StayCV exists because the big tour companies were charging $3,800 for Cape Verde and delivering a guidebook. We thought: we can do better, with real local guides and round-the-clock support, for half.
Cape Verde isn't a single beach resort — it's ten islands, each with its own personality. Rather than dabble across all of them, we go deep on the two we know inside out.
Santiago is the roots island: Africa's oldest colonial city at Cidade Velha, volcanic highlands, interior market towns, and the drums of batuku. Sal is the easy one: white-sand Santa Maria, a salt crater you float in, and boat days over reefs full of turtles. Together they're the perfect two-island trip — history and mountains, then sun and sea.
Because we work directly with a network of guides, drivers and family-run guesthouses we've known for years, the price lands at about half the typical privately-guided rate — and the experience is more personal, not less. You book your own international flight (that's where you'll find the best deal, and we'll help you find it); we curate everything from the moment you land, including the inter-island hop and a guide who takes you somewhere that isn't on the standard route. And whatever the hour, someone of ours is a message away.
Morabeza — the Cape Verdean word for warmth and welcome — is the whole idea. We build trips that feel like a friend showing you home.
Travellers pay roughly half the big-operator rate; our guides and hosts get paid properly. Cutting out the middlemen does both.
The people planning your trip and meeting your plane are our own network on Santiago and Sal — not a call centre in another country.
Someone reachable at any hour while you travel. If something wobbles — a flight, a booking — we fix it, fast, before it becomes your problem.
Every touring day is led by a vetted, born-and-raised guide from our own network on Santiago and Sal — with our team reachable around the clock.
Born-and-raised locals who know Cidade Velha, the interior villages, the trails of Serra Malagueta and the best grogue in Praia.
They know the right boat captains, the turtle beaches, and where the locals actually eat in Santa Maria.
Wherever you are on the islands, someone from our team is a WhatsApp away, any hour of your trip.
Two islands, done properly, with a guide who lives there and a team that never clocks off.