Cape Verde Islands

⚠️ Entry rules and local regulations change without notice. Before booking, check entry requirements and local rules — visas, access, nature reserves, visitor quotas — with the official authorities.

The Cape Verde archipelago — ten main islands scattered across the Atlantic 570 km off the coast of Senegal — is one of Africa's most singular destinations. Sal and Boa Vista, with their blond dunes and turquoise water, are the beach islands par excellence; their shores rank among the finest in the Atlantic. Santiago, the largest, holds the capital Praia and the remains of Cidade Velha, the first European settlement in the tropics and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. São Vicente and its city of Mindelo breathe culture, Creole music and food. Fogo is dominated by its huge active volcano (Pico do Fogo, 2,829 m), whose flanks are planted with vineyards producing a wine found nowhere else. Santo Antão offers spectacular hiking country between green ravines and sheer cliffs. The morna — Cape Verde's melancholy, poetic music, made famous by Cesária Évora — is inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage.

Ten islands, ten characters

Cape Verde is ten volcanic islands scattered across the Atlantic 570 kilometres off Senegal, uninhabited until the Portuguese arrived in the fifteenth century and built a slave-trading port at Cidade Velha on Santiago — the first European town in the tropics, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Independent since 1975, the country is Portuguese-speaking, Creole-speaking in daily life, and one of the most stable democracies in Africa. Its identity lives in music: the morna, the melancholy song made famous by Cesária Évora, is inscribed on UNESCO's intangible heritage list.

The islands divide sharply. Sal and Boa Vista, in the east, are flat, dry and ringed by huge white beaches — this is where the resorts and the charter flights go. Santiago, the largest, holds the capital Praia and the old town. São Vicente has Mindelo, the music capital and the country's liveliest city. Fogo is a single volcano rising to 2,829 metres, still active, with vineyards planted in its crater. Santo Antão is the hiking island: green ravines, cliff-edge cobbled paths, and some of the most dramatic walking in the Atlantic.

A one-island package holiday on Sal shows very little of this. The country rewards a two- or three-island trip — Sal for the beach, Santo Antão for the walking, São Vicente for the music — linked by short flights or, for Santo Antão, the ferry from Mindelo.

November to June

Cape Verde is dry almost all year: 24–26 °C in winter, 28–30 °C in summer, sea at 22–26 °C. The rainy season — such as it is — runs from August to October, mainly on the mountainous islands; the harmattan, a Saharan dust wind, blurs the skies for a few days between December and February. November to June is the comfortable window, with winter the busiest period on Sal and Boa Vista. Mindelo's carnival in February or March is the country's biggest party; the turtle nesting season on Boa Vista runs from June to October.

Pre-registration, the airport tax, and island-hopping

⚠️ EU citizens do not need a visa, but every visitor must pre-register online on the EASE platform before travel and pay the airport security tax, 3,400 escudos (about €31), either online when registering or on arrival. Direct flights from Europe serve Sal, Boa Vista and Praia; inter-island flights with the national carrier are short but not cheap and sell out in high season. Ferries are slow and sometimes cancelled — keep a day's slack when crossing islands.

The currency is the Cape Verdean escudo, pegged to the euro; euros are widely accepted in the resorts but not inland, and ATMs are few outside the main towns. The national dish is cachupa, a slow stew of maize, beans and meat or fish; grogue, the local cane spirit, is distilled on Santo Antão. Hire a car on Santiago or Fogo; on Santo Antão take an aluguer, the shared pick-up that serves as public transport.

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