After a bit of a stressful first half of 2016, my husband and I had a lovely all-inclusive retreat to the Spanish Canary Island of Lanzarote. The Canaries were new to us both and we had seen a bit of the main four on programmes like ‘A place in the sun’, so although we had a relaxing all-inclusive trip we hired a car with the intention of at least having a bit of an explore and scout for potential home away from home sites. We stayed at Hotel Costa Calero, which is about 20 mins from the airport in Arrecife. The first thing we noticed upon arriving in Lanzarote was how barren and black it was. It was like driving around the moon surface. Lanzarote is a volcanic island and as such most of the terrain is hard and dry and there is not a lot of trees and other flora. The hotel itself was ok, a little worn and tired, but we didn’t plan on getting up to much and it seemed perfectly fine for that purpose. We upgraded to the ‘Prestige’ class, which pays for itself fairly quickly. It i...