Madagascar — where to go and when
1 destination covered
Nosy Be is a volcanic island off Madagascar's north-western shoulder, hollowed with crater lakes and ringed by a scatter of islets, and it is best understood as a base rather than as a destination. Its own beaches are pleasant and its interior is green with ylang-ylang plantations that scent the roads, but what people come for is the archipelago around it: a coral islet an hour out where turtles graze, a steep lemur island opposite, sandbanks that appear and vanish with the tide, and a channel that whale sharks cross in the warm months. Days are organised by boats and the state of the sea, not by roads. That makes it a convenient way into a country which is otherwise hard travelling, since a direct flight sets you on a beach without a single long dirt road. It is also the part of Madagascar that least resembles the rest — the famous landscapes and the endemic forests are elsewhere, and reaching them is a separate expedition. Prices here run at roughly a fifth of the French level.
When to go
Our comfort filter returns nothing at all here, because the heat never relents: November peaks at 33.5 °C and July, the coolest month of the year, still holds 30.4 °C. The usable season is therefore defined by rain alone. January is the wall — 519 mm over 25 rainy days — while June to September is the dry run, July recording just 29.6 mm over seven days. The whale shark and humpback seasons both fall inside that dry window, which is the real reason most people travel then rather than at any other time.
No single month clears our comfort threshold everywhere in the country at once. The table below gives each place its own favourable months instead.
The places we cover, side by side
| Place | Favourable months | Warmest month, avg. high (°C) | Coldest month, avg. high (°C) | Rainy days a year (≥ 1 mm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nosy Be | none | 33.5 | 30.4 | 213 |
Figures measured at the weather station nearest each place, then averaged over the warmest and the coldest months of the year — not over a fixed calendar season. Each destination page carries its own month-by-month table, its station and its sample size.
Getting around
Boats do the work here. Motorised pirogues and small launches leave the main beaches for the surrounding islets, the price settled on the sand before departure, and it is the sea state rather than any schedule that decides whether a crossing happens. On the island itself, shared taxis follow the few surfaced roads and motorbike taxis cover what is left; distances are short and journey times are not. A ferry crosses to the mainland. The airport is 5 km from the main town, the next 155 km away.
Budget
Country price level compared with France : −80 %
Price index for restaurants and hotels, France = 1000, from European purchasing power parities. It is a country average: it says nothing about one hotel in particular.
Destinations in Madagascar
Frequently asked questions
Does a week here count as having seen Madagascar?
Honestly, no. This is an island with its own history and its own feel, and the things the country is known for — the spiny forest, the baobab avenues, the rainforest parks and the high central plateau — are all a long way south and reached by internal flights or by very slow roads. Treat it as a beach week that happens to be Malagasy, or add ten days and fly onwards.
How many days should the islets get?
Three or four boat days inside a week, and not consecutively. The coral islet, the lemur island and a sandbank picnic are each a full day once transfers are counted, and the sea can cancel any of them without notice, so a spare day is not optional. Leave the rest for the crater lakes, the plantations and doing very little.
Updated on 21 September 2026