Africa’s Remote Príncipe Island Is Reinventing Soulful Luxury Travel

By some estimations, the tiny island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe is at the center of the world. Its geographical coordinates are 1°N, 7°E. It’s also the second-least populated country in Africa and one of the least visited places on the planet.

It comes as a welcome surprise to find a lovely place to stay on such a tiny island. But in fact, Príncipe island has a small handful of very nice places to stay, most of them with a conservation backstory that makes them even nicer. And the one that first put the destination on adventurous luxury travelers’ maps has just emerged from a four-year renovation that’s made it lovelier than ever.

Bom Bom began life in the 1980s as a collection of bungalows for marlin fishers, built at the tip of a peninsula between golden sand beaches in the Gulf of Guinea. Fifteen years ago, it was one of the first spots South African (then) billionaire Mark Shuttleworth touched down when he visited the island in search of a place to decompress.

At the time, the wildly biodiverse island had no roads and little infrastructure—mostly the decaying vestiges of its years as a Portuguese colony and time as the largest cacao producer in the world. “It’s just this extraordinary atmosphere,” Shuttleworth recently told the Financial Times. “It’s kind of primeval.”

And he learned that it was under threat from developers who wanted to produce palm oil there. Shuttleworth saw an alternative—an opportunity to “create a sense of a future that would be interesting, that would preserve some of the things that I think people viscerally react to when they get there.”

That meant founding a socially conscious company that combines small-footprint luxury tourism with an organic agriculture business. He called it HBD, as in “here be dragons,” a phrase said to be used by early mapmakers to mark unknown lands. Bom Bom was the first hotel he acquired, although he subsequently turned his attention to getting the entire island designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, creating the Príncipe Foundation (focused on biodiversity conservation and the social and economic development of the island’s people) and getting the farm and some other hotels going.

HBD revitalized one of the island’s largest cacao plantations, Roça Sundy, into a charming heritage hotel. It created the gorgeous tented camp Sundy Praia, a member of Small Luxury Hotels. And it built the Omali resort on São Tomé, the entry point to the islands, which are reached via a seven-hour flight from Lisbon (the only departure point outside Africa).

Now, after its renovation, the oldest hotel in the collection is its crown jewel. Bom Bom is back and better than ever. Its 18 hillside and beachfront bungalows were gently redesigned under the supervision of the French interior designer and architect Didier Lefort. They’re painted robin’s-egg blue on the outside and kitted out with African textiles and artworks inside.

They share the resort’s two beaches, central swimming pool and new beachfront restaurant, which serves a modern take on traditional island cuisine—heavy on the fish and seafood, of course—that draws on the fruits, herbs and vegetables grown in HBD’s organic garden. A long footbridge connects the hotel with Bom Bom islet, where a second bar beckons.

It’s very tempting to stay put, but HBD has other ideas. Guests are encouraged to join excursions, both by boat to see the island’s beaches and coves, and by land to explore that primeval rain forest. Príncipe is home to more bird species than anyplace else on earth, humpback whales migrate through its waters, and four turtle species lay eggs on its beaches. Hiking trails lead to soaring waterfalls and ruined settlements, while other outings take guests to artisan cooperatives, lunch at a typical restaurant in the island’s main town, or to HBD’s new chocolate factory, where the production is ethical and organic all the way.

“From 2011 until now, there have been a lot of changes—all for the good,” says Bom Bom general manager João Conceição, a São Tomé native who began his hospitality career as a receptionist at that hotel in 2015. “We started small and are growing little by little.”

A big change, he says, is the fact that ten years ago, all the “important positions” were held by internationals, but now more islanders are being trained and taking leadership roles. He admits that this is a challenge—when he went on a scholarship to hotel school in Europe, he was the only one of his classmates to return to São Tomé and Príncipe—but sees hope.

“Many people think having a good life requires going abroad,” he says. “I don’t think so. I can come here and have a good life and help my brothers and sisters.”

That’s the sort of tangible result HBD is aiming for. The list of the foundation’s community initiatives—funded in part by a nightly contribution from every guest—is long, but a common thread is providing opportunities. And “because Príncipe is small, this work is impactful,” says HBD’s head of sustainability, Emma Tuzinkiewicz.

Tuzinkiewicz came to Príncipe after working on the environmental, social and governance team at a New York investment firm. At first, she worried that the scale was too small, that there couldn’t be much impact. “But the opposite is true,” she says. “Hyperlocal solutions can help solve big problems.”

And they can do so by providing a guest experience that’s soulful and luxurious, connected to nature and culture, and never a tedious lecture on do-gooding. Guests can go deep if they want, or they can simply relax on the beach, swim the emerald bay, sip a tea or a cocktail infused with local herbs and revel in being a coddled castaway on an island that’s at the center of the world, but also far away from it all.

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