Cape Verde (Cabo Verde)

Sal Island is Cape Verde's most developed beach destination — a flat, arid island with a single resort town (Santa Maria) that has grown from a fishing village into the archipelago's primary tourist hub. Santa Maria Beach — a 2-kilometer crescent of pale sand with calm, shallow turquoise water — is the finest developed beach in Cape Verde. The beach is lined with beach bars, sun lounger rental, water sports operators, and restaurants. Pedra de Lume Salt Lake, a former volcanic crater now filled with hypersaline water where visitors float effortlessly (higher salinity than the Dead Sea), is the island's most distinctive attraction. Sal is also one of the world's finest kitesurfing destinations — the town of Santa Maria has a globally recognized kite beach where instructors teach thousands of beginners each year.

Boa Vista Island is Cape Verde's most pristine beach destination — a flat island with vast stretches of white sand that remain largely undeveloped outside a cluster of large all-inclusive resorts near Sal Rei. The southern beaches (Praia de Santa Mónica, Praia de Chave) are among the most isolated and beautiful in the Atlantic — accessible by 4WD jeep tour across the island's interior of sand dunes and shipwreck skeletons. Most significantly, Boa Vista hosts one of the world's most important nesting sites for loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) — from June through October, female turtles haul themselves onto the beaches at night to lay their eggs. Guided turtle watching tours operated by the Turtle Foundation conservation organization provide the most remarkable wildlife encounter in Cape Verde.

Fogo Island is the most dramatic island in Cape Verde — an active shield volcano rising to 2,829 meters (Pico do Fogo), the highest point in the Atlantic islands, with its most recent eruption in 2014 to 2015. The Chã das Caldeiras — the community inside the volcanic caldera at approximately 1,700 meters altitude — has been repopulated after the 2014/2015 eruption and now provides a hauntingly beautiful village experience surrounded by lava fields, with the black vine-grown slopes producing the remarkable Fogo wine (the only wine produced inside a volcanic caldera that is sold internationally). Hiking Pico do Fogo from the caldera takes approximately 3 to 4 hours for fit hikers and provides extraordinary views over the entire archipelago.

Mindelo on São Vicente Island is the cultural capital of Cape Verde — a port city of 70,000 people with a vibrant music and arts scene that has produced some of Africa's finest musical traditions. Morna — the melancholic, longing musical style most associated with the late Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora (who brought it to international attention in the 1990s) — is performed in Mindelo's bars and cultural centers nightly. The Mindelo Carnival (February) is one of the most spectacular in the Atlantic, with Brazilian-influenced street parades, elaborate costumes, and the specific Cape Verdean energy of an island culture that has blended Portuguese, African, and Atlantic influences over five centuries.