Cape Verde

Cape Verde is an archipelago of ten volcanic islands floating in the Atlantic Ocean about 570 kilometers off the coast of West Africa, and it feels like nowhere else. The islands are dry, wind-battered, and starkly beautiful - some are flat salt plains, others are craggy volcanic peaks jutting straight from the ocean. Santo Antao has dramatic green valleys slicing through barren mountains. Fogo has an active volcano rising 2,829 meters from the sea. Sal and Boa Vista have Saharan sand dunes that spill onto white beaches.

The soul of Cape Verde is its music. Morna, the melancholic genre made world-famous by Cesaria Evora, the Barefoot Diva, expresses a feeling called sodade - a Creole word for longing, nostalgia, and homesickness that defines the Cape Verdean experience. More Cape Verdeans live abroad than on the islands, scattered across Portugal, the United States, and beyond. This tiny nation of 600,000 people has one of the most stable democracies in Africa, virtually no extreme poverty by regional standards, and a Creole culture that blends African and Portuguese influences into something entirely its own.