Category: Madagascar

Andringitra National Park holds Pic Boby, at 2,658 metres the highest summit in Madagascar that ordinary walkers can reach, along with granite domes, high grassland and ring-tailed lemurs living above the treeline. Treks run from a single day to four…

Madagascar holds an estimated 100,000 invertebrate species with the overwhelming majority endemic, and two of them are worth planning a walk around. The comet moth has a wingspan reaching 20 centimetres with tails adding another 15, and the giraffe-necked weevil…

The fossa is Madagascar's largest carnivore, a cat-like animal roughly the size of a small puma that hunts lemurs through the canopy. For all the resemblance, it is related to the mongoose family rather than to cats. Kirindy Forest Reserve…

Anja Community Reserve holds the highest concentration of ring-tailed lemurs anywhere in Madagascar, in a patch of forest beneath three granite domes 13 km south of Ambalavao. Visits run from a ninety-minute walk to a longer climb toward the summits,…

Most rental agencies in Madagascar supply vehicles with a driver as standard, and hiring without one requires asking. Self-drive is legal and possible, particularly on the sealed RN7, but road conditions, navigation difficulty, frequent checkpoints and limited breakdown assistance make…

Madagascar holds over 300 described frog species with new ones named regularly, and almost every one lives here and nowhere else. There are no toads, no salamanders and no newts: frogs are the entire amphibian fauna. The mantellas are the…

Ankarafantsika National Park is the best place in Madagascar to see eight lemur species and 129 birds in one short stay, protecting one of the last large stands of western dry deciduous forest. Circuits run from ninety minutes to a…

The Central Highlands are where most trips to Madagascar begin and where nearly all of them pass through, a plateau of terraced rice fields and red-earth villages running from Antananarivo south through Antsirabe and Fianarantsoa. This is the country's cultural…

Getting around Madagascar means choosing between a private vehicle with driver, taxi-brousse minibuses and domestic flights, and the choice shapes an itinerary more than anything else. Roads are slow, distances deceive and flights run at limited frequency. Most visitors combine…

A 10-day Madagascar itinerary covers one circuit properly rather than three badly, and for most first-time visitors that means the RN7 south from Antananarivo to Toliara. The route takes in highland towns, two rainforest parks, ring-tailed lemurs and the canyons…