Pick the island first. Everything else follows from that.
Whether the lemon sharks at Shark Bay are worth the drive out of Santa Maria. What the salt-pan float costs. Which Santo Antão ridge you can actually walk in a day off the Mindelo ferry. Reviews of every tour you can book in Cape Verde.
Six islands, and what a day out costs on each
The whole of Sal, the shark shallows, a deck on the Atlantic, and Boa Vista end to end.
Four bookings a first week here tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The island in a dayIsland Experience Tour with a Certified Local GuideSalt pans, the Blue Eye, Palmeira harbour and the shark shallows, with a guide who grew up on Sal.
02Waist-deep sharksShark Bay Experience from Santa MariaJuvenile lemon sharks working the shallows at Shark Bay. You stand in it; they come to you.
03The day on deckAll-Inclusive Half-Day Lounge Catamaran CruiseHalf a day out of Santa Maria under sail, with a ladder over the side and lunch aboard.
04Boa Vista end to endSal Rei, Santa Monica Beach, Caves, Dunes & Shipwreck TourSanta Mónica beach, the Viana dunes, and the Cabo Santa Maria rusting where it ran aground.
Cape Verde is mostly Atlantic. Book at least one day out on it.
Green turtles off São Pedro, lemon sharks standing in the shallows at Shark Bay, and a catamaran that drops a ladder over the side halfway to nowhere. Three kinds of day on the water, and what it costs to get aboard each one.
Ten Cape Verdean islands, and the six with a week in them.
Sal and Boa Vista carry the flights, the beaches and most of the catalogue. Santiago has the old capital and the mountains behind it. São Vicente has Mindelo and the ferry out. Santo Antão has the ridges. Fogo has a volcano.
In Cape Verde the next island is a flight or a ferry, never a drive.
Sal to Boa Vista is a plane. Santo Antão has no airport at all. Nearly every tour here starts and ends on the island you slept on, which makes the island you book first the biggest decision of the trip. The one crossing that works as a day out runs from Mindelo, and it runs to a timetable.
- 01With a guideSanto Antão Day Trip with Local Guidefrom $147The morning boat out of Mindelo, then the Cova crater and the Paúl valley on foot before the return sailing.
- 02By carSanto Antão Highlights: Day Trip by Car with Ferry from SVfrom $135Same ferry, a driver on the far side, and the coast road cut into the cliff between Ponta do Sol and Cruzinha.
- 03Car or bootsDay Trip by Car or Trekfrom $105A full day on Santo Antão that you can take at walking pace or from a seat, decided when you book.
Sal and Boa Vista are deserts with a beach attached.
Behind the hotels both islands go to sand, black rock and salt. Buggies and quads out of Santa Maria, jeeps across the Viana dunes, and a flooded crater at Pedra de Lume where the water holds you up whether you like it or not.
- 1All-Inclusive Salt Lake, Blue Eye and Shark Bay Tourfrom $53
- 24h SSV Buggy Island Adventure – 1000cc or 500cc
- 32h SSV Buggy Desert Adventure – 1000cc or 500cc
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Cape Verde.
Every Cape Verde review →The bookings that carry the most travellers off these islands, and what earns each one the slot.
1
Island Experience Tour with a Certified Local Guide
See Sal’s salt lakes, lemon sharks, Buracona, villages, and desert sights on a seven-hour guided island tour for $41.
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 $37
4
Guided Snorkeling and Reef Tour
from $44
5
Complete Excursion and Flight on the Zipline Cabo Verde
from $57
6
Horse Riding in Sal Island – Cabo Verde
from $60
7
All-Inclusive Half-Day Lounge Catamaran Cruise
from $81
8
Sea Turtle Watching Experience on Sal Island
from $41
What a day out in Cape Verde actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best days here come in under what the hotel charges for dinner.
City walks in Espargos and Mindelo, the salt-pan float, the shark shallows and the short snorkel hops.
The full-day standards: island tours with lunch, catamarans off Santa Maria, jeeps over the Viana dunes, the Santo Antão ferry day.
