Bom Bom is the picture of a private paradise: a tiny islet off the north coast of Príncipe, joined to the main island by a long wooden walkway that stretches out over the turquoise sea, with two white-sand beaches hugging it and the rainforest as a backdrop. Here stands Bom Bom Island Resort, the island's most iconic place to stay and the heart of its sustainable luxury tourism.
The resort, with just 18 eco-friendly bungalows spread between the hillside and the beach, is the work of South African tech entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, who fell in love with Príncipe and set up the company HBD to combine low-impact tourism, organic farming and conservation. Today Bom Bom is one of those places where luxury is measured in untouched nature, silence and crystal-clear sea rather than in showiness.
This guide explains what Bom Bom is, how to reach this remote corner of the Príncipe Biosphere Reserve, what to do —beaches, snorkelling, diving, fishing, whale watching, trips into the rainforest and the roças— and how it fits into a trip to the wildest island of São Tomé and Príncipe. It's the perfect finishing touch for anyone looking for a genuine tropical paradise, far from everything and almost everyone.
Bom Bom is an islet off the north coast of Príncipe that became the symbol of the island's tourism revival. Its recent history is tied to South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth and his company HBD ('here be dragons'), which since the early 21st century has invested in the island, restoring historic roças and creating sustainable luxury hotels such as Bom Bom, Sundy Praia and Roça Sundy, becoming one of the country's largest employers. All of this on an island declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2012, whose history of discovery, cocoa and independence is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The country's greenest and most unspoilt island: an autonomous region and biosphere reserve, with a forgotten town that was once the colonial capital, and the roça where Einstein's relativity was confirmed.
Read the history of The island of Príncipe →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Bom Bom is one of the small islets around the island of Príncipe, the smaller and more remote of the two main islands of São Tomé and Príncipe. Like the whole archipelago, it is volcanic in origin: it belongs to the chain of Gulf of Guinea volcanoes that rose out of the ocean millions of years ago. Off the north coast of Príncipe, Bom Bom was cut off from the main island by a narrow channel of turquoise water, with sandy beaches on either side.
When Portuguese navigators reached the archipelago around 1470-1471, Príncipe and its islets were completely uninhabited and covered in lush equatorial rainforest. The island's north coast, with its coves and dense vegetation, stayed almost untouched for centuries, away from the colonial settlement that grew up around Santo António and the plantations inland.
For a long time, Bom Bom was just one more wild corner of an island the world barely knew. Its transformation into one of Africa's most exclusive tourist destinations is a recent story, tied to Príncipe's modern history and to the arrival of an investor who chose to conserve rather than exploit.
Like its neighbour, the island of Príncipe went through the archipelago's great economic cycles: sugar in the 16th century and, above all, cocoa and coffee from the 19th century onwards. At its peak, in the early 20th century, São Tomé and Príncipe became the world's largest cocoa producer, and the island filled up with 'roças', the plantation villages that kept the economy going on the gruelling labour of 'serviçais' brought over from the mainland in conditions close to slavery.
As cocoa declined over the 20th century, the island economy fell into crisis. São Tomé and Príncipe gained independence from Portugal on 12 July 1975, and the island of Príncipe, small and far from the capital, has since sought recognition of its distinct identity. That goal was reached on 29 April 1995, when Príncipe was granted the status of Autonomous Region, with its own government.
Free of its dependence on cocoa but with a fragile economy, the island began to look to its greatest asset: remarkably well-preserved nature. The rainforests, beaches and reefs that had reached the 21st century almost intact became the basis of a new development model centred on ecotourism, in which Bom Bom would play a key part.
The turning point came with Mark Shuttleworth, a South African tech entrepreneur, known for selling his company Thawte and for being one of the first 'space tourists', who fell in love with the island of Príncipe. He founded HBD, whose initials stand for the phrase 'here be dragons', the legend old cartographers used to mark unknown lands on their maps.
Shuttleworth's project combined low-impact luxury tourism, organic farming and conservation, with an investment of tens of millions of dollars that made HBD one of the country's largest employers. The company restored historic roças and developed several high-end properties: Bom Bom on Príncipe, the exclusive Sundy Praia with its seafront villas, the historic Roça Sundy converted into a hotel, and the Omali on the island of São Tomé.
Bom Bom Island Resort thus became the emblem of tourism on Príncipe: around 18 eco-bungalows redesigned by French architect Didier Lefort, painted a soft blue and decorated with African art and textiles, spread between the hillside and two beaches, and linked to the main island by its signature wooden walkway. Luxury understood not as showing off, but as privileged access to untouched nature.
In 2012, the whole island of Príncipe, including islets such as Bom Bom, was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, in recognition of its almost untouched rainforests, its endemic biodiversity and its marine ecosystems. The international recognition confirmed the island's direction: protect its environment and develop high-quality, low-impact tourism, instead of the intensive exploitation that had defined the cocoa era.
Bom Bom embodies that model. The resort draws on the natural riches of northern Príncipe (reefs for diving and snorkelling, rich waters for sport fishing, humpback whales passing through in season, turtle nesting beaches) and serves as a base for exploring the rest of the island: historic roças such as Sundy, the legendary Praia Banana beach and the rainforest of Parque Natural do Obô.
Today Bom Bom sums up Príncipe's new story: an island that went from slavery and cocoa to becoming a sanctuary for nature and sustainable tourism. Its wooden walkway over the turquoise sea, its two beaches and its bungalows tucked into the forest are the picture of a paradise the island has chosen to protect, betting that its greatest treasure is not what can be taken from the land, but what is kept of it.
