Public transport and intercity buses
If you don't have a rental car, you can get around the city and the entire island easily by public bus.
Yellow Guaguas - Innercity Busses
The yellow buses (Guaguas – pronounced Wawas) operate in the city of Las Palmas.
The lines 1 and 12 will probably be the lines you may use mostly. They bring you to e.g. to the Av. José Mesa y López (Shopping ares with the main El Corte Inglés warehouse), and further down all the way to the San Telmo central bus station and the old town of Las Palmas (Triana, Vegueta, Teatro, Cathedral, Plaza Major, Museo Casa de Colón). The stop for lines 1 and 12 is on the left-hand side, directly behind the Mercado. The line 12 is faster than the line 1.
To use the yellow buses, you can buy tickets from the bus driver when you board. It is more economical if you buy a chip card (for example, at the ticket office in Parque de Santa Catalina). The card can be loaded (and reloaded) with €10 or more and presented to the electronic card reader when boarding.
Download the very intuitive app to help get around Las Palmas:
> Moovit (orange icon with white center and smiley face) for timetables and bus lines in general.
Global Blue - Intercity Busses
The blue intercity buses (Global) will take you to almost any location on the island. Some of the blue buses depart from the Santa Catalina bus station (Estación de Guaguas), which is a 10-minute walk from the apartment, and all of them depart from the San Telmo bus station. San Telmo can be reached by yellow buses 12 and 1.
For the blue buses, you can also buy single tickets from the bus driver on the bus. A trip on the blue bus from Las Palmas to Maspalomas costs around €6.50 and takes just under an hour. Places such as Arucas, Agaete, Teror, and Telde are also easy and quick to reach with the blue buses.
Download the very intuitive apps to help get around Gran Canaria:
> Global (turquoise icon with global in white and orange) for the island-wide buses