El Jablillo or La Garita: which Lanzarote beach wins
Published 2026-09-23. Conditions described are typical and never guaranteed.
The verdict up front
These two beaches solve the same problem in two different places, so the honest answer is not one winner but a fork in the road. If you are staying in or near Costa Teguise and you want the calmest, clearest little swim you can find on the east coast, go to El Jablillo Beach. It is a small reef lagoon built for paddling children and first time snorkellers, with the resort promenade a few steps behind for a cold drink. If you want more room to spread out, a longer stretch of soft golden sand, a formal set of family facilities and a proper seafood lunch on a working fishing seafront, drive north to La Garita Beach in Arrieta. It is a Blue Flag bay with a play area and almost a kilometre of sand, which is a rare thing on this wilder northern coast.
Put simply: El Jablillo is the calmer, more sheltered swim and the better snorkel, but it is tiny and it fills fast. La Garita is the bigger, better equipped day out with the better food behind it, and it is still gentle enough for young children. Neither is a wild beach, and neither is a party beach. They are both quiet, family leaning swims, which is exactly why choosing between them comes down to what kind of day you actually want.
Who each beach is really for
El Jablillo suits families with young children and gentle snorkellers who prize calm water above everything else. A reef and a breakwater shelter the bay into a shallow lagoon that stays clear and gentle when the more open beaches nearby turn breezy, so it is a reassuring place to let small children paddle and to try a mask and snorkel for the first time. Do not expect a dramatic reef, but on a settled day there is enough life in the shallows to keep beginners happy. The trade off is size: this is a small pocket of sand, and it does not take many towels to feel full.
La Garita suits families and easy swimmers who want space, structure and a good meal at the end of the morning. The bay is sheltered from the prevailing wind and shelves gently, so it is calm and easy for paddling and for a relaxed snorkel, and it carries a European Blue Flag for its standards. What sets it apart on this coast is the run of real facilities: showers, dressing rooms, toilets and a children's play area, with a promenade of cafes and shops behind. It is a properly equipped family beach in a stretch of the island that is mostly raw and undeveloped.
Sand and space
This is the clearest split between them. El Jablillo is a small pocket of soft golden sand backed by the Costa Teguise promenade, compact and very easy to reach, but modest in scale. On a summer weekend the sand fills quickly, and once it is busy there is simply nowhere else to go, because the beach is defined by its little sheltered cove. Arriving earlier in the day is the honest fix, and out of peak times it is much quieter.
La Garita gives you almost a kilometre of fine golden sand set against a mountain backdrop, so even on a bright day there is far more room to claim a patch and stretch out. The sand is soft and easy underfoot, which children like, and the scale means the beach absorbs a crowd in a way El Jablillo cannot. If your idea of a good beach day includes space to walk, throw a ball and pick your own spot away from other groups, La Garita wins this category outright.
Water and swimming
Both beaches are genuinely calm, which is why they draw the same kind of visitor, but the character differs. El Jablillo is the more enclosed of the two. The reef and breakwater turn it into an almost still lagoon, gentle and clear, which is why it earns its reputation as one of the best family swims on the east coast and the better spot for a beginner snorkel. La Garita is protected from the prevailing wind and gently shelving, usually calm and good for paddling, snorkelling and poking about in rock pools, with a little more sense of open bay around it.
A word that applies equally to both: lifeguard cover varies by season and the hours are to be confirmed, so conditions are typical rather than guaranteed. Read the water on the day, check any flags, and keep children within reach whichever beach you choose. Calm is the norm at both, but it is never a promise.
Short version: El Jablillo for the stillest, clearest snorkel in a small lagoon. La Garita for a calm, gently shelving swim with far more room around it.
Facilities and the food question
El Jablillo keeps things simple and close. You get showers, sunbeds and, crucially, the cafes, shops and restaurants of Costa Teguise strung along the promenade directly behind the sand, so a drink or a snack is never more than a short walk away. It is convenient rather than characterful, and that suits a resort based family who want the swim and the amenities in one tidy package.
La Garita answers the food question with more personality. Arrieta is a working fishing village, so seafood is the whole point. A short promenade behind the beach holds casual cafes and restaurants, and the village is known for fresh fish and for the famous Casa de la Playa, the blue and white house down on the sand. The move is to order the catch of the day with papas arrugadas and mojo, then walk it off along the bay. On facilities alone La Garita also edges ahead thanks to the dressing rooms, toilets and the play area, a fuller kit than El Jablillo offers.
Crowds, access and the practical stuff
El Jablillo is easy if you are already in Costa Teguise, and that is its natural catchment. The flip side of being small, calm and popular with families is that it gets busy fast in high season, so plan around the morning. La Garita sits up in Arrieta on the northeast coast, in the municipality of Haria, roughly twenty five minutes by car from Costa Teguise and about thirty five from Arrecife and the airport. It is an easy run up the eastern coast road, with parking near the seafront, though the closest spaces fill on bright summer weekends, so again the earlier you arrive the better.
Seasons line up closely. El Jablillo reads best from April to October, La Garita from May to October, both warm and bright with the calmest water across the long summer. If you are still fixing dates, our guide to timing a Lanzarote trip is worth a look, and families building a wider itinerary will find more calm water ideas on the island family beaches page.
The situations that flip the answer
Here is where the tidy verdict bends. Choose El Jablillo over La Garita when your children are very young, when a first snorkel is on the agenda, or when the wind is up and you want the most sheltered water you can find close to a resort base. Its enclosed lagoon is hard to beat for pure calm, and you do not have to drive across the island to reach it.
Choose La Garita over El Jablillo when space matters, when you want a real lunch to anchor the day, or when El Jablillo is likely to be packed and you would rather not fight for a towel sized patch. On a busy August weekend the extra room and the fuller facilities at La Garita can quietly make it the better family day, even if El Jablillo has the marginally calmer swim.
And if it turns out neither quite fits the mood, the surrounding coast gives you options. The island's windsurf headquarters at Las Cucharas Beach sits right beside El Jablillo for watersports and a livelier front, the calm Blue Flag city beach of El Reducto Beach pairs a gentle swim with the tapas of Arrecife, and for something wild and cinematic the vast surf sweep of Famara Beach is a different island entirely, best treated with respect in the water. If you cannot decide between the two calm coves, our El Jablillo against El Reducto comparison and the El Jablillo against Famara head to head both help you triangulate.
So which one
If we had to send one reader to one beach with no other information, families with the youngest children and anyone chasing the clearest, calmest snorkel go to El Jablillo, and everyone who wants space, a play area and a fishing village seafood lunch goes to La Garita. Both are honest, gentle, free to enter beaches that reward an early start, and the good news is they sit close enough to the same coast that a keen family could reasonably sample both across a couple of days.
Turn a beach day into a club day
Want loungers, service and somewhere to settle in beyond the public sand? Browse the Lanzarote beach club listings to see what is available near Costa Teguise and along the coast, and enquire about booking a club day around your visit. For the wider picture of the island's shores, start from the Lanzarote beach hub and plan from there.