Category: Madagascar

Nosy Iranja is two islets joined by a white sandbar that appears at low tide and vanishes at high, known as Turtle Island for the green and hawksbill turtles that nest on its beaches. Day trips run from Nosy Be…

Alongside the national parks, Madagascar maintains a network of special reserves protecting habitat too small or too specific for full park status. Most receive almost no visitors, several have no infrastructure at all, and a few hold species found nowhere…

Every wildlife sighting in Madagascar happens on a guided walk, and the quality of that walk depends more on the guide than the park. Asking for a specialist rather than taking whoever is next in the rotation changes what you…

Kirindy Forest Reserve is the best place in Madagascar to see the fossa, the island's largest carnivore, along with the giant jumping rat and the smallest primate on earth. Because it is privately managed rather than a national park, night…

Mahajanga, also called Majunga, is Madagascar's most cosmopolitan city, a west coast port where Sakalava, Comorian, Indian and Arab communities have mixed for centuries. Visitors come for the seafront Corniche, the giant baobab, the red sandstone amphitheatre at Cirque Rouge…

Nosy Komba is a rainforest-covered volcanic island between Nosy Be and the mainland, known for habituated black lemurs, woodcarving workshops and hiking trails to a 622-metre peak. Most visitors come on a day trip from Nosy Be, though the island…

A three to four week Madagascar itinerary is what the country actually needs, covering two or three circuits with the remote parks that shorter trips leave out. Three weeks links the RN7, the western baobabs and the north. Four weeks…

Zahamena National Park protects 13 lemur species including the indri across some of the least visited rainforest in Madagascar, where fewer than one in a hundred of the country's travellers ever set foot. Trekking is the only activity, with multi-day…

Kirindy Mite National Park puts dry forest, spiny thicket, mangrove, dune, sacred lakes and coral reef within a single day's walking, and claims the highest density of primates anywhere on earth. Visitors walk three circuits from Belo sur Mer, add…

Malagasy society runs on fady, a system of ancestral taboos that varies from village to village and is not written down anywhere. Eighteen recognised ethnic groups occupy the island, from the highland Merina and Betsileo to the coastal Sakalava, Vezo…