Things to Do in Boa Vista

Santa Mónica Beach and the Southern Dunes

The southern coast of Boa Vista is where the island's geography turns theatrical. Santa Mónica is a sweeping crescent of pale sand backed by low dunes. The water shifts between emerald and deep blue depending on the cloud cover. The wind here tends to be steady, not punishing, and carries a faint mineral smell off the open Atlantic. You can walk the full length of it. The sand is firm enough near the waterline, looser and warmer as you move inland. The only company is likely to be ghost crabs scuttling into their holes. Getting there independently means a 4x4 and some navigational confidence. Most visitors join a guided trip. Booking midweek tends to mean smaller groups and a more relaxed pace. Boa Vista day trips offered by local operators typically bundle Santa Mónica with other southern beach stops.

Turtle Nesting on Praia de Ervatão

Between June and October, loggerhead turtles come ashore on Boa Vista's eastern beaches to nest. Ervatão is one of the primary sites. Guided night walks, run by local conservation groups, take small groups out after dark to watch the turtles dig, lay, and cover their nests. The process takes about an hour per turtle. It develops in near-total silence except for the scraping of flippers against wet sand. The turtles are enormous up close. Their shells are slick and dark. The experience is moving in a way that's hard to overstate. These walks fill up fast during peak season. Sorting out a spot early in your stay is wise. Don't leave it to the last night. Boa Vista tours covering turtle-watching excursions run nightly during nesting season. They are bookable through most hotels and tour desks in Sal Rei.

Deserto de Viana

Inland from the coast, the Deserto de Viana is a pocket desert of fine, Saharan-origin sand. It sits in a shallow bowl between basalt ridges. The sand is a warm ochre. Noticeably different from the white coastal beaches. In late afternoon it glows almost copper under the low sun. The silence here is the dense, windless kind. Broken only by the crunch of your own footsteps. It's a short area to cross on foot. Photogenic out of all proportion to its size. Usually combined with a broader island tour by 4x4. Morning departures tend to avoid the worst of the midday heat. The light is better for photographs anyway. Boa Vista cultural tours often route through here alongside a visit to the old pottery village of Rabil.

Sal Rei Harbor and Ilhéu de Sal Rei

Sal Rei's waterfront is low-key but worth a slow morning. The harbor smells of salt and drying nets. The fishing boats, hand-painted in blues and greens that have faded unevenly in the sun, bob against a stone quay that's been repaired so many times it looks geological. Across the water, the small island of Ilhéu de Sal Rei sits with the ruin of a Portuguese-era fortification crumbling quietly on its ridge. You can wade or take a short boat ride across, depending on the tide. The snorkeling on the leeward side is surprisingly good. Clear water. Volcanic rock formations. Schools of small reef fish catching the light. Mornings are calmer for the crossing. By afternoon the wind picks up and the chop makes it less pleasant. Boa Vista water activities, boat crossings, snorkel outings, fishing trips, run regularly from Sal Rei's harbor.

Quad and Buggy Excursions Through the Interior

Boa Vista's interior is a network of unpaved tracks, dry riverbeds, and scattered villages that you'd never find without local knowledge or a GPS with a sense of humor. Quad and buggy tours are one of the more popular ways to cover ground, bouncing through landscapes that alternate between stony desert, low acacia scrub, and sudden green oases where date palms cluster around shallow wells. The dust coats everything. Your arms, your sunglasses, the inside of your ears. The engine noise is constant. But the stops are worth it: abandoned settlements, cliff-edge overlooks, a beach accessible only by track. Operators run half-day and full-day routes. The longer ones reach the northern coast, which is rougher and less visited. Boa Vista adventure tours cover most of the established routes, with pickups from Sal Rei hotels standard.

Sal Rei is where most visitors base themselves, and for good reason. The town has the highest concentration of guesthouses, restaurants, and tour operators on the island, all within a compact grid of sandy streets. Accommodation here ranges from simple locally run pensões to a few polished boutique spots near the waterfront, and the convenience of being able to walk to dinner and the harbor in five minutes is hard to argue with.

Praia de Chaves, stretching south of Sal Rei along the western coast, is the resort strip. A long, sheltered beach where most of the island's larger all-inclusive and package hotels sit. The sand here is pale and the water calm, and the area has a distinctly different feel from town: quieter, more manicured, with poolside bars and organized entertainment aimed at the package-holiday crowd. It suits families and travelers who want beach access without needing to organize transport every day.

Rabil, the island's second settlement, sits a few kilometers inland near the airport and has a sleepier, more local feel. There's not much in the way of tourism infrastructure. A pottery workshop, a church, a few small shops. But the handful of guesthouses here are budget-friendly and give a closer look at everyday Boa Vista life. The trade-off is that you'll need a taxi or rental to reach the coast.

The southeast coast around Praia de Curralinho and Praia de Santa Mónica is where a few isolated eco-lodges and small resorts have opened, catering to visitors who want quiet above all else. The beaches here are enormous and largely empty, the wind is constant, and the nearest restaurant might be a twenty-minute drive. Solitude is the draw. The remoteness is the cost.

The Morro de Areia area on the northern coast draws kitesurfers and windsurfers, with a scattering of guesthouses and small operations set up specifically for wind-sport travelers. The beach here catches the trade winds reliably, and the atmosphere is sporty and low-key. Wetsuits drying on fences, board-repair conversations over cold Strela beer at sunset.

Povoação Velha, one of the oldest settlements on Boa Vista, sits inland in the southwest and sees almost no tourist traffic. A couple of community-run guesthouses operate here, and staying in the village is less about convenience and more about immersion. Stone-walled houses, goat herds passing through unpaved streets, and a stillness that makes Sal Rei feel like a metropolis.