Cape Verde is one country and ten different weeks.
Sal for the water, Boa Vista for the dunes and the turtles, Santiago for the old capital, São Vicente for the music, Santo Antão for the ridges, Fogo for the volcano. Reviews of every tour you can book across the archipelago, and what each one costs.
Santo Antãofrom $91
São Vicentefrom $18
Salfrom $25
Boa Vistafrom $47
Fogofrom $51
Santiagofrom $23 Four days a first Cape Verde week is usually built around.
What each one costs, and what the people who booked it say.
01SalSal: Island Experience Tour with a Certified Local GuideThe island end to end, salt pans through to the shark shallows.
02SalAll-Inclusive Salt Lake, Blue Eye and Shark Bay TourPedra de Lume, the Blue Eye and Shark Bay in one all-in day.
03Boa VistaBoa Vista: Shark, Turtles, Cave, Sandboarding & Tasting TourDunes, a cave, the wreck and turtles off the sand.
04SantiagoSantiago Island Tour with Tastings and Tarrafal BeachThe old capital, the mountain road and Tarrafal beach.
In Cape Verde the good day nearly always starts at a jetty.
The islands sit in warm Atlantic with turtles nesting on the sand and lemon sharks in the shallows. Three kinds of day afloat, what it costs to board each one, and which island it belongs to.
A salt crater you float in, a cave that glows, dunes with a wreck on them.
Cape Verde is not one experience repeated on ten islands. Six of the things worth crossing water for, and the best day out in each.
The most popular days out in Cape Verde.
Every tour on the archipelago →These carry more travellers than anything else across the ten islands, and what puts each one where it is.
1
Sal: Island Experience Tour with a Certified Local Guide
Explore Sal’s salt crater, Blue Eye, fishing villages, Kite Beach, and lemon sharks on a seven-hour guided island tour.
From · $41
Read our review →
2
All-Inclusive Salt Lake, Blue Eye and Shark Bay Tour
from $53
3
Experience on Sal Island with native and certified guide (including sharks)
from $36
4
Blu eye, Salt lake, Lemon Sharks & Palmeira
from $35
5
Santa Maria: Guided Snorkeling and Reef Tour
from $44
6
Complete Excursion and Flight on the Zipline Cabo Verde
from $56
7
Horse Riding in Sal Island – Cabo Verde
from $60
8
Sal: All-Inclusive Half-Day Lounge Catamaran Cruise
from $81
Sal and Boa Vista are Sahara sand that never made it across the water.
Both islands are flat, bare and blown over by trade wind, which is exactly why the interior is driven rather than walked. Buggies over the salt flats, jeeps out to the Viana dunes, and a board down the face of one of them.
Cape Verde hosts one of the largest loggerhead nesting grounds on earth.
Females haul out after dark from June, hatchlings run for the water into October, and the beaches on Boa Vista and Sal are patrolled by the people who count them. Every trip below goes out with a guide and keeps its distance.
What a day out in Cape Verde actually costs.
Every tour on the site grouped by price. A good number of the best island days come in under the price of dinner back home.
Half days, town walks and the shorter boat trips.
Full island days, turtle nights and most of the catamarans.
Buggy hire, private jeeps and the multi-island runs.
- 1Sal Island: 2-Hour Buggy Desert Adventurefrom $170
- 2Sal Island: 2-Hour ATV Quad Desert Adventurefrom $106
- 3Discover Scuba Diving in Salfrom $120
Three things that happen in Cape Verde and nowhere else.
Beaches and boat trips exist all over the Atlantic. A salt crater below sea level, a live volcano people farm on, and morna played properly do not.
The crater you float in
Pedra de Lume is an old salt mine inside a collapsed cone, and the brine is dense enough to hold you flat on the surface. Most Sal island days stop here for an hour. Bring nothing you mind getting salt on.
- 1All-Inclusive Salt Lake, Blue Eye and Shark Bay Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,033 reviews
- 2Blu eye, Salt lake, Lemon Sharks & Palmeira★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,003 reviews
- 3Santa Maria, Sal: All inclusive Salt Lake, Blue Eye and Shark Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 311 reviews
A volcano with a village in it
Chã das Caldeiras sits on the caldera floor of an active volcano, and people grow coffee and vines in the ash. The climb up Pico do Fogo starts before dawn and takes most of the morning.
- 1Fogo Island: Pico do Fogo Volcano Summit Hike★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 92 reviews
- 2Hiking Cova Volcano Crater to Ribeira Paúl★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 31 reviews
- 31. A day on FOGO Island to discover VOLCAN★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 17 reviews
The music capital
Mindelo is where morna comes from and where Cesária Évora sang it. The market, the old customs house and the bars behind the harbour are the point of the island, and nothing starts early.
- 1Santiago Island Tour: Meet with a Local Family & Tarrafal Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 127 reviews
- 2From Praia: Banana Plantation Tour and Cuscuz Workshop★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 75 reviews
- 3Sal Island: Catxupa Cooking Class with a local family★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 72 reviews
Cidade Velha was the first town Europe built in the tropics.
Santiago carries the history the beach islands do not: a UNESCO town under a hill fort, a slaving harbour, Sunday markets at Assomada and a mountain road over to Tarrafal. São Vicente answers with Mindelo.
Choose your island
The run most first visits make: two beach islands, then the real ones.
Just published across the islands.
Further back →
Best of Santiago Island: Cidade Velha, Workshop & Tarrafal Beach Tour
Read our review →
Cape Verde: Best Hikking Trails of Santiago Island – 6 Days
Read our review →
Mindelo Cultural: city tour with live music and dance class
Read our review →
São Pedro experience (hiking & snorkeling with turtles)
Read our review →
Hike from the Cova Volcano Crater to Ribeira Paúl
Read our review →
Sal Island All-inclusive Adults-only Catamaran Cruise
Read our review →
Sal: Small Group Island Tour & Lunch with a Local Family
Read our review →
