Category: Madagascar

Madagascar was among the last major landmasses on earth to be settled by people, reached from Borneo across the Indian Ocean rather than from Africa 400 km away. The Merina kingdom unified much of the island in the nineteenth century…

A 5-day Madagascar itinerary covers one destination and nothing else, and the right one for almost everybody is Andasibe-Mantadia. Five days means three usable ones after arrival and departure, which rules out any circuit and most flights. Travellers who accept…

Antsirabe is Madagascar's highland spa town, sitting at around 1,500 metres on the RN7 with thermal springs, colonial architecture and thousands of hand-pulled pousse-pousse rickshaws working its wide avenues. It is the standard first overnight stop heading south from the…

The cost of travelling in Madagascar is lower than most visitors expect on the ground and higher than they expect to arrange. Food, accommodation and park fees are inexpensive by international standards, while vehicle hire and domestic flights dominate almost…

Ifaty and Mangily sit 27 to 30 km north of Toliara at the end of the RN7, with a coral reef roughly 200 metres offshore making snorkelling straightforward from the beach. Behind them stands spiny forest holding baobabs and the…

A 7-day Madagascar itinerary works only if you resist covering ground. One week gives you either the eastern rainforest and highlands, or the northern circuit around Diego Suarez, but not the full RN7 and certainly not two regions. The strongest…

Antsiranana, still widely called Diego Suarez, sits on one of the largest natural harbours in the world at Madagascar's northern tip, and works as the base for the whole northern circuit. From here you reach the Emerald Sea, the Three…

The cultural side of Madagascar gets less attention than the wildlife and is easier to reach. Markets, village visits, vanilla and spice farms, craft workshops and the vast zebu market at Ambalavao all sit alongside the standard circuits, and several…

Île aux Nattes, known in Malagasy as Nosy Nato, is a car-free island of around three square kilometres off the southern tip of Île Sainte-Marie, widely rated as holding the finest beaches in Madagascar. Access is by dugout pirogue across…

Madagascar rewards travellers willing to work for it. The via ferrata at Tsingy de Bemaraha, the summit of Pic Boby at 2,658 metres, the four-day trek to the silky sifaka at Marojejy and the Tsiribihina river descent are the genuine…