beach paradise? Best Madagascar beaches & the ones to avoid?

Fantastic Info Sara! Thanks!

You have sold me - I shall be jumping on amazon and buying your book :) Sounds like you are living the dream!

I have been researching and researching on the internet and after reading about how travel is so difficult in Mada (one person said to allow 3hrs for every100kms which I can see as probably being viable seeing as we had similar travel lengths in Mali) we're thinking 6 weeks isnt enough to explore the whole island so we're trying to choose one region that we can focus on.

As beaches are our main focus the region will rely heavily on that, though we also like hiking and would like to see some tropical landscape and wildlife and not be surrounded by fellow tourists.

Sounds like you're recommending the South East for our needs...? We were thinking based on our research and your info that we may try to travel from Ft Dauphin up to Sainte Marie.... doable do you think without having to rush too much to fit it in?

Only issue we face is that we fly in and out of Antananarivo, may I ask how long we should expect it to take to get down to Ft Dauphin and what the best means of ground transportation are? We are budget travelers so hiring a car and driver is not our first preference.

Sara - you are a champion!

Thanks!

Hi Sian,

I have exactly the same question as you - where are the best beaches in Madagascar - i.e. ones that are safe (from currents, sharks any other nasties etc.), good for swimming / surfing, chilled out, decent accomodation etc.

I see you got some good information from another poster called Sara - would you be able to share some of the info she provided? Or your own experiences assuming you've already done your trip?

Thanks!

ben