Back when we began traveling, we grabbed the opportunity of enjoying luxury travel with our loved ones. We didn’t plan to and it all began because we needed a vacation after a year of planning our full-time travel, our wedding, selling the house, etc. Anywhere would do!
Gran Canaria
Gran Canaria absolutely is a Spanish tourist island, but as I mentioned, we really needed a getaway. So we made a Skyscanner search and ended up with Gran Canaria.
Skyscanner is a great way to find cheap flights and hotels (In our opinion the best) especially if you want to travel right away. This time we felt brave and even booked an unspecified hotel, so we had no idea what part of the island we would end up on or at what kind of hotel.
Most often you end up at a great hotel when booking like that, because you get what’s available on the day of your travel. Of course, cheap and middle priced hotels are booked first by regular people (like us) going on vacation, so what’s left are the better accommodations. When that’s said you can risk that a “crappy” hotel is what you get, but the chances are rather low.
We were told that our hotel would be Dolores in the south of Gran Canaria (the best part). It turned out that it was an adult-only hotel with a pool right outside the door and a 10-minutes walk to the beach. Absolutely perfect. As I said, most often unspecified hotels are great.
Anfi Group
One of the first days we were taking a stroll on the boardwalk and were stopped by a woman with a clipboard and some scratch cards. Since I’ve been working in sales for ages (me, Eva) I knew she was all about sales, but what the heck, we had the time to listen to her.
We each were handed a scratch card and I won a tablet and a special tour for us somewhere on the island. All we had to do was be ready the next morning and a driver would pick us up. It sounded both exciting extravagant, and fishy, but we said yes to the adventure.
We did a little research and found out, that this Anfi Group who offered us the tour was in fact a Timeshare Company founded in 1988. Even though we knew we wouldn’t buy a timeshare apartment, we decided to play along. After all, only invited people get the tour.
What a tour!
First the driver was driving us to a beautiful area and there we were met by a Danish-speaking guide, who drove us around in a golf cart, showing us amazing hotels, relaxation areas and golf courses. Even though we knew it was a sales-tour it was amazing!
At last we sat down and had coffee while we listened to the timeshare offer but we also got an offer that we actually said yes to. Two weeks for 6 people at one of the luxury hotels. With the possibility to split it into 2x one week for 6 people in each week. Perfect for inviting our children in one week and Malthe’s parents and my best friend in the other. We’d never done a thing like that before, but they all deserved something special.
Try luxury travel if you can
A few months after we’d begun our life as full-time travelers, we parked our Hymer in Seville airport and went to Gran Canaria to meet Malthe’s parents and my best friend Maja. (On that note I have to mention the app Aena that’ll give you great deals on parking and much more in any Spanish airport. Check it out).
The picture is from the hostel where we met up. Even though it had just been a few months, it was great to see each other again.
If you ever get the chance to do something like this do it! Being treated like royalty just once in your life is something everyone should try and the Anfi hotel Tauro had all we could wish for.
The apartment itself was big and luxurious with a full kitchen two bathrooms and a huge balcony. We were told to try out the beds when we arrived and decide if they were too hard or too soft. After that they brought us mattresses that were exactly what we liked the most. That was the standard for the rest of the vacation. Pure luxury.
Lots of activities
We also had a wide range of activities to choose from. Everything from shooting and massages to water aerobics and bike rides in the mountains.
They even had Bingo and we joined a few times when we found out that the prices were champagne (we won 3 bottles in fact).
Three birthdays
Malthe and his parents have birthdays with two days apart, so we had 3 birthdays to celebrate while being at the hotel.
Malthe always bakes his special birthday-buns, but even though I said we had a full kitchen the oven wasn’t sufficient for his needs. He then made a deal with the chef at the restaurant trading the recipe for use of his oven. A win-win for all of us.
Two out of three birthday dinners were eaten at an amazing steak restaurant called Papi’s which we’ve also written about right here.
We’re not playing golf but…
Anfi has a golf course that’s well-known in the golf world, for several reasons. This golf course lets golf players combine golf and luxury travel.
First of all they’ve invented a type of grass that can be watered with saltwater from the ocean and they have 200 gardeners taking care of the course.
Secondly they literally move the holes each day to keep the course interesting for the players. The gardeners close some holes and open new ones each morning
Thirdly there’s an expensive car parked at the course and whoever does a hole-in-one at the hole beside it, wins the car.
Extravagant right?
Luxury included
Not only are the views at Anfi amazing, the pool areas beautiful and the whole hotel luxurious, but it doesn’t stop there. Included in our stay was a boat trip to a private island with a beach only for hotel guests!
As I started by telling we’ve never done anything like this before and we’ll probably never get the opportunity again, but trying it was really special.
Not that we’ll ever trade traveling like that with our life in the RV. We’re 100% down-to-earth and regular people, so our old Hymer is what feels right for us.
It sure was great fun to feel super extravagant though and if you ever get the chance to do a thing like this, don’t overthink it. Just do it for the adventure.
