About São Tomé and Príncipe - the best local guide for 2025
About São Tomé and Príncipe: your best local travel guide for 2025
The Chocolate Islands is an independent travel guide to São Tomé and Príncipe. We share practical advice on where to stay, what to eat, the main sights and beaches, and how car hire works. Written locally, it helps you plan real days on the islands without guesswork.
Our Story: how this São Tomé travel guide began
The Chocolate Islands came from frustration with out-of-date guidebooks and recycled advice that did not match reality on the ground. We live in São Tomé and built this guide to share what is actually useful, where to stay, what to eat and what is worth your time. No sales pitch and no copy-paste travel claims, just clear local information you can trust.
Mission and Values
Tourism will shape São Tomé and Príncipe in the years ahead. Our aim is to encourage travel that does not try to change the islands into something they are not. The Chocolate Islands exists to share what is true about São Tomé and Príncipe, with small, slow days, real local life and a travel guide to experiences that keep the islands protected for the future.
How We Write
We check places ourselves, talk to people who work in them and correct out-of-date details when we find them. If a road is closed, a beach is rough or a restaurant has changed hands, we say so. We are not trying to sell tours or fill pages with marketing language, so there is no reason to hide the reality of travel about São Tomé and Príncipe. The idea is simple: clear, current information, written locally, so you can plan real days without surprises.
Poverty exists and we do not try to hide it, but we only work with businesses that are locally owned so your money stays on the island. It does not pay for the pool of a tour operator based in Portugal, or a car hire company that sends money offshore, or companies that have never set foot here. We live here, walk these streets every day, eat in the restaurants and drink in the bars. This guide is written from the same places you will visit, with the aim of keeping value in São Tomé and Príncipe.
Why This Matters
The islands are small, and every visitor makes a difference. When people use local guides, sleep in locally owned guesthouses and eat in small restaurants, money stays on the island and supports families. It helps build a future where people can make a living without leaving, and where traditions are not pushed aside in favour of big resort culture. Travel about São Tomé and Príncipe should protect the place that people come to see, not change it into something less real. If this guide can help even a small part of the island keep its character, then it is worth the time spent walking, asking questions and writing things down.
Stay in Touch
The Chocolate Islands is written from São Tomé, with help from friends, neighbours and small operators who make this place what it is. We keep it simple and honest, so you can trust what you read here. As I write this, Bilbo the company dog is staring at a lizard on the wall, dreaming of being quick enough to touch it. My coffee from Johnny’s, the best on the island, is going cold. That is the pace of things here, and that is the pace this site is written in. Come join us on www.reddit.com/r/saotome
We are not a tour company, just people who live here and share what is real about São Tomé and Príncipe, one page and one cold coffee at a time.
