most often chosen for the wrong reasons, so be honest with yourself: if you cannot swim there in comfort, its beauty will not fix your holiday. Match the beach to your day and both of these deliver exactly what they promise.
Fancy a beach club day in Lanzarote
If a lounger, a pool and table service sound like the right way to round off your trip, browse the Lanzarote beach clubs page to see the venues and enquire about a club day that suits your group.