Set your time zone manually when in the Canary Islands

On a recent vacation to the Canary Islands, I decided to book a romantic evening at a sea side restaurant for my wife and I.

Dutifully, with plenty of time to spare, we leisurely strolled along the beach and arrived at this restaurant.

But, on first glance it was quite empty. Too empty for a restaurant on a summers evening. When I asked to be seated, they told me they were closed and the table wasn’t for another hour.

Then it hit me, my phone and computer had switched to Spanish time - not Canarian time.

You see, the time in Spain is 1 hour ahead of the UK. But, the Canary Islands operates on the same time zone as the UK.

The iPhone, trying to be the clever stick it is, helpfully changes your time zone to a Spanish time zone. I imagine because the canaries are spanish, and so when pinging time.apple.com, it says “you’re in Spain!”.

So this is a small reminder, to both my future self and any other travellers, to manually change your timezone. Bon appétit