Cape Verde
Fajã d'Água
From this bay sailed Cape Verde's first ship to America; the Matilde never arrived.
The path comes down through mango shade and running spring water, zig-zagging on old cobbles until the valley opens onto deep blue. In the bay: fishing boats, a huddle of houses, and dark rock pools filling and emptying with the Atlantic.
Fajã d'Água is the western shore of Brava, the flower island, where fog waters gardens of jasmine and the interior stays improbably green. The village carries Cape Verde's emigration story: from this bay the first ship sailed for the United States of America, and a memorial square remembers the Matilde, the emigrant vessel that left and never appeared again. The walk in passes the abandoned hamlet of Lavadura and the Encontro spring, which supplies the whole island's drinking water. The bay's natural pool is real and celebrated, but the Atlantic decides when it is safe, and residents will tell you. Ferries to Brava need slack in the plan; the island rewards every day of it.
Solo
Walk in on the official route, stay over, and let the harbour's evening quiet close the day; ferries reward unhurried plans.
Couple
Descend through the mango shade together and swim only when residents call the pool settled; what follows is flowers, fish and dusk.
- From Fajã d'Água's bay sailed the first Cape Verdean ship to the United States, and a memorial honours the lost emigrant vessel Matilde.
- The official walking route descends through mango groves past the spring that supplies Brava's drinking water.
- The bay holds a celebrated natural pool beneath the village.
- Brava is Cape Verde's flower island, green under fog and scented with jasmine.
Queijo do Cachaço, Brava's handmade goat cheese, is the island's edible signature; look for it around Nova Sintra.
By the bay, arrange dinner with your pension ahead; the kitchen cooks what the boats and orchards gave that day.
Point Reyes
United States
Fog wraps a peninsula riding a different tectonic plate, where tule elk graze above the surf.
Tatami Ridge (Kumejima)
Japan
Hexagonal basalt slabs stretching into turquoise shallows like a giant's abandoned floor.
Atlin
Canada
A gold-rush lake town drowses beside jade water beneath far-northern peaks.
Haines
United States
Thousands of bald eagles gathering on one river in the shadow of coastal glaciers.
Calhau
Cape Verde
Climb a dead volcano from the beach and count three uninhabited islands from its rim.
Salinas de Porto Inglês
Cape Verde
Women of the island's salt cooperative still harvest white gold from wetland pans.
São Filipe
Cape Verde
A hundred pastel sobrados crowd the clifftop above a beach of jet-black volcanic sand.
Mindelo
Cape Verde
Morna drifts from harbour bars where the barefoot diva Cesária Évora first sang for sailors.