Africa
Get a Personal Pick →Cape Verde
25 destinations
City Assomada
"Papaya, maize and market din fill the highland town that feeds all Santiago."
Water Buracona
"For two hours around midday, sunlight sets a submerged lava cave burning electric blue."
Water Cabo Santa Maria
"A freighter carrying gifts for General Franco has rusted on this beach since 1968."
Water Calhau
"Climb a dead volcano from the beach and count three uninhabited islands from its rim."
City Cidade Velha
"The tropics' first colonial city keeps its slave pillory standing in the square."
Mountain Cova Crater
"A perfectly round caldera floored with crop terraces, invisible until the rim, gone again in cloud."
Water Cruzinha da Garça
"Twelve kilometres of cliff-carved path end at a fishing hamlet on black sand."
Wilderness Deserto de Viana
"Saharan sand blown across the Atlantic has built a pocket desert ringed by ocean."
Water Ervatão
"Loggerheads of the world's third-largest nesting population drag ashore here in the summer dark."
Water Fajã d'Água
"From this bay sailed Cape Verde's first ship to America; the Matilde never arrived."
Mountain Fontainhas
"Pastel houses balance on a blade of volcanic ridge above the hammering Atlantic."
Water Maio
"Three thousand turtles a summer nest on an island that is one whole biosphere reserve."
City Mindelo
"Morna drifts from harbour bars where the barefoot diva Cesária Évora first sang for sailors."
Mountain Monte Gordo
"Dragon trees loom out of the fog on São Nicolau's 1,312-metre volcanic spine."
Mountain Pedra de Lume
"Float in brine 27 times saltier than the sea, inside an extinct volcano's crater."
Mountain Pico do Fogo
"Loose black scree all the way to a steaming crater rim 2,829 metres above the Atlantic."
Mountain Ribeira da Torre
"Sugarcane ripens under black basalt towers in a gorge that ends at a waterfall pool."
Wilderness Salinas de Porto Inglês
"Women of the island's salt cooperative still harvest white gold from wetland pans."
Water Santa Maria
"Kites carve the trade wind; the morning catch sells straight off the wooden pier."
City São Filipe
"A hundred pastel sobrados crowd the clifftop above a beach of jet-black volcanic sand."
Water Tarrafal
"A palm-shaded swimming cove shares its town with the prison called the Camp of Slow Death."
Water Tarrafal de Monte Trigo
"A black-sand cove where the day's menu is written by whatever the fishing boats bring home."
Mountain Vale do Paúl
"Sugarcane and coffee terraces pour off a crater rim into a valley threaded with running water."
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Legendary Destinations
Little-known places, unlike anywhere else, that leave you awestruck and full of stories.
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