Trek the Remote Trails of Madagascar

I had a blast! Great food, nice accommodations, ever changing scenery and spectacular national parks to wander through. The roads are a tad rough. Just saying. I found the whole portering thing and having my gear carried for me a bit embarrassing but it's what I signed up for and the support crew and particularly our lead guide Barnabas were fantastic. ✌️👍 Madagascar has little tourist infrastructure and I'm super pleased I took a chance and joined this trip where I was looked after and shown the sights between Toliara and Antananarivo. Get the single supplement like I did to avoid cramming into a tiny tent with a stranger. 😅 All good. ☀️

Despite a shocking failure and misrepresentation from Much Better Adventures, the lasting impression of this trip is hiking in the mountains and canyons of Madagascar with incredible support from teams of local porters and villagers. As long as MBA is your only way to access the leadership of Salohy and the teams of Malagasies providing safety, guidance, and really good food, I cannot help but advise you to take your chances and book with them. The trip is difficult, with greatly varying temperatures, long hikes, and even longer bus and truck rides, but worth it for the physical challenge, diverse scenery, and utterly unique cultural experience

Superb trip and really well organised. Tough physically at times but you have all the support needed to enjoy the experience. Learn so much from our fabulous guide Salohy and supported by amazing porters, guides and drivers throughout. Thank you!

What a fantastic trip! Madagascar is a stunning country, and the itinerary put together by MBA crams a lot of amazing sights into 12 days. Madagascar is a huge island, so it's impossible to see everything in that time, but you leave feeling like you've really seen a great portion of it. Our tour was expertly led by Bruno, who was amazing throughout. His attention to detail was fantastic, giving us lots of insight into the life and history of the people of Madagascar, whilst also keeping the trip running perfectly, making sure places were aware of our arrival in advance, sending meal booking ahead of time in cases where we might be arriving late, and just generally looking after the group and our varying needs. I would highly recommend this trip to anyone. The hikes are of a reasonable length, and the warmth and sun certainly make them a good challenge, but not too technical, so anyone with a good level of fitness would be fine. As many have said, the drives are long, and the roads not great, but the scenery along the way is amazing, and there are plenty of stops to break things up. The food was all very good, and generally options available for those with dietary requirements. The camps as you might expect are very basic, but only spend 2 then 3 nights camping broken up by a stay in a lodge, and the porter team do an incredible job catering at these very remote camps! My only two points of feedback for possible improvement would be: 1. it would be great if there is time somewhere to fit in a quick visit to one of the other reserve areas with other species of lemur, possibly on the final driving day, it was suggested there might have been a park somewhere not far from the road you drive back to Tana on. 2. The bike ride on the final day is probably a little more challenging than some of us were expecting, particularly if it's been a while since you've ridden (I personally found it much tougher than any of the hiking as it had been a number of years since I last rode a bike!). It is closer to mountain biking than road biking, and some of the terrain is pretty rough. Bruno actually took a few members of the group back a shorter route, leaving the rest of us to carry on with just the local guide, who often ended up being quite far in front, and probably didn't check up on us as frequently as he should have. Might be good to make sure this is reflected, and do a bit of checking before the ride starts properly that everyone is comfortable on the bikes, as you are thrown in the deep end a bit.

Overall, this was a great trip! Organization was flawless and the guide and support crew were excellent. My highlights were the Isalo national park and spotting Lemurs in Camp Catta and Anja Park. Keep in mind that the focus of this trip are the Isalo and Andringitra parks, so days 2, 3, 10, 11, 12 are basically travel days with only minor activities (though the visit of Anja Park was very nice). The days were often very long, arriving at hotels after dark and leaving again early in the morning (which was a pity, as most of the hotels were really nice). The only exception was the day at Camp Catta between the two treks. I think this trip would be even better if it were 1-2 days longer, it would allow to split the driving across additional days and we passed at least two national parks that we didn't visit.

Fantastic trip in a beautiful country!

What a fantastic adventure with an amazing bunch of people. Madagascar is generally off the beaten track, but this trip really gets you into the heart of the country, away from what tourists there are. Beautifully located campsites, daily swim spots and stunning unique scenery that constantly changes. We were lucky enough to have Bruno as our guide. A true professional, positive and informative, he always read the mood of the group perfectly and made adjustments to the itinerary as and when weather conditions or we needed them. Prime example being when, after 2 nights of being caught in thunderstorms, he switched our last night camping to a gite. We were treated to a Sunday football match, a warm fire, rum, music and dancing with our absolutely brilliant support team. The food on this trip really is fantastic. I was certainly not expecting to eat fois gras, zebu tartar, zebu steak, and delicious stews in Madagascar… Be prepared for some long and bumpy road journeys. There’s no way around them. It’s a poor country and the roads are dreadful. However there’s lots to see out of the window, Bruno has a wealth of knowledge to share and we made plenty of stops along the way. This trip is quite full on so I was very happy to have booked a few days in Nosy Komba at the end. Inside tip: there’s an international airport on Nosy Be, so you can fly home from there. Nosy komba is beautiful and super safe. The guesthouses will arrange a boat transfer from the airport for you!

I didn’t realize this was a bucket list trip until being in the mountains. The treks, views, camps and people surpassed all expectations. The nature is simply stunning. Such a unique experience. Huge credit to our guide Bruno who was very well organized, informative and friendly. Highly recommend being fit, patient and adaptable for this trip. Madagascar is difficult to traverse and amenities along the way will be basic. If you like the outdoors and want to experience something different, this trip is for you.

This one really packs a punch! Madagascar is unique and, although it’s not necessarily an easy trip (more because of the logistics than the hiking), it is seriously worth it. If you’re reading this and wondering if you should book it - you should!! We saw so many stunning and different landscapes that the bus journeys really didn’t feel too high a price to pay for all the life we saw along the way. Lots of opportunities to swim in incredible spots, an array of wildlife, and epic hiking. Bruno, the porters, our wonderful chef (huge crew!) took such good care of us that I often felt spoilt. Bruno really is the best guide I’ve ever had - constantly narrating everything that we saw and made managing the logistics look effortless when I’m certain it was not! He works magic and reads the group so well - pulled it out of the bag to get us into a gite for one of the best nights of the trip when we were flailing because of the wet weather. Fab group as always and just an all round brilliant experience. Thank you Bruno and MBA for another awesome adventure!

Bruno, Bruno, Bruno! What would we do without you. We had an incredible trip touring up Madagascar, and everything was taken care of by our guide Bruno. The bus journeys were long, but broken up by market stops, and Brunos very knowledgable insights. The camp sites on the two treks were beautifully chosen, and were well away from the usual tourist routes with beautiful scenery and even a crystal clear waterfall pool at one of them. We had rain for 3 of the nights at Andringitra National Park, which did come as a little bit of a surprise, but was very quickly resolved by a warm fire, and a 3 course meal served by our cook. We then quite quickly forgot about the rain whilst sharing a bottle of rum and joining in with the porters Malagasy songs around the campfire. Given some of us started to run out of dry kit by the 3rd day, our guide quickly altered the schedule by replacing our 3rd night with a stay in a Gite (small guesthouse, surprisingly clean!) which was welcomed by all. Overall, an incredible unforgettable trip which overdelivered on all accounts. Madagascar is a beautiful country, and we couldn’t’t have asked for a more knowledgable attentive guide to lead us on our tour.