Madagascar: The Lost Continent

This was a brilliant tour in every respect. Hery was one of the best trip leaders I've ever had. And the places we went and the things I saw made this a truly memorable trip of a lifetime. That said, it's not for everyone. Long days on bad roads were grueling, and some of the lodging was basic. But these things should not dissuade anyone from visiting this fascinating and beautiful country.

I was the only person booked on this tour starting June 5th 2026, so I ended up with a great "private tour". Explore and I were willing to change to a different tour date but my flights were not working out, so I stayed with the original plan. I had an excellent tour leader Salohy for the entire trip. A SUV was used for the trip - more agile than a tour bus at handling the tricky Madagascar roads - so we made good time on the travel days. The tour itinerary was closely followed in all cases including guides at the national parks. The favourites were Andasibe for the various types of Lemurs sighted and Isalo for the lanscape. All the accommodation was good - my "bungalow" at Ifaty was about 50' from the beach. There were very few tourists at the hotels as well as the parks. Weather was good with no rain but nights were cool 10 C and required a jacket - day time high 20-25 C. A great vacation done at my pace, since I was the only one around - many thanks to Explore and the local staff.

This tour has it all - amazing scenery, opportunities for interaction with local people, animal viewing, including lemurs, history, and a great itinerary which enables you to see a large part of the country. Our accommodation was resort style, and our leader was knowledgeable, friendly and very capable. Everything went well!

It was an excellent trip and we got see lots of lemurs, some up very close which was great. The tour leader, Charles was exceptional, he was very knowledgeable and could answer all our questions. There was a lot of driving but that was expected if you want to see the country and our drivers were very good too.

The aspects of this trip within Explore's control were generally excellent and our leader, Charles, was one of the best I have ever had. The wildlife viewing parts of the trip were particularly good and we saw animals we would never see elsewhere, some requiring very expert guidance to be spotted at all. The royal palace visit was also interesting. There was, however, a lot of very slow driving which I feel was understated in Explore's pre-trip information (e.g. 100km at an average speed of 20 km/hour). In the very best accommodation (from the room and restaurant facilities viewpoint) I suffered a wound requiring 12 stitches and poor illumination of a tricky kink in a path through the grounds beside a low wall topped by sharp edged rock contributed to this, although I would doubtless have avoided this accident if I had been as careful as is my habit. My companions suffered a loss of baggage left behind by the airline at the start of our internal flight. This was only returned about a month after returning to the UK, although that long delay was probably due to civil unrest which also curtailed the activities of the last two days in Antananarivo.