Ten islands. Pick yours.
Sal’s salt pans, Boa Vista’s dunes, Mindelo’s music and the long climb up Fogo: what each day out is really like, what it costs, and where to book it.
Seven you can build a week on.
The ones that fill up first: the Blue Eye grotto at Buracona, an afternoon catamaran out of Santa Maria, the 4x4 run across the Viana desert, and the nesting beaches after dark.
Sal: Island Experience Tour with a Certified Local Guide
Guided Sal Island tour with lemon sharks, Blue Eye, and floating in Pedra de Lume salt water, plus ports and desert mirages.
From $41 per person
Read the review →
★ 4.7Books out earlySal: All-Inclusive Salt Lake, Blue Eye and Shark Bay TourFrom $532,033 reviews
★ 5.0The easy yesComplete Excursion and Flight on the Zipline Cabo VerdeFrom $56591 reviews
★ 4.8Locals send you hereSal: All-Inclusive Half-Day Lounge Catamaran CruiseFrom $81486 reviews
★ 4.7Worth the crossingSal Island: Guided Full-Day Highlights Tour with LunchFrom $69414 reviews
★ 5.0Good in any wind4h SSV Buggy Island Adventure – 1000cc or 500ccFrom $237363 reviews
★ 5.0Takes children2h SSV Buggy Desert Adventure – 1000cc or 500ccFrom $127361 reviews
One day covers most of Sal.
The Blue Eye at Buracona only lights up when the sun is overhead, so the good tours time the day around it. Then the salt crater at Pedra de Lume, where the water holds you up like a chair, and lemon sharks patrolling knee-deep water at Shark Bay. Same three stops on every itinerary; the guide is what changes.
Which island do you fly into?
Flights land on Sal, Boa Vista, Santiago and São Vicente, and that one choice sets the rest of the week. Santiago is the green, historic one; Fogo is a flight further and a long walk up. Here is what the other three are actually for.
Salt and shallow water
Sal
36 tours reviewed · from $60
The easiest landing and the busiest sand. Santa Maria’s pier at dawn when the boats come in, the salt crater at Pedra de Lume, lemon sharks in the shallows, and wind from October that brings the kitesurfers. Roughly half the tours in the country leave from here.
See what runs from Sal →
Sand and turtles
Boa Vista
34 tours reviewed · from $70
Sahara sand blows across and piles up into the Viana desert. Add a rusting hull on Santa Mónica beach, eighteen kilometres of empty shore behind it, and the loggerheads that come up the sand between June and October. Quieter island, bigger horizons.
See what runs from Boa Vista →
Music and mountains
São Vicente
16 tours reviewed · from $70
Mindelo is the loudest town in the islands: a colonial harbour, a market that starts at dawn, and morna played properly in the bars off Praça Nova. The Santo Antão ferry leaves early, and the ridge paths on the far side are the best walking in Cabo Verde.
See what runs from Mindelo →
The beaches get busy at night.
Loggerhead turtles come ashore on Sal and Boa Vista from June to October, and the nesting beaches are closed after dark to anyone without a licensed guide. Go with one and you stand back in the dark with no torches while a two-hundred-kilo animal digs for an hour. It is the best thing on the islands and the least photographed.
Most of the country is sea.
Catamarans leave Santa Maria mid-afternoon and come back with the sun behind the island. Reef stops where green turtles feed in four metres of water. Bring a towel; the crew brings everything else.
The interior needs four wheels.
Buggies over the red hills behind Espargos, quads along Boa Vista’s north coast, 4x4s down the acacia tunnel to the shipwreck. Dusty and loud, and the only practical way to reach the empty half of either island.
Santiago keeps the history.
Cidade Velha was the first European town built in the tropics, and the fort still looks down on the ravine where the ships loaded. Inland the land turns green after the rains, the valley paths run past mango and sugar cane to Tarrafal, and every village has a band. This is the Cabo Verde that was here long before the resorts.
Ten islands, nine of them lived on.
Each one is a different country. Sal is flat and salt-white. Boa Vista is half desert. São Vicente is all harbour and music. Santiago goes green in the middle. Fogo is a volcano with a village inside the crater.
Twelve ways to spend a Cabo Verde day.
Wheels, water, or a long walk uphill. Each one opens on every tour of that kind in the islands, priced and rated by the people who went.
The ferry leaves at seven.
Santo Antão is an hour from Mindelo by boat and holds the best ridge walking in the Atlantic. Fogo is a short flight and a very long climb. Both work as a day if you start early, and both are better if you stay the night.
First three days in Cabo Verde.
Whichever island the plane put you on, a good first week has the same shape: settle in, take the long island day while the weather is right, then get out on the water.
Day 1
Walk the town first
A couple of hours with someone local: the fish market, the church square, a plate of catchupa and the word for thank you. Everything after this makes more sense.
Town walks and tastings →
Day 2
The long island day
The full circuit in a 4x4 or a minibus: desert, caves, a village lunch and whatever the island is famous for. Book it for a clear day and the rest of the week can be lazy.
Full island days →
Day 3
Take the afternoon boat
Catamaran out of the marina, a snorkel stop over the reef, turtles if the season is right, then back with the wind behind you. Afternoon sailings beat morning ones.
Boat trips and catamarans →
Latest Cape Verde tour reviews.
★ 4.5Shipwreck Cabo Santa MariaFrom $5824 reviews
★ 5.0Quad Adventure Tour in North Boa VistaFrom $10424 reviews
★ 5.0Boa Vista: Night Buggy Tour under the Stars (2-Hour)From $18725 reviews
★ 5.0Private Boat Tour in Santa MariaFrom $21426 reviews
★ 5.0Boa Vista: 4h South Jeep Expedition Off-RoadFrom $6326 reviews
★ 5.0São Vicente Island 4×4 Quad TourFrom $13526 reviews
★ 5.0Union tour Full Day Private tourFrom $18527 reviews
★ 4.8Sal Discovery: A Guided Small Group Island TourFrom $5127 reviews