Cape Verde

The briefing

Cape Verde is ten volcanic islands in the Atlantic, 570km off the coast of Senegal, served by direct European flights, and largely undiscovered by the adventure travel circuit. The islands are dramatically different from each other - Fogo's active volcano, Santo Antão's green ribeira valleys, Sal's flat kite beaches - and can be linked by ferry or inter-island flight. Fogo is the centrepiece: an active stratovolcano whose last eruption was 2014, with a caldera wide enough to hold a village inside the crater rim. Treat Cape Verde as a base, not a circuit: the days get better when you stop moving the bags.

Fogo is the centrepiece: an active stratovolcano whose last eruption was 2014, with a caldera wide enough to hold a village inside the crater rim. Staying overnight in the caldera - in a guesthouse run by the crater community - is one of the genuinely unusual accommodation experiences available to travelers anywhere in Africa. The crater walk at dawn, with the volcanic cone rising above and the clouds below the rim, is its own thing.

Mindelo on São Vicente is Cape Verde's cultural capital - a harbour town with colonial pastels, a Creole music tradition of morna (the Cape Verdean fado that Cesária Évora made famous), and an ease of atmosphere that makes it extremely difficult to leave on schedule. The ferry to Santo Antão leaves from here, and the ribeira canyon walk from the coast to the interior plateau is the archipelago's finest hike.

How to get there

Gateway airports: SID, RAI, VXE. Build the rest of the trip around the arrival.

Book first

Flights - SID, RAI → Stay close to the ring road or highland track in Cape Verde → Operator - glacier, ice-cave, or highland desk