Cape Verde Bus Independent transit guide
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Ferry guide

Capital island

Santiago

Sol Atlântico runs Praia’s urban network — numbered lines 2 to 16 and 18 to 20, nearly all converging on Plateau, with Sucupira and Palmarejo as the other interchange areas. Trips are sold in prepaid bundles at 43 CVE a trip, topped up online or through the vinti4 network. Line 15 has a suspension notice dated 6 August 2024. Beyond the city limits nothing is timetabled.

By bus

Getting to Santiago

Sol Atlântico runs Praia’s urban network — numbered lines 2 to 16 and 18 to 20, nearly all converging on Plateau, with Sucupira and Palmarejo as the other interchange areas. Trips are sold in prepaid bundles at 43 CVE a trip, topped up online or through the vinti4 network. Line 15 has a suspension notice dated 6 August 2024. Beyond the city limits nothing is timetabled.

  • Prepaid bundles of 5, 10 and 15 trips cost 215, 430 and 645 CVE; the fares page lists no single ticket.
  • Monthly passes run 2,900 CVE general, 2,300 student, 2,100 senior; the first card costs 300 CVE.
  • Across the island, the tourism board counts more than 80 buses on 15 routes, but no operator publishes them; aluguers run without a timetable — ask locally where they leave from.

Source: Sol Atlântico: Praia bus lines and stops · Sol Atlântico: Tariffs, cards and passes · Sol Atlântico: Provisional suspension of line 15 () · Sol Atlântico: Real-time bus map and line list · Turismo de Cabo Verde: Getting around each island by land

Open Sol Atlântico lines and stops

Before you go

Planned: these answers, offline

We are building an app meant to keep every answer on this site on your phone, offline, so a weak signal or a roaming bill never stands between you and the next leg. It is not in the stores yet.

Cape Verde Bus — app coming soon

Open Sol Atlântico lines and stops
White sand and turquoise water of Tarrafal bay beneath a green volcanic headland, northern Santiago
Photo: Iwoelbern, Public domain

Worth your time

What Santiago does best

Santiago is where Cape Verde is most itself: the capital on its plateau, the first city Europeans built in the tropics down the coast at Cidade Velha, and a green interior spine climbing to Serra Malagueta before dropping to the beach at Tarrafal. It is also the one island where public transport is written down — Sol Atlântico’s numbered lines around Praia. Step outside the city and you are in aluguer country like everywhere else.

Cidade Velha

The UNESCO-listed first colonial city in the tropics, a short way down the coast from Praia. The pillory in the square and the fortress above it tell an Atlantic story most visitors are not ready for.

Sucupira market

Praia’s enormous open market below Plateau, where Sol Atlântico’s city lines 3 and 4 end.

Tarrafal

The north-coast bay everybody heads for at the weekend — calm water, a crescent of sand, and the sobering former colonial prison camp a short walk inland.

Good to know

  • No source publishes when aluguers run; the tourism board warns that in some areas the vans run only at certain times of the day, so late departures are a gamble.
  • Nothing is published for the roads beyond Praia: ask locally where vehicles for other towns leave from, and which way they go.
  • City bus cards, including the 250 CVE no-name prepaid card, are bought in person at a Sol Atlântico desk; trip bundles can then be topped up online.

Optional experiences

Pairs well with the bus

Curated for this destination. The full list lives on the experiences page.

Booking through these links supports this free guide at no extra cost to you.

Island tour Santiago · Praia

Cidade Velha, Tarrafal and the east coast

A full-day guided loop out of Praia taking in the UNESCO-listed Cidade Velha, the Serra Malagueta uplands and Tarrafal beach.

Getting there: Covers Praia to Tarrafal, a journey with no published public-transport timetable.

Check availability

Keep exploring

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 Quiet beach and pastel seafront houses of Porto Inglês, Vila do Maio, in early light Quiet island Maio Empty beaches and salt flats an hour and three-quarters from the capital — the least visited inhabited island. 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