Road to Madagascar

Nomadic Road's November 2022 Road to Madagascar expedition was a ten-day, 800-kilometre overland trip across Madagascar, run mostly on dirt roads. The route worked through some of the least travelled regions of an already under-travelled country, and November sits at the end of the dry season, with the first storms starting to build in the east. Madagascar's terrain ranges from rainforest to spiny desert in less than 1,000 kilometres, and the 2022 edition crossed several of those transitions. Madagascar is not what most travellers expect. Beyond the postcard image of lemurs and beaches, the country is culturally dense and ethnically diverse, with 18 official ethnic groups, each with its own customs and visual identity. The route passed through Merina highland villages, coastal fishing communities and several inland markets where zebu carts still outnumber motor vehicles. The 2022 group drove 4x4 vehicles built for the terrain, which on this route means broken tarmac, deep mud, regular river crossings, and tracks where dirt is the most reliable surface. Several stretches averaged less than 20 kilometres an hour for hours at a time, which is the Madagascar overland reality. Evenings were spent in small lodges and guesthouses, with the food, music and rhythm of Malagasy evenings. By the end of the ten days, the Road to Madagascar expedition had delivered an island that few commercial trips reach. Not jungle, not luxury, but a real overland route through one of the more underestimated countries in the Indian Ocean. The November 2022 edition was part of Nomadic Road's early work on Madagascar as a serious overland destination, and laid the foundation for the more demanding RN5 and South routes that the company runs today across the island.