Madagascar

The Malagasy Ariary (MGA) is the local currency of Madagascar. Credit cards are not widely accepted in Madagascar, they are sometimes accepted in the main cities, hotels and larger restaurants. Visa is the most accepted card and MasterCard is not accepted outside of Antananarivo. It is recommended you do not rely on your credit cards for payment, it is recommended you have enough cash with you to cover the needs of your stay. ATMs are not everywhere in the country and they’re not always well-stocked. Here is an informative article about money in Madagascar: https://www.onebaghedonist.com/money-matters-in-madagascar-mastering-mvola-orange-money-atms-and-credit-cardpayments/

For the most up-to date conversion rate click here or download the app- https://www.xe.com/.

A passport with 6 months validity at the time of entry and 3 blank pages. Tourist visas are required and available upon arrival.

For more information, please visit the State Department website here.

Madagascar has two plug types, types C and E. Plug type C is the plug which has two round pins and plug type E is the plug which has two round pins and a hole for the socket’s male earthing pin. Madagascar operates on a 220V supply voltage and 50Hz.

Click here to purchase an adapter/converter for your trip and see other travel accessories

Before your trip, a Happy Ambassador will reach out to you about tipping our local guides. Plan to budget at least $100-$150. Happy Ambassadors are already compensated, the tip money will go to local guides.

In October in Madagascar, the average air temperature ranges from 87 °F during the day to 72°F at night. It’s a sub-tropical climate, so mostly hot and humid. Pack lightweight loose clothes in natural fabrics. Be sure to bring good walking shoes for touring and hiking, shorts, tshirts, sundresses, a pair of tights/jeans/joggers, a light jacket, swimwear and coverup, beach shoes, a hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen.

Fresh seafood is a highlight of a visit to Madagascar, but meat is also available, as are excellent fresh vegetables and tropical fruits. Rice is the most common staple, with manioc available in the rural areas. The national dish is romazava, a meat and vegetable casserole, with banane flambe—peeled banana with white rum poured over it and set alight. Another favorite traditional dish is ravitoto, a pork stew made with manioc leaves and spiced with ginger. The beverage that goes with the meal is ranonapango—a drink made by burning rice and adding water to it.

Fresh baguettes and excellent coffee are available in most towns. Choose restaurants carefully, and stay out of those that appear less than sanitary. Antananarivo has a wide variety of international restaurants, among them several specializing in French, Indian or Chinese cuisines. The Hotel Colbert has an excellent French pastry shop. In season, NovemberFebruary, fruit is abundant: Lychees are the specialty of the east and mangoes of the west. The locally produced mango chutney and rum are quite good. Ranovola, a watery rice drink, is unique and worth a try. Red, white, rose and sparkling wines are produced in Fianarantsoa. In the north, trembo (fermented coconut juice) is popular.

Madagascar, the world’s fourth-largest island, is full of oddities and rarities. If you’re partial to lizards, for example, you’re in luck: You’ll find more than half the world’s species of chameleons there. You’ll also find more than some 70 species of lemur, a family of wide-eyed, long-tailed primates that are exclusive to this one island. Madagascar’s biodiversity also embraces some 220 endemic frog species, while more than half of the 210 breeding birds occur nowhere else in the world. And every year scientists discover new species of plants and animals in its deserts and forests.

While Madagascar is a nature lover’s dream, it’s still one of the poorest countries in the world— three-quarters of its 17 million people live on less than US$1 a day. Though warm, wet and fertile, the island produces barely enough to feed itself—one in 10 children there is chronically malnourished.
Politically, the situation in the country has improved since 2001, when a disputed election threw Madagascar into chaos. President Marc Ravalomanana is opening up the country to foreign investment and trying to stamp out corruption and bad governance after years of mismanagement. Plus, the 2005 animated film Madagascar generated a lot of worldwide interest in this country off Africa’s southeastern coast.
So there is hope for Madagascar, especially in the area of ecotourism. It has an exceptional variety of landscapes, from coral isles and virgin coastlines to baobab forests and craters. All of Africa has one variety of baobab tree, for example, and Madagascar has seven, as well as 19,000 species of plants—a world record.
However, Madagascar continues to face ongoing problems—flooding in early 2005, regular cyclones (in 2004, cyclones destroyed an estimated 120,000 structures, left 240,000 people homeless, and killed and injured scores more) and drought conditions in some areas. The country is also constrained by lack of infrastructure (there are only about 3,700 miles of constructed roads in a country the size of France). So although tourists are heading there in ever-increasing numbers, Madagascar still has a long way to go before it ranks as a top tourist destination.

Scientists believe the chunk of land that became Madagascar broke from Africa around 160 million years ago, together with the present-day Indian subcontinent, and it has been isolated from all other landmasses for at least 60 million years.

The island remained uninhabited by humans until around 2,000-2,500 years ago. It is not clear who first inhabited it, but oral tradition suggests that originally it was home to a group of pygmies known as the Vazimbas.

The island’s first settlers were Melanesians, who arrived in the sixth century. In succeeding centuries, Madagascar became an important link in the spice trade between Europe and Asia. African, Arab and European merchants visited the island, mixing with the descendants of Madagascar’s original Southeast Asian settlers.
In time, the island’s population split into more than a dozen tribes, the most powerful of which was the Merina,who ruled the central highlands. European and American pirates were a force in the early 17th century—they made the island a haven for those who plundered the merchant ships ferrying goods between Europe and Asia.
It wasn’t until the 19th century that Madagascar was united into one country by the king of the Merina. His administration ruled until 1883, when the French invaded the country and turned it into a protectorate. In the following decades, the French suppressed a number of uprisings by
the Malagasy, and Madagascar did not gain independence until 1960. Following the departure of the French, the island was controlled by a series of autocratic rulers who plundered the country and ruined its economy. The first free elections were not held until the 1990s.
In 2002, self-made millionaire Marc Ravalomanana swept into office as president after a disputed election with former incumbent Didier Ratsiraka. Ratsiraka was eventually forced out after eight months of demonstrations by supporters of Ravalomanana, whose dairy and oilproducts business is the largest non-foreign-owned company on the island.
Ravalomanana is trying to strengthen the economy, by introducing free-market reforms, as well as diversifying diplomatic ties away from former colonial master France.

A high plateau separates the rain forests of Madagascar’s eastern coast from the savannah and dry forest of the western plains. At its extremes, the northern tip of the island is tropical and humid, while some parts of the arid southwest receive only 2 in/5 cm of rain a year.

Outside the capital Antananarivo (almost always abbreviated as Tana) and the central plateau region, Madagascar is sparsely populated, with approximately 17 million people living in small, scattered villages. In general, clans descended from Indonesian and Malay settlers inhabit the highlands, and those of African stock live in the western coastal regions.