Travelling to Madagascar: what to know before you go

Travelling to Madagascar takes a little more preparation than most trips. Plan the entry permission before travel: the eVisa portal lists 30 to 40 euros online, while official short-stay arrival advice differs. The CDC recommends malaria tablets for travel outside Antananarivo, and almost everywhere you need cash in ariary, because cards work in few places beyond the bigger hotels.

A 140 km drive can take four hours. Leave room for slower days and finish driving before dark. We're based in Antananarivo and drive these roads every season.

Entry: the visa, your passport and the health form

Buy the visa online through the official eVisa site or on arrival at Ivato airport in Antananarivo. The portal lists 30, 35 and 40 euros online for up to 15, 30 and 60 days in October 2026. It says arrival fees match, but the FCDO describes a 10-euro charge for British visitors staying up to 15 days. Confirm the applicable arrival rule before travel. Your passport must be valid for at least six months after you arrive, with two blank pages, and you should be ready to show an onward or return ticket.

At the time of writing there's one more step. Because of the Ebola outbreak, everyone fills in a health declaration and is screened on arrival, and the UK Foreign Office says anyone who has been in or changed planes in an affected country in the previous 21 days may be refused entry. If your flights connect in East or Central Africa, check with your airline before you book.

Paris is the European connection to compare for a nonstop Air France leg to Antananarivo. Other common hubs include Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Johannesburg, while some services make an intermediate stop without changing flight number. Our guides to the Madagascar visa and flights to Madagascar have the details, and Antananarivo covers the capital, where most trips begin.

Money: cash, the ariary and the cash machines

Plan to pay cash, in ariary, except where a hotel or restaurant confirms it accepts your card. Through 2026 a euro has bought roughly 5,000 ariary, and a dollar about 4,500. The biggest note is 20,000 ariary, worth roughly four euros, so cash comes in thick bundles.

You usually can't buy ariary before you leave home, so change euros at the airport or a bank, or use a cash machine. Machines are in the larger towns, but each withdrawal is capped, usually at 400,000 to 800,000 ariary (about 80 to 160 euros), some machines run dry, and Visa works in more of them than Mastercard. Take out what you need before a long drive. If you bring money from home, euros are easier to change than dollars.

On our trips the park fees, local guides and breakfasts are already paid, so your cash is for lunches and dinners, drinks, tips and shopping. More in money in Madagascar and what a trip costs.

Malaria, water and insurance

The CDC describes malaria transmission as rare in Antananarivo and present elsewhere in Madagascar, and the CDC recommends preventive tablets for the rest of the country. See a travel clinic six to eight weeks before you go, and ask about typhoid and hepatitis A, both recommended by the CDC for most travellers who haven't had the jabs.

Tap water isn't safe. The UK Foreign Office says to drink and use only boiled or bottled water and to avoid ice in drinks. Don't swim in lakes or rivers either, because the CDC warns of schistosomiasis, a parasite in fresh water. Dogs with rabies are common, so leave the village dogs alone.

Medical care is limited, and thinner still outside Antananarivo, so take travel insurance that covers medical evacuation. Our guide to vaccinations and malaria goes through the jabs and the tablets.

Distances: plan in hours, not kilometres

Andasibe is 140 km east of Antananarivo on a paved road and still takes three to four hours. The RN7 south to Toliara (Tulear) is more than 900 km, and Ranomafana alone is 10 to 12 hours from the capital, which is why our Classic South breaks the drive at Antsirabe. In the west, the road from Morondava to the Tsingy de Bemaraha is about 200 km, nearly all of it unpaved, with river ferries on the way.

Don't drive after dark. The UK Foreign Office advises against it because vehicles often have no lights and few roads are lit, and daylight is limited. A five-hour leg that turns into seven still has to finish in daylight, so driving days start straight after breakfast. The taxi-brousse minibuses are cheap but slow, and the Foreign Office advises against them too, because of road deaths and robberies.

Domestic flights save days on the long legs, but schedules change often enough that we'd never put one on the same day as a flight home. Our guide to getting around Madagascar has the drive times. The usual mistake is trying to see the whole island in two weeks, and Madagascar itineraries shows what fits in one, two or three.

Malagasy, French and a little English

Malagasy and French are the official languages. Don't expect English everywhere. French is used in administration and business, and English is easier to find in hotels used to overseas visitors. On our trips the driver-guide speaks English, and you can plan the trip with Christian, who runs Tongasoa, in English, French or Spanish.

A few words of Malagasy go down well: salama (hello), misaotra (thank you), veloma (goodbye) and azafady, which does for both please and excuse me and is often translated as "may it not be taboo to me". The final vowel is usually swallowed, so misaotra sounds closer to "mi-sotr". More in the languages of Madagascar.

Power cuts and plugs

Sockets take the round two-pin European plugs, types C and E, at 220 volts. Visitors from the UK and North America need an adaptor. Check the voltage printed on every appliance, but anything from North America that isn't marked 100 to 240 V needs a converter as well.

The power itself is less reliable than the sockets suggest. Cuts affect towns as well as remote stops, and a hotel having a generator doesn't tell you which hours it runs. Many lodges run a generator, some only at set hours. Charge everything while the power is on, and carry a power bank.

What to pack

Bring layers for highland nights, a waterproof for the eastern rainforest and shoes with grip. Add a head torch for night walks and power cuts, a hat, sun cream and the repellent your clinic recommends. Binoculars help with animals high in the canopy.

The packing guide covers the Tsingy, boats and domestic baggage allowances. Pack to the lowest allowance printed on your tickets.

Tipping

Tips aren't included in our prices, and there's no fixed rule, so treat these as a starting point: around 5 to 10 euros a day from the group for a driver-guide on a multi-day trip, handed over at the end, and 2,000 to 10,000 ariary per person for a park guide after a good day. In restaurants, 5 to 10 per cent.

When to go

For most trips, May to October: the dry season, with firm roads and mild highland days. July and August are the busiest months, so book early for them. The rains run from about November to March and close much of the west, the Tsingy de Bemaraha included, and cyclones are possible from November to April, most of all from January to March. The rainforest at Andasibe has year-round departures, subject to conditions.

Our best time to visit guide goes month by month, and cyclone season explains how to plan around the storms. We'd rather tell you honestly that a route doesn't work in February than sell you a bad week.

Safety and your route

Plan around the current government advice and the risks on your specific route. The real risks are pickpockets in Antananarivo, armed robbery on some roads after dark, road accidents and weak medical care. The Foreign Office's advice is practical: don't drive at night, don't take taxi-brousses, use pre-booked transport, and carry your passport, because police make random ID checks and don't always accept copies. On a private trip you set the departure times, so the first of those is easy.

At the time of writing, the Foreign Office also says armed criminals have boarded boats on the Tsiribihina River and robbed passengers, and advises seeking alternative routes. Our 10-day West Adventure spends four days on that river, and we can reshape it without the river, for example by flying to Morondava and joining the western route there. More in Is Madagascar safe?

Every trip we run is private, with your own vehicle and English-speaking driver-guide. The Classic South is the RN7 with time to enjoy it, and the Eastern trip is the gentlest way to see a lot of the east in ten days. Send your dates on the booking page and a real person in Antananarivo replies, usually within 24 hours.

Photos: Guillermo Suarez, Graphic Node and Sitraka on Unsplash.