Cape Verde Bus Independent transit guide
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Ferry guide

Quiet island

Maio

Nothing is published for road transport on Maio. Movement between Vila do Maio and the villages around the loop is by aluguer or negotiated ride, arranged locally. The ferry from Santiago is the only documented service, at 1 hour 45 minutes.

By bus

Getting to Maio

Nothing is published for road transport on Maio. Movement between Vila do Maio and the villages around the loop is by aluguer or negotiated ride, arranged locally. The ferry from Santiago is the only documented service, at 1 hour 45 minutes.

  • Santiago–Maio ferry: 1 hour 45 minutes; 1,530 CVE national, 2,300 CVE non-national.
  • No published road timetable or fare exists anywhere on the island.
  • Vila do Maio is the pier, the shops and most of the accommodation.

Source: CV InterIlhas: Routes, schedules and island-to-island crossing times · CV InterIlhas: Passenger tariff (national and non-national) () · Turismo de Cabo Verde: Getting around each island by land

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Quiet beach and pastel seafront houses of Porto Inglês, Vila do Maio, in early light
Photo: Christian Pirkl, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

Worth your time

What Maio does best

Maio is what Sal looked like before the hotels: a low, dry island of salt pans, acacia woodland and beaches with nobody on them. Vila do Maio is a small pastel town by the pier, and the rest is a loop road connecting fishing villages. It is the shortest ferry hop from Santiago, which makes it the easiest genuine escape in the country.

Ponta Preta and Bitxe Rotxa

Kilometres of pale sand with no development behind them. On most days you will have a beach to yourself, which is not a figure of speech here.

The salinas

The salt pans that gave the island its economy for centuries still work, and the flamingos that visit them are the reason birders come.

The acacia forest

A planted woodland in the island’s middle, an unlikely green band in a dry landscape and a good walk in the cool of the morning.

Good to know

  • The tourism board says ATMs are available on all the islands; it still advises carrying escudos for small purchases.
  • The ferry pattern rotates weekly; confirm both directions before you commit to a stay length.
  • There is very little tourism infrastructure, which is the point but also a constraint.

Keep exploring

White sand and turquoise water of Tarrafal bay beneath a green volcanic headland, northern Santiago Capital island Santiago Praia, Cidade Velha and Tarrafal — the only island in the country with a published city bus network. Plan the ride The bare cone of Pico do Fogo rising above black lava fields in Chã das Caldeiras Volcano island Fogo A live volcano with a village inside its crater, five hours from Praia by sea. Plan the ride Vila Nova Sintra spread across Brava’s green crater plateau with the Atlantic beyond Flower island Brava The smallest inhabited island, reached only by a fifty-minute boat from Fogo — and cut off whenever that boat stops. Plan the ride