Private guides, dive packages, the Fogo ascent and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
- 12-Hour Buggy Desert Adventurefrom $170
- 2Full day Sailing yacht – Beautiful day on the Atlantic Oceanfrom $150
- 34-Hour Buggy Island Tourfrom $305
Three things that only happen in Cape Verde.
Beaches and dunes turn up all over the Atlantic. A crater you float in, sharks that let you stand among them, and a hatchling run down a Boa Vista beach do not.
The Pedra de Lume Salt Pans
A collapsed crater on the east side of Sal was flooded and worked for salt from the 1800s, and what is left is dense enough to hold a grown adult on the surface with no effort at all. You walk in through a cutting blasted through the crater wall, past the wooden trestles the salt was hauled out on. Ten minutes is plenty. The brine finds every scratch you own, and there is a freshwater rinse at the top for exactly that reason.
- 1All-Inclusive Salt Lake, Blue Eye and Shark Bay Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,033 reviews
- 2All inclusive Salt Lake, Blue Eye and Shark Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 311 reviews
- 3Salt Lake Tour, Shark Bay and Pedra de Lume Village★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 274 reviews
The Lemon Sharks at Shark Bay
On the east coast of Sal a shallow bay fills on the turning tide and juvenile lemon sharks come in over the sand to feed. You wade out into water that rarely passes your waist and they work around your legs, entirely uninterested in you. Because it runs on the tide rather than on an operator’s convenience, the departure hour moves through the week, and a flat calm morning is worth more here than a warm one.
- 1All-Inclusive Salt Lake, Blue Eye and Shark Bay Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,033 reviews
- 2Experience on Sal Island with native and certified guide (including sharks)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,166 reviews
- 3Shark Bay Experience from Santa Maria★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 345 reviews
Loggerheads on Boa Vista
Boa Vista holds one of the largest loggerhead nesting populations in the Atlantic. Through the summer and into autumn the females haul out after dark to dig, and guided groups walk the beaches under red light only, at a distance the rangers set. Later in the season the same stretches of sand produce hatchlings, which is a shorter walk and a very different one. Nothing about it is guaranteed, and the guides will tell you so before you pay.
- 1Sea Turtle Watching Experience on Sal Island★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 446 reviews
- 2Shark, Turtles, Cave, Sandboarding & Tasting Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 328 reviews
- 3Sal Island Sea Turtle Watching Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 256 reviews
Four Cape Verde bookings that will not wait.
Most of a week here can be arranged at the hotel desk the night before. These four run on nesting seasons, ferry timetables, tides, and a volcano that is climbed before the sun is up.
- 01Sea Turtle Watching Experience on Sal IslandNesting runs through the summer and into autumn, and the groups are capped by the rangers who lead them. Outside those months there is nothing on the beach to see.
- 02Santo Antão Day Trip with Local GuideIt goes on the Mindelo ferry, and the crossing keeps its own timetable. Miss the morning sailing and the whole day goes with it.
- 03All-Inclusive Salt Lake, Blue Eye and Shark Bay TourThe sharks come in on the tide, so the start time moves through the week instead of sitting where you left it.
- 04Fogo Island: Pico do Fogo Volcano Summit HikeThe climb starts in the dark to be off the cone before the heat, and Fogo is a flight or an inter-island boat from wherever you are staying.
Mindelo sings, Cidade Velha was first, Praia works for a living.
The towns are the other half of these islands. Mindelo fills with guitars after dark and its Portuguese-era streets are painted every colour there is. Cidade Velha, half an hour west of Praia, was the first European town built in the tropics and still has the fort standing above it.
Every day out ashore →
Sal, Boa Vista, São Vicente, Santo Antão: the run most first trips end up doing.
The newest Cape Verde tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Best Hikking Trails of Santiago Island – 6 Days
Read our review →
Santiago, Fogo, São Vicente & Santo Antão Islands 11 Days
Read our review →
Sal Island in a Group – A Full Day Exploring the Highlights
Read our review →
Hike from the Cova Volcano Crater to Ribeira Paúl
Read our review →
Best of Santiago Island: Cidade Velha, Workshop & Tarrafal Beach Tour
Read our review →