Amazing Custom – Made Madagascar Tour

Aug 2019 • 

We took a three-week trip to Madagascar through Nirina’s tour agency in August 2019. It was an absolutely incredible, unforgettable experience and we highly recommend his agency.
We are a family of four (with adult kids in mid-20s) and we wanted to see as much of Madagascar as possible in three weeks without *too* much driving or flying. We told Nirinia which major sights we wanted to see, and also requested that we do activities like kayaking/hiking/biking. Nirina custom-made an amazing itinerary that included all the major sights we wanted to see, plus a ton of smaller sights along the way, all with plenty of hiking. He also arranged for us to bike up from one of our hotels to a beautiful crater lake. Because we were four people + 1 tour guide + 1 driver, Nirina set us up in a van for the majority of the trip, and with a 4WD vehicle for the Tsingy / Kirindy / Avenue of the Baobabs portion of the trip. One of our flights was cancelled/delayed and Nirina handled that all seamlessly for us behind the scenes. One of us is vegetarian — that was a challenge but not insurmountable.

Our tour guide, Dehon, is really the reason our trip was so fantastic. We truly cannot say enough great things about him. He knows EVERYTHING about the country, and he was able to answer every question we had, even the random questions about plants/trees. He had detailed descriptions of certain cultural, historical, and geological aspects of the country as we drove through. He knew little things like where to find the best roadside rice-and-banana-treat stand. He deeply cared about the people in Madagascar, and he truly understood the problems that many of them face. Plus he was just really fun to hang out with! Both of our two drivers (different ones for the van and the 4WD) were also fantastic.

If we were to do this trip over again, there are only two things we would change. First, we picked the “low/medium” hotel options and we weren’t thrilled with one or two of the hotels (especially the one in Tsingy, which I think was the “Tanankoay Hotel”?). We should have just gone with the “medium” option. That said, many of the hotels were absolutely charming.

Second, we didn’t love Ifaty (on the southwest coast). We really wanted to visit a beach while we were there, but we should have just cut out the beach altogether. It was a very long drive to get to Ifaty from Isalo National Park, and although Ifaty’s beach is beautiful, there wasn’t much to do there. We had requested a beach that we could go snorkeling at, but to go snorkeling (or do any other tours) in Ifaty you have to take a boat a couple hours away. You can’t really swim because the beach is very shallow for very far out (only ~1 ft deep) and the bottom is rocky. There were also a LOT of people trying to sell you stuff on the beach by standing there and yelling at you. We wished that we had used the time we spent in Ifaty on extra time in the other places we went to so that the trip in general felt more relaxed (for example, an extra day in Isalo). If you are really determined to go to a beach while touring southern/western Madagascar, budget enough time/money to fly north to somewhere like Ile Sainte Marie.

Besides those two things, our trip was perfect. Great itinerary and communication from Nirina, Dehon is the best tour guide in all of Madagascar, and our two drivers were wonderful. We learned so much and had so much fun. If you are thinking about taking a trip to Madagascar through Nirina’s agency, do it!!!!