Hypothetically, if you were going to Cape Verde for 13 days in late November, flying into and leaving from Praia, where would you go and what sorts of things would you do?
We went to Boa Vista rather than Santiago/Praia in 2013 and again in 2018 and… there wasn’t much to do other than the all-inclusive sit-by-the-pool thing. The island is largely desert with two reasonably-sized towns, loads of turtle sanctuaries, a massive boatwreck just off the shore, and not much else. Enjoyed it for the relaxation and a bit of wandering but 14 days would be a bit much.
I think Santiago’s more jungle-ish, right? Almost certainly more lively.
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Boa Vista and Sal seem to be the least interesting islands from what I can gather. Since we’re there for a while we’ll be doing some island hopping.
Trying to work out whether it’s worth doing an internal flight to Ilha de Sao Vicente
Yeah this but with Sal. Went paddling with baby lemon sharks on my birthday and did a tour of the island in half a day - salt lake, Blue Eye, fishing village, optical illusion, German dude who had gone all out on opposing the EU and kept trying to talk to British tourists about how much he loved Brexit and asking how they voted. Luckily we avoided this fate.
Enjoyed poolside lounging for a week but couldn’t have done longer. I do think it’s really reasonably priced for good quality all inclusive holiday packages though.
No idea about the other islands I’m afraid @ma0sm
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We spent 3 weeks in CV this summer and did a bit of island hopping. Only transitted through Santiago, had one night in Praia (and managed to get involved in an attempted car-jacking, which was very unpleasant).
I’d agree with others that Boa Vista doesn’t offer a great deal (and although we didn’t go there Sal is meant to offer less). Went to San Vicente and Santa Antao. Santa Antao was great (the clear highlight) and well worth the visit. The north west of the island really put the green in Cape Verde, extremely impressive hills, and we also did some beach stuff in the NE and SW of the island
The internal flights and ferries have a poor reputation for reliability so we added lots of contingency time for making our international flight home and connections. But in the end couldn’t have any complaints as everything ran on time.
Would definitely like to go back, Fogo and San Nicolau meant to be very nice but require a bit more effort to get to.
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All booked in now. Doing Santiago → Saõ Vicente → Santo Antão → Saõ Vicente → Santiago. We wanted to fit Fogo in too, but with the potential unreliability of everything, we decided not to risk it and take everything a little slower.
Gonna spend most of the Santiago time in Tarrafal in the north. Spending the longest amount of time on Santo Antão and will be mostly hiking.
Gotta admit, everything booked so far has been more expensive than I arbitrarily expected, but hey ho, I’m sure it’ll be good.
Sounds like a decent itinerary. CV isn’t a budget destination. Almost everything is imported and the price tags reflect that. I’d say it’s around a mid-level Western Europe prices (a Portugal maybe). Factor in international and internal flights and visas and our family holiday was more expensive that a summer spent interrailing around Scandinavia (which we did last year).
If you find yourself with surplus time on Santa Antao I’d definitely recommend the Tarrafel on on that island (in the south west). And then from there there’s another settlement up the coast which is not linked by road - it took a about 7 hours to walk it with young children and was definitely a bit hairy with the big drops down to the sea. (Would be about half that duration walk without the kids). Or a 50 euro boat ride if you didn’t fancy the walk. The accommodation we stayed in (Oswaldo’s place) was some of the best and friendliest (although basic) we had on the trip, and the place definitely had some strong end of the world vibes.
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Thanks for all the tips! Doubt we’ll have time to explore the west coast on Santo Antão, just difficult to fit it all in. Your reply was definitely a big factor in spending the most time on that island though!
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