Cape Verde Island cruise
Description of Cape Verde Island cruise
This cluster of ten volcanic islands is 500 kilometres off the coast of Africa and was a Portuguese colony until 1974. As well as being a hiking paradise, these shores are amazingly friendly, as you’ll discover in eight days of cruising the Cape Verde archipelago.
You’ll visit six of the main islands on this cruise: Santiago is the largest island and has the capital city of Praia, whilst Sao Vincente contains the country’s cultural capital, Mindelo. Boa Vista and Sal are sandy, whilst Fogo is fearsome, thanks to its active volcano.
On Fogo you can take an optional hike right to the very edge of the volcano, and you’ll walk on ancient lava fields in San Vincente’s Valley of Ribeira das Patas, too. Across the islands you’ll find sugar cane plantations and towns with colourful painted facades. You’ll sway like a palm tree on the beach after one too many glasses of ‘grogue’. This white rum, made from the plentiful sugar cane, is the national tipple of choice.
Your newly-refurbished boat will journey between the islands overnight, leaving you plenty of time every day to explore each one. There is snorkelling and fishing equipment on board.
Map
Check dates, prices & availability
Travel guides
Holiday information
Responsible Travel
Planet
Most tourists to the beautiful Cape Verde Archipelago stay (and often don’t leave) in some large resorts in a few restricted locations, so by enabling our passengers to visit some different areas of the Cape Verde Archipelago without putting any strain on local amenities, we are spreading the financial benefits and the load of our visit to these remote islands.Our vessel has an on board waste treatment system to avoid polluting the sea with waste. Furthermore, the smaller size of these cruise vessels and the smaller passenger numbers, ensures that any detrimental social and environmental impacts are minimised whilst allowing the passengers to visit smaller communities that don’t usually benefit from this form of tourism.
Using small ships as boutique hotels can alleviate the need and the environmental impact of building new hotels and infrastructure just for the peak season by providing extra beds at the time and place when they are required most.
People
We encourage all our passengers to engage with the local community on a social and economic level to ensure that this tourism has a benefit to both the visitors and the hosts. This can be a small thing such as buying a local cake from a small bakery, trying some fresh fruit at a street stall or having a haircut and shave in a local barbers - excellent value .The ship’s managers will buy as much of their produce as possible from local communities, and will also encourage our passengers to spend money in the communities that we visit. By trying some local fruit juice instead of a well known American brand of soft drink, you will support the economy, it will be better for you and who knows, you might find you enjoy it more too. Almost all of the food on board is bought from local communities; fruit vegetables, plenty of fish, meat and other staples are all locally grown and produced, and much of it is bought from small retailers or even directly from the grower or fisherman.
We will endeavour to maximise the benefits of tourism and to minimise or eradicate any downside, socially, environmentally & economically.
We will encourage our passengers to learn and understand as much as possible about the local traditions and way of life to enable them to appreciate the reality of life of the islands.
We also encourage our passengers to learn a little Portuguese, the language of Cape Verde, to enable a little communication while ashore.
Popular similar holidays
Cape Verde Archipelago small ship cruise
From £2130 - £3730 8 days excluding flights
Enjoy small ship cruising around the Cape Verde Islands
Cape Verde culture and walking holiday
From €1450 - €1895 10 days excluding flights
Discover northern Cape Verde's unique people and places
Cape Verde, women's empowerment holiday
From €950 - €1450 7 days excluding flights
Meaningful Cape Verde holiday highlighting females in agriculture