Nice re: the visa fee. Looks like all the embassy sites are offline here in the UK anyways. Anyone know how long the visas are good for? Thinking of getting mine soon for a Christmas trip.

Anyone have any news from recent Madagascar trips?

Things are a bit different
 

Well 2 weeks ago I would have tried to talk you out of it but now things have changed. My friends in Madagascar are expats who have lived in Mada for over 20 years. They say it is all clear to go again. There was a coup d'etat in January.

For a complete photo trip report of our 3 week trip to Madagascar in 2008 check http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...adagascar.html . I don't have the link. We loved our trip. We did hire a car and driver. We stayed in the best places in the country. The food is awful. We weren't particularly exhausted after the trip. If you just want to plop on a beach try the Seychelles Islands instead. Madagascar has little infrastructure and is rugged travel at best. So it would not be a relaxing honeymoon all the time. I loved Ifaty for the beach. Les Dunes Hotel was a very comfortable retreat on the Mozambique Channel. It was brand new and well run. It is right on the water. I agree with Lavasoa in Fort Dauphin having the best views ever. It is not a fancy place. Our room had a very musty odor. We did the RN7 route also.

Does anyone know about these tours or similar tours?

I'll have about a week in Madagascar with not much flexibility with my dates and I'll be traveling by myself so it would make sense to travel along with others. One of these ad hoc tours would probably work best for me. Most of the tours I've seen are lengthy or have pre-set dates that don't work for me.

Cheers. :)

With that short a time, I would not wait to book things until arriving.

Where exactly do you want to go and what do you want to see? In that short a time, you won't be able to get to more than a couple of destinations.
Also, how is your French? Even though English is an official language, there is almost nobody who speaks it.

I will suggest you stay far away from Boogie Pilgrim as a travel agent. They are expensive and will not deliver what you pay for. (See my travelogue at http://www.xenophilia.net/madagascar/madagascar.html for the details.) If you are heading towards the west, the folks at Chez Maggie in Morondova seem very competent at arranging things (based on other people I talked to).

By the way, I think the beaches further north along the west coast are far nicer than Ifaty. They are, however, more of a pain to get to. (Literally, as the roads are quite bad.)

I just got back from 10 days in Madagascar. Some quick notes:

- the Madagascar embassy in London was very easy to deal with. We got single-entry visas for free. One-day turnaround time (though possibly same-day if we were rushed, they said). Free (though the cost might rise in 2010, it's unclear).

- tourism is down significantly in Madagascar. Our hotels were running at maximum 25% capacity. It's hurting and hurting bad. I'm not sure many places can stay open much longer if there's increasing political issues tainting the news.

- travel inside Madagascar was easy. Air Madagascar was fine. Tickets were expensive though - I used their South African agent and paid about 350 Euro for TNR-NOS roundtrip.

- connecting via JNB was easy as well. SA Airlink flies direct daily. It would have been cheaper likely to use Air Madagascar to JNB, but their schedule didn't match my plans.

- i felt pretty safe the whole time. However I found the people to be far less friendly than in other Francophone African countries. It was rare to get a smile from people when you say "bonjour" on the street.

- in the cities, you can get by with English and a bit of French. Outside the cities, you'll likely need to speak a bit more French. Nosy Be was easy for me as an english speaker, as was Tana.

We went last year in mid-July for about 12 days, using Cortez Travel, on a modified version of their "Musts of Madagascar" tour. It was a very interesting experience, and I'm very happy we visited, though I don't have a great desire to return. We visited Tana, Perinet, Mantadia National Park, Maroantsetra, Masoala National Park, Isalo National Park, and Tulear. Let me know if you have any questions.