Travel in Sao Tome And Principe

James Haigh, with over 15 years of experience in African tourism, is appointed Chair of The African Travel and Tourism Association (ATTA), starting October 1, 2024, to promote sustainable tourism across Africa.

A flat tire. A medical situation. A tour that runs overtime. Any of these delays could prevent a shore excursion operator from returning guests on time to a port of call and risk the ship departing without them.

Today I am where I want to be, strolling along almond-fringed beaches that, like cuffs of lace, fall from the dark sleeve of the jungle. Steam rises after a recent downpour and morning sunlight glances off cresting waves silver-threaded with the shoals of sardinella that ride their swell. Coconuts drop with a thud around me and begonia blossoms spiral slowly. This is a fecund forest of vastness that’s so alive you can practically hear the sap rising. I have been walking for more than an hour from my tented suite at the Sundy Praia retreat and seen no one. I have padded across sandbanks in the flipper trail of turtles who have come to lay eggs on these northern shores and clambered over rocky headlands. I’ve scaled the heights – and pushed through the insect drill—of the forest, into the shade of the towering oka. These trees have a presence not unlike Tolkien’s ents, those humanoid-like tree creatures. In Príncipe, it is customary to bury a newborn baby’s placenta beneath a trunk, so that everyone has a tree they consider their own. The forest is venerated and it is sacrilege to fell a tree, a belief embedded in law.

Geotourist and the West Africa Tourism Organisation (WATO) are partnering in a revolutionary data initiative to generate visitor data insights that are not currently achievable in the region. The initiative will be rolled out across 19 different countries,including:

Welcome to the first episode of The Boarding Pass Podcast, brought to you by SmarterTravel. In this episode, we’ll bring you expert tips on avoiding traffic at the airport, debate the controversy of reclining seats on planes, and travel far away to the islands of Sao Tome and Principe with Matt Phillips, the Lonely Planet Destination Editor to Sub-Saharan Africa.