CAPE VERDE · ATLANTIC
Ten islands, no two the same.
Beach days on Sal and Boa Vista, dune buggies and turtle nights, the volcano on Fogo, live morna in Mindelo and the green trails of Santo Antão. Tours and day trips across all ten islands.
Only in Cape Verde
Three days you won’t find on another island.
Beach time and boat trips you can get on any island in the Atlantic. The sharks, the turtles and the desert you cannot. Plan the rest of Cape Verde around these three.
Santa Maria, Sal
Wade out to the lemon sharks
At Shark Bay off Santa Maria the Atlantic stays so shallow you can walk straight in and stand among baby lemon sharks as they circle your legs. No cage, no boat, no dive ticket. Most mornings fold in the Pedra de Lume salt crater and the Blue Eye grotto on the same run.
- 1 Sal Island: Shark Bay Shark Watching Experience from Santa Maria
- 2 Lemon Shark Experience from Sal
- 3 Sal Island, Salinas, Buracona and lemon shark
Boa Vista & Sal
Stand over a nesting loggerhead
Cape Verde guards one of the largest loggerhead nesting grounds on the planet. On a guided night walk a turtle hauls up the dark sand and lays an arm’s length from your feet, and later in the season the hatchlings break out and race for the surf.
- 1 Santa Maria: Sea Turtle Watching Experience on Sal Island
- 2 Santa Maria: Sal Island Sea Turtle Watching Experience
- 3 Boavista: Turtle, Shark, Santa Monica, Sandboard & Tasting
Sal & Boa Vista
Drive a desert in the Atlantic
Sand blown five hundred kilometres off the Sahara has built real dunes on Sal and Boa Vista. Buggies and quads tear across the Viana desert and the salt flats to rusting shipwrecks and beaches no road reaches. A corner of mainland Africa, dropped mid-ocean.
- 1 4h SSV Buggy Island Adventure – 1000cc or 500cc
- 2 2h SSV Buggy Desert Adventure – 1000cc or 500cc
- 3 Sal Island: 2-Hour Buggy Desert Adventure
Start on Sal
The day everyone books first.
One guide, one island, the best of Sal in a single day. If you do just one tour in Cape Verde, this is the one most travellers pick.
The classics
Cape Verde’s Most Popular Tours
The salt crater, Shark Bay, turtle nights and desert buggies. The days travellers fly in for.
By island
Pick an island.
Each one is its own country. Sal for the beaches and the salt. Boa Vista for the dunes and the turtles. Santiago for the markets and the mountains. São Vicente for the music. Santo Antão for the trails. Fogo for the volcano.
By tour type
Or pick how you want to spend it.
A catamaran if you want the open Atlantic. A buggy if you want the dunes. Snorkelling, turtle watches, island highlights, volcano climbs and the rest.
Beyond the beaches
Cape Verde isn’t only sand.
A short hop from the beach islands the land turns vertical. Santo Antão drops emerald ribeiras straight into the Atlantic, terraced with sugar cane and laced with cliff-edge footpaths. On Fogo, an active volcano rises over vineyards planted inside its own crater.
See the hikes & the volcano →Out on the water
A day on the Atlantic.
Flat decks, swim stops over the reef and turtles surfacing off Santa Maria, most of them half a day. The three catamaran cruises we’d sail first.
Under the surface
Mask, fins, warm Atlantic.
Volcanic reefs, old wrecks and green turtles a few fin-kicks off the beach. If you only get in the water once, make it one of these three.
The other Cape Verde
Markets, music and mountains.
Santiago’s African markets and street art, Mindelo’s morna bars, the old colonial lanes of Cidade Velha. Three days that trade the beach for the culture.
Time it right
When to go.
Cape Verde stays warm and dry almost the whole year. A handful of things are worth timing your trip around.
Just added