Africa Cultural, religious and historic sites Trips

Great trip, well lead by Omar who took care of everyone through week. Whilst the trio was tough in parts, Omar made sure that the pace was appropriate for everyone. I would highly recommend the trip.

Wonderful trip, fantastic leader, challenging country with immense poverty, government corruption and inequality. Difficult issues to face when coming from the west and our affluence. Wonderful wildlife and birds and insects. We saw so much and took some fantastic photos. Our leader Charles was the best organised, knowledgeable, helpful and kind person and assisted our every need. FAB

This was an excellent holiday which happily we returned from some days before the UK advised against all travel to Madagascar. Hopefully problems will be resolved enough for people to go in the future. Our tour leader Armand was truly excellent. Our bus driver and assistant did a great job on awful roads. Our group was a lovely group of 9 guests and worked well together. I was amazed how many lemurs we got to see and how close. The forests, reserves and parks are very good and the guides excellent. The evening walks were good as well as the daytime ones. The Tritriva crater lake and the Ranohira canyon area are spectacular and not to be missed. There were chances to experience local culture and see some dancing. The cultural evening at Ambositra was particularly good. I chose the optional snorkelling trip followed by lunch on the beach and can recommend these highly. The hotels are typical of Explore, pretty good on the whole but not top of the range. Minor niggles occur in the odd place such as only one towel for a couple, poor bar service etc. but mostly very good. The best hotel was Relais de la Reine near Ranohira, both for location and service. Most of the others very good too. But Artisan hotel at Ambositra had a very pokey little room and Feon'ny Ala Bungalows at Andasibe was truly awful with leaky plumbing. I would recommend taking a head torch with plenty of batteries and not just for evening walks. Most of the hotels have their own generators but don't always run them the whole time the electricity is off. Even when the electricity is on the lighting is often poor so the head torch helps. The food I found was generally excellent quality but often the portion size was rather big for me. I used a watertogo filter bottle to drink tap water from and bottled water for cleaning teeth and used regular hand sanitiser especially after handling money and I didn't suffer any stomach bug, though a few people did. A unique holiday - put it on your bucket list!

This was a fantastic experience. We saw so much amazing wild life particularly lemurs and chameleons. Charles our tour leader was inciteful, a true gentleman and took great care of the group. There were some uncomfortable long road trips due to the poor state of the roads with many pot holes. The hotels with the exception of Relais de la Reine were not luxurious but served their purpose. However, the wildlife we saw made it all worthwhile.

This was our third trip with Tafalgar, and as, usual Trafalgar did not disappoint us :-). The Best of Morocco trip is absolutely outstanding. The variety of experiences you get across the culture, and during the 15-city visit cannot be accomplished on your own. The overnight stays were a great variety, and the Sahara dessert over night tent experience is so memorable!!!! We loved the entire experience from start to finish! From the beach to the capital to the desert to the cave to the modern day city, to even where they ride donkeys! What fun! What culture! What amazing, memorable, picture-worthy moments! Plus, the food was a good variety. In short, trust me. This trip is worth it :-). Our Travel Director was with us every step of the way!! She too was great. Thank you, Trafalgar.

Excellent holiday but perhaps the long day driving to see the roman ruins and the vineyard could be missed out. It was a considerable amount of driving for a 30 min tour of the ruins and a 10 min tour of the vineyard. Another night at Ouzoud would perhaps be better. The local guides were excellent, in particular the two in Marrakech and Essaouria. Very insightful. Riads and Dars were all excellent (with much needed air conditioning). The meals in the family homes were a lovely insight into local culture with mouth watering food.