Category: Madagascar

Southern Madagascar is the country's classic route, the RN7 running 950 km from Antananarivo to Toliara through highland towns, rainforest at Ranomafana, ring-tailed lemurs at Anja and the sandstone canyons of Isalo. It ends in spiny forest and reef on…

Accommodation in Madagascar runs from simple guesthouses at 20 to 40 US dollars a night to a handful of genuinely upmarket lodges, with most comfortable options between 60 and 120. What surprises travellers is that remote places cost more than…

Madagascar has dozens of offshore islands and the ones worth planning around cluster in two places: the Nosy Be archipelago in the northwest, and Île Sainte-Marie with Île aux Nattes on the east coast. Nosy means island in Malagasy, which…

Madagascar has no single climate. The eastern rainforest records rain on roughly 210 days a year, the southwest receives under 500 mm annually, and the highlands drop close to freezing at night in winter. This guide runs through the year…

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…