Cape Verde, one island at a time.
Which Sal day gets you into the salt crater. When the loggerheads come ashore on Boa Vista. Whether the Fogo summit is worth the extra flight. Every tour in the archipelago, priced, timed and reviewed.
By island
Sal155 tours
Boa Vista87 tours
Santiago81 tours
São Vicente67 tours
Santo Antão14 tours
Fogo10 tours- Every island →
Cape Verde in six days out: salt, sharks, turtles, dunes, ridges, water.
A flooded volcano you float in, lemon sharks patrolling knee-deep water, the beaches the loggerheads climb after dark, dunes you can board down and ridge paths cut into Santo Antão. Pick the day, then pick the operator.
Sal: pick the day that fits.
All 155 Sal tours →
Most trips to Cape Verde land at Sal and stay in Santa Maria. The full-day loop takes the salt pans at Pedra de Lume, the blue light in the Buracona cave and the lemon sharks off Palmeira in one go. The short runs pick one and go deeper.
Pedra de Lume: swim inside a volcano
Salt was cut here until the 1980s and the pans still flood. The water carries you without a stroke, the crater walls kill the wind, and the crust dries hard on your skin the moment you climb out.
Shark Bay, standing in the shallows
Juvenile lemon sharks work the sandy bay east of Santa Maria on the rising water. You wade in from the beach and stand still. Guides read the tide table, so the pickup time shifts through the week.
Buracona and the Blue Eye
A collapsed lava tube on the north-west coast fills with light when the sun sits directly overhead, roughly late morning to early afternoon. Get there outside that window and the eye stays dark.
Cape Verde’s most popular tours.
Every review →The days more travellers take than anything else in the islands, and what each one is actually like.
1
Island Experience Tour with a Certified Local Guide
Explore Sal’s salt lakes, shark bay, Buracona, villages, and desert illusions on a practical seven-hour 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
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
All-Inclusive Half-Day Lounge Catamaran Cruise
from $81
Boa Vista is sand, shipwreck and nesting turtles.
The island is desert in the middle and fifty kilometres of empty beach around the edge, with the Cabo Santa Maria rusting on the north shore since 1968. From June the loggerheads start hauling out after dark.
What a day out costs in Cape Verde.
What every tour on the site actually costs, band by band. Island prices sit well under what the resort desks quote.
Town walks, the salt bath at Pedra de Lume, snorkel stops and the half-day island runs.
The full-day loops with lunch, buggy sessions, catamaran afternoons and the turtle nights.
Private drivers, dive packages, the Fogo and Santo Antão days and boats you take as a group.
Santiago is the oldest island and the green one.
Praia is the capital, and the country began next door at Cidade Velha: the first European town in the tropics, and for three centuries a transatlantic slave-trade port. Inland the Serra Malagueta ridges stay green all year and the road drops north to Tarrafal.
The three days only Cape Verde can sell you.
Beaches and boat trips exist everywhere in the Atlantic. Lemon sharks at ankle depth, a nesting beach counted in thousands and a salt mine you swim in belong to these islands.
The Lemon Sharks of Shark Bay
A shallow bay east of Santa Maria where juvenile lemon sharks ride the tide in and cruise past your shins. No cage, no bait and no boat: you walk in from the sand at low water and hold still while they pass. The whole thing runs on the tide table, which is why the pickup time changes from one day to the next.
- 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
- 3Blu eye, Salt lake, Lemon Sharks & Palmeira★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,003 reviews
The Loggerhead Beaches
Cape Verde hosts one of the largest loggerhead nesting populations on earth, and the females come ashore after dark from June to October. Licensed guides run the beaches under red light with capped group sizes. Outside those months there is no tour, only the beach.
- 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
The Salt Crater at Pedra de Lume
Salt was mined inside this crater until the 1980s, hauled out by a cable car whose towers still stand over the village. The pans flood salty enough to hold you on the surface without a stroke, the walls block the trade wind, and there is a rinse shower at the top of the path for the crust it leaves behind.
- 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
Night is when Mindelo and the nesting beaches wake up.
All evening tours →
Mindelo plays late, São Vicente walks early.
Mindelo is the music town: bars off the Praça Nova, morna and coladeira most nights of the week, and a carnival the rest of the country travels for. Daylight goes to Monte Verde, the bay at Baia das Gatas and the turtle snorkel out of the harbour.
- 1São Vicente’s Enchanting Sea Turtle Snorkelingfrom $70
- 2Snorkel with Sea Turtles Adventurefrom $70
- 3Santo Antão Day Trip with Local Guidefrom $147
Book these before you fly to Cape Verde.
Most of the archipelago can be arranged from the hotel desk the night before. These four cannot. They run on nesting seasons, whale migrations, inter-island ferries and guides who live on the mountain.
- 01Sea Turtle Watching Experience on Sal IslandLoggerheads nest from June to October and the guided groups are capped by licence. Outside the season the trip does not run at all.
- 02Whale Watching Trip with MotoryachtHumpbacks pass Boa Vista between March and May. A short window, and only a handful of boats go out.
- 03Pico do Fogo Volcano Summit HikePico do Fogo means a separate flight or ferry plus a guide from Chã das Caldeiras. It cannot be slotted into a Sal week on the day.
- 04Santo Antão Day Trip with Local GuideSanto Antão has no airport. Everything starts on the morning ferry out of Mindelo and returns on the last one.
The trade winds cancel boats, so keep a land plan for Cape Verde.
From November to June the north-east trade blows hard across the channels and skippers call off catamarans and reef stops, sometimes on the morning itself. Nothing inland cares. The salt crater is sheltered, Buracona is a midday thing regardless, the ridge walks are better in a breeze and the old town keeps its shade.
Two weeks across Cape Verde, island by island.
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