1

If you think you can't handle the security situation go organized and with a tour group.

People older than 60 years always love sozializing anyway. So travelling organized and with a tour group never is the worst idea for them anyway.

Madagascar is not L.A. South Central or a war zone. Safe travelling in Madagascar is possible.

2

Sensible to consider your safety. There are previous threads on this and Madagascar is IMHO safe. What work by the way? I'm a 68 year old man and have been there four times and have never had the slighest concern for my safety other than trekking which could have been anywhere.

'People older than 60 years always love sozializing anyway. So travelling organized and with a tour group never is the worst idea for them anyway.'

Before I write something that I might regret let me just say, not always.

3

Hi Sally,

First let me say that you should take the warnings of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, at least in respect of Madagascar, with a very large pinch of salt. This is after all the source that in 2009 put Antananarivo into the same risk category as Baghdad at a time when I was wandering around the city with a group of students and being greeted with huge friendliness and enthusiasm by all kinds of people whose businesses had suffered because the “vazaha” had disappeared. The British “Embassy to Madagascar” is not in Antananarivo, but in Mauritius. “Nuff said,” I think.

Second, although I’m sure he makes his point with the best of intent, I find #1’s statement:

“People older than 60 years always love sozializing anyway. So travelling organized and with a tour group never is the worst idea for them anyway.”

downright patronizing and not far short of insulting. I also belong to the age group, and I enjoy socializing no more and no less than I did before passing this supposed milestone. And I must say, at the risk of being accused of being insulting myself, the kind of people that one tends to encounter on organised tour groups are not top of my list when it comes to choosing who I socialise with. That is also something that did not change on my reaching 60. As you can see, I don’t feel called upon to exercise Rory’s enviable and admirable restraint.

Anyway, as according to your first post you’re going to do voluntary work at Arivonimamo, I doubt very much whether an organised tour is what you’re looking for. And during your voluntary work you’ll learn so much about the country that in the end you’ll wonder what you were ever worried about.

I travel frequently and widely in Madagascar, and I can only endorse what Rory also says. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t even feel threatened by the trouser-pocket and bag-slashers who are a pain right now in the shopping areas of central Tana, because I know that while they may be after my money and cell-phone, they don’t want to provoke the very real anger of the majority of Malagasy people by doing physical harm to me in public. The real danger in Madagascar, if there is one, is from road traffic accidents, which is sadly par for the course in most developing countries.

Oh, and before anyone comes with the old cliché “it’s different for a man”: My daughter has been travelling solo around Madagascar since her late teens – and it is her age group, not ours, which statistics worldwide indicate as most at risk. As a woman of 66 travelling alone, you can, in my view, expect to meet friendliness, respect and a willingness to help if you need it. Just exercise the same common sense precautions at night in major cities like Tana and Tamatave as you would in parts of Manchester or Salford or whatever other part of Lancashire you come from.

For more reassurance, just trawl this thread for comments on safety by Rory, myself and many many others, then go to Madagascar and enjoy the country and its people.

4

When are you off lass?

5

My plan is to go mid September --mid December, teaching for about 10 weeks and then doing some travelling round. Trouble is, my fellah wants to join me at the end ---- and this is just when the weather turns lousy!
It is so difficult to decide. I have been offered places in Madagascar, cameroon and Cambodia. Which to choose? Ee by gum!

6

People older than 60 years always love sozializing anyway
What makes you an expert on over 60?. I am a very little over 60, but hate parties and crowds, and am very happy living and travelling alone.

7

Maybe he has a socializing grandma that he pats on the head...