default Cruise ship Harmony G. Photo / Supplied
Want to discover a collection of unique islands and make fast friends? A small cruise may be for you, writes Ben West.
We’re on a twisting old mountain road, passing stunning panoramas that take in banana and sugar cane plantations, lush, green valleys lined with cassava terraces, and hills populated with alpine firs, fig trees and coconut palms. There’s sweetcorn growing neatly in rows, and colourful little houses in the distance.
We’re in Santo Antão, Cape Verde’s second-largest island, popular with hikers and for these dramatic volcanic landscapes. It’s lesser-known than some of the archipelago’s other nine islands, which are all surprisingly different.
For example, there’s Sal, with its gorgeous beaches, laid-back Boa Vista, São Vicente with its lively nightlife and music scene, and Santiago, with its historic sites.
Situated 350 miles/570km off the west coast of Africa, Cape Verde makes an unusual cruise destination but offers a spellbinding blend of Portuguese and African influences in their architecture, customs, food and traditions.
The road itself is striking: it is made up of many thousands of little rocks put together by hand. As our minibus contains a geologist, a biologist and an agricultural scientist (and those are just the fellow guests), we get a running commentary about rocks and road surfaces that, while very interesting, is possibly a tad more detailed than we’ll ever need.
It’s a few days into the cruise and a real camaraderie has developed: lots of joking, us all applauding the last person who gets back in the bus when we had all been waiting, that sort of thing. The beautiful, mournful song “Sodade”, which became a global 1990s hit for Cape Verde Cesária Évora, is almost omnipresent on the islands, and it’s not long before we’re all singing it on some excursion bus journeys.
As the days go on people open up more and more about their lives – kickstarted by a cocktail-fuelled party on the second night – and with participants on this cruise having come from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, USA, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and Belgium, there have unsurprisingly been some very diverse and interesting conversations. On top of that, the crew have come from Greece, Egypt, Italy and Malaysia, and many of us get to know them too.
I used to think cruises weren’t for me, being herded around like cattle by a sightseeing guide each day, and living in a ship with a bunch of strangers. But it hasn’t been like that at all. Sure, there are people whose politics and personalities clash a bit with mine, but don’t you get that anywhere there’s a sizeable gathering of people? Anyhow, it’s easy to give them a wide berth.
I was surprised how much being on a cruise is so much more sociable than staying in a hotel. I’ve stayed in so many hotels and not talked to anyone, but the nature of us all living on a boat brings everyone together.
I suspect people generally get on so well because this is a comparatively small and manageable ship. We’re on Variety Cruises’ Variety Voyager ‘superyacht’, which has capacity for up to 71 guests and 32 crew. It is clearly a completely different experience to cruising on one of those huge hulking ‘tower blocks of the seas’, the largest of which currently are Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas, which each carry a mind-boggling maximum of 9950 passengers and crew.
In great contrast, there are just 36 passengers on our cruise of the islands. And a cruise is the ideal, effortless way to explore them: the ferries and domestic flights to the different islands are unreliable, with delays and cancellations a frequent affair.
Variety’s seven-night Islands of Cape Verde Archipelago Cruise takes in a further five of the islands: Sal, Boa Vista, Santiago, Fogo and Sao Vicente.
It’s impossible to choose a favourite as they all have completely different personalities, but a real high point for me was Fogo. Fogo aptly means fire in Portuguese, as this is the sole remaining active volcano in Cape Verde. Standing next to a huge volcanic crater in Cha das Caldeiras National Park, we were amongst rocks that are mere babies in geological terms, lava flows dating from as recent as 2015. It is an incredible sight – huge expanses of grey peppered with the occasional hardy vivid green plant.
Amazingly, the locals haven’t moved away despite the ongoing threat of volcanic eruptions, which have in the past destroyed villages, agricultural land, and infrastructure. The 2015 lava flows greatly damaged the road and village, yet the local people simply built a new road, and are reconstructing the village.
While Sal’s choice of restaurants, cafes and bars are certainly an attraction, I preferred discovering the sleepy villages of Boa Vista. It has extensive beaches that were all but deserted when I visited, and historic shipwrecks, such as the rusted skeleton of the Cabo Santa Maria on Atalanta beach, which is a stirring sight indeed.
When the cruise ended, I was sad to leave my new bunch of friends and this wonderful isolated cluster of little islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Yet a one-week cruise was not nearly enough to discover this idyll that enjoys year-round sun, and there were still more islands to discover. It feels almost obligatory to return.
Variety Cruises’ 7-night Cape Verde cruise departs from 22 November 2025 to 24 February 2026 for approximately $2519 per person with two sharing.
varietycruises.com/destinations/cape-verde
The journalist travelled courtesy of Variety Cruises.