Travel advice for Madagascar
From travel safety to visa requirements, discover the best tips for traveling to Madagascar
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Wild Madagascar
This trip is a tour of Wild Madagascar: discover dusty desert canyons, lush rainforests teeming with wildlife and trek through national parks. Explore the bustling capital Tana, then stop by the beach at Ifaty where you'll encounter forests of baobab trees and wandering tribesmen.
customize ⤍Dreaming of Madagascar
Tropical island beaches, lush rainforest, stunning wildlife, and the bright red clay houses of Antananarivo await you as you arrive on the beautiful island of Madagascar. Get your fill of culture in the capital Tana, snap beguiling wildlife, and revive and reboot on stunning white-sand beaches.
customize ⤍A Taste of Madagascar
An unforgettable journey through Madagascar's enchanting landscapes and cultural treasures. From the lush rainforests of Andasibe to the vibrant streets of Antananarivo, this adventure combines wildlife encounters with rich history, creating a diverse and immersive experience.
customize ⤍Here is our month-by-month guide to visiting Madagascar. We look at detailed weather patterns and suggest how these might affect any sightseeing plans, getting around, outdoor activities, and festivals taking place throughout the year. All this will help you to work out when to go to Madagascar.
Dictated by the Indian Ocean’s southeastern winds, the island follows a distinct seasonal cycle. A hot, wet summer from November to March brings anything up to 4m of rain to the eastern slopes and highlands, roughly four times the UK’s typical annual rainfall in the space of a few months. This is the season when ferocious cyclones hit the east coast and ravage their way inland – busting bridges, sweeping away roads and riverbanks and making travel extremely difficult.
The rains are still heavy, but much less voluminous, in the west and southwest of the island. Down in the semi-desert of the far southwest they don’t always do much more than spatter the parched earth. For the rest of the year, roughly from April to October, Madagascar experiences a dry, cool season – what naturalists call the austral winter.
When considering when to go to Madagascar, you need to take into account the country’s distinct climatic zones. It can rain at almost any time of year in the highlands, for instance, and nights at elevated points on the island can be bitterly cold. If you’re doing some hiking or climbing, you will need warm layers. It also tends to rain heavily most months in the northeast of the island, with the Masoala Peninsula and Baie d’Antongil like a greenhouse most of the year.
Party animals might want to visit Madagascar over New Year, when the occasion is normally marked with a three-day extravaganza of ceremonies, song and dance, though don’t expect many offices to be open.
However, April also sees leaves start to fall from the trees, animals shift down a few gears and some species hibernate for winter. If your main interest in natural history then April and May might not be the best time to visit Madagascar.
However, May is a good month for festivals: Zegny Zo is a lively festival of culture and arts in Diego Suarez, while Donia hosts a week-long programme of traditional music and dance shows across Nosy Be.
From June through September, the central highlands celebrate Famadihana with hundreds of two-day family exhumation and reburial ceremonies. Expect lots of feasts, music and dancing, but take a jumper to ward off the chill.
This isn’t the best time of year to visit Madagascar for flora and fauna though, as the island is in the thick of winter, when trees are bare and many animals hibernate. Saying that, from June to September, whale-watchers can enjoy a continuous regatta of humpbacks up the east coast (and to a lesser extent the west) during their northerly migration past the island.
August is a great time to go snorkelling and diving, when the waters are clear and the visibility is at its optimum. This month also sees Festivanille Satrahagna Sambava kick off with a vanilla-flavoured series of weekend festivals in the Sava region (Vohémar, Andapa, Antalaha and Sambava). Celebrations include sporting contests, music and dance.
Many tour operators run diving and snorkelling excursions throughout September and October, when the water is clear and calm. In September, you might also catch a glimpse of the final few humpback whales migrating north past the island (your best chances are on the east coast). Music lovers should coincide their trip with the Madajazzcar Antananarivo, an annual international jazz festival held every October.
The ideal time to visit Masoala is October or November. Though it still rains frequently during these months, the dry spells are much longer and the sea calmer.
While September and October may remain a little slow on the ground for wildlife action, November is the best month to visit Madagascar if you want to see the island’s curious critters. The first rains bring out an explosion of courting, mating and spawning among amphibians, reptiles, birds and the fabulous fossa.
From travel safety to visa requirements, discover the best tips for traveling to Madagascar
written by Andy Turner
updated 26.04.2021
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