1

"I also think they are very expensive" You have probably got that right. Welcome to Madagascar. The answer is probably not to get a tour operator to organise everything for you. So get a car not a 4x4 along the RN7 then organise the others locally when you arrive.

2

If you get any leads, pls let me know....my friend and I are planning to go in July and we've been quote $177 USD/day for driver, petrol, hotel (for driver) and food (for him too). I thought that was too high.

hallimos@yahoo.com

3

Did you consider the price of these items?

1) Gas & empty return of the car.

For exemple, it is very likely than on a classic tour like the RN7, you would drive 1000km. Then most travellers give up the car so the car has to return empty , for example from Toliara to Antananarivo, it takes another 2 days of rental + 1000km worth of gas + driver's expenses. Gas is quite expensive here compared to what people pay in other countries.

2) Flights. Air tickets are very cheap in Europe...but in Madagascar we have a monopoly which is driving price up to the roof.

Have you checked with ASISTEN Travel. Some travellers in this forum have used them.

4

Have the different agents given you prices for the same route, same type of vehicle, same standard of hotel? If so, and they are very different, they might have different costs of their own, such as bigger offices... who knows??? Ask them directly why their prices are so different, you may learn something about how they planned your trip from their reply.

Travel agents are businesses, they have to pay the same costs that you are discovering as you hunt for yourself, plus they pay office rent, staff, very expensive communications costs (phones and internet are expensive in Madagascar), taxes, insurance, and etc, etc, AND, after all of that, they have to also make a profit, so it will of course cost more to use an agent than to go alone, but anyway I don't think you are debating that, I think you seem to be confused by the different prices and I think you will be doing yourself a favour to ask them directly.

There are a lot of things to consider and if you decide to organise your trip without an agent you will need to think about the details carefully. As mentioned in 3 above, return of the car can be a real surprise for some people but it is not like abroad where you hire a car in London and leave it in Manchester. In Madagascar you must pay for the car to go back to where it started. The route RN7 is pretty straightforward and any driver could manage that, your hotel in Morondava could organise all your local tours there, the Hotel Le Dauphin in Fort Dauphin will have to organise Berenty for you anyway...

Really you could organise the whole trip yourself, it is a pretty straight forward itinerary, but, you might find yourself with an expensive headache should things go wrong... and I recommend you choose your car very well and get an agreement in writing (not easy to do with a private driver due to language difficulties so best to go to an agent) because you need to understand with your car hire firm what happens should the driver you choose turn out to not speak your language, or be unhelpful, or if he gets drunk, or the car breaks down, who buys the drivers meals, where does he sleep???

If you use a local agent for just your car or for all your travel, you have a number to call to sort things out. And, you know you are supporting local people trying to improve tourism in their country.

I have heard good things from other travellers about the agent mentioned above in 3, and also Cactus, and also MTTC, amongst others.

5

Hello and thanks for your responses.

I would normally book everything myself - but I am hesitating since I have some internal flights and could really use some support should I have problems with them and need to rearrange my plans. I am just surprised that it seems some tour operators seem to want 2000 or 3000 euros of pure profit when they haven't even assisted me to build up the itinerary as I had all listed for them. Anyway I am waiting for more replies now - let's see what I get.

I have seen MTTC mentioned a couple of times now ... which company is this? I cannot figure out what it stands for.

Thanks again!

6

I used a great local tour operator during a 3-week trip last November. Only problem is that their very reasonalbe qoutes mean they don't make enough profit (in my view) to reward them for their incredible reliability, flexibility and always sunny dispositon. If you do choose to use them, please bear this in mind as its a family business (2 families in fact depend on it for a living), they go much further than the extra mile and we (3 of us) repeatedly told them that they need to up their prices in order to get a decent living from the business.

It is run by Dyna assisted by his brother-in-law, Tiana and your can contact them at contact@madagascar-rental-tour.com

Highly Recommended but please don't bargain them into the ground! We rich boys (relatively) have an obligation to be fair contributors to poor countries such as Madagascar when we visit I think.......

7

Hello,
I am planning a trip to Madagascar in mid May with my daughter , I am in touch with a few local tour companies Cactus and Dodi's Lamour tours and Assisten.
They all seem to be very expensive about 3-4000$ for one person all included with flights.
Can any one recommend ? also I checked and Assisten is the only company listed in the Madagascar official tour guide site but they are the most expensive , do you think this is an important issue , being listed in the local tour association?
Thank you,
Hanny