This Northern Madagascar tour begins in Madagascar’s colorful capital. This will be upon arrival in Antananarivo for you African safari tour in Madagascar. You’ll have the first night of your Madagascar safari tour in Antananarivo.

Your Northern Madagascar Safari will then head north. You’ll be visiting Madagascar’s most diverse rainforests, Montagne d’Ambre. Here there are sacred caves, underground rivers and remarkable fauna and flora. It is home to the world’s smallest chameleons and lemurs.

You’ll also visit Ankarana Reserve on this Northern Madagascar Safari. The landscape here resembles a spiky stone forest. The underground riverbeds and caves help protect the region from human intrusion. This Northern Madagascar safari ends on the tropical beaches of Nosy Be. This is for the perfect Madagascar beach getaway.

Northern Madagascar tour as the name suggests takes you to the North of Madagascar. On this safari in Madagascar you will visit Ankarafantsika National Park. Here, the chance to see the endangered Lemur species of Madagascar is high.

Other parks on your to visit on this Madagascar tour list include Amber Mountain National Park. You will head to the 3 baies de Diego Suarez: Baie de pigeon, Baie de Dune and Baie des Sakalava.

This Madagascar safari also visit of the Tsingy Rouge of Diego Suarez or the Red Tsingy. This is what makes Northern Madagascar tour a special one.

About 8 Days Northern Madagascar Tour

Northern Madagascar tour as the name suggests takes you to the North of Madagascar. On this safari in Madagascar you will visit Ankarafantsika National Park. Here, the chance to see the endangered Lemur species of Madagascar is high.

Other parks on your to visit list include Amber Mountain National Park. You will head to the 3 baies de Diego Suarez: Baie de pigeon, Baie de Dune and Baie des Sakalava. You also visit of the Tsingy Rouge of Diego Suarez or the Red Tsingy. This is what makes Northern Madagascar tour a special one.

You will also visit Diego Suarez and stay in the Beach front hotel of Ramena Beach. This is in Diego Suarez which is also called Antsiranana.

The Northern Madagascar tour gives you a complete discovery of the Great Island. You will enjoy its landscapes, its culture and its people. the purpose of this holiday is to make you appreciate the variety and diversity of Madagascar.

8 Days Northern Madagascar Tour Highlights

Our Northern Madagascar tour vacation offers you a fantastic nature-filled Madagascar vacation option. Explore the Northern part of Madagascar. This includes national parks with lemurs and reserves with endemic animals.  the tour also goes to beaches with perfect sand.

• Lemurs
• Great and beautiful landscape, topography and natural features
• Very attractive cultures with wonderful people
• Pristine sandy Indian Ocean beaches

8 Day Northern Madagascar Tour Itinerary

Day 1: Antananarivo – Madagascar

You will be met at the airport and transferred to your hotel in Antananarivo. It is at your hotel that you will be briefed on this Northern Madagascar tour. You will if you’ve arrived early tour the beautiful capital of Madagascar.

Antananarivo has bustling markets, friendly people and ancient town. These are located on a hill with freestone churches and ancient royal places. Antananarivo is unique among the world’s capitals. You are booked on bed and breakfast.

Day 2 – 3: Antananarivo – Diego Suarez – Montagne d’Ambre

You’ll begin your day on Northern Madagascar tour with an early breakfast. This will be followed by a transfer to the airport. You will be in time for your flight to Diego Suarez. Here your driver guide will meet you.

After introductions, you’ll enjoy the ride to Montagne d’Ambre National Park. Montagne d’Ambre National Park covers 18,200 ha of a prominent volcanic massif. This afternoon and day three are spent exploring the national park on walks. You will be on half board basis with breakfast and lunch provided.

Montagne d’Ambre boasts striking scenery with rainforests and waterfalls. It is one of the most popular natural attractions in Madagascar. It was established in 1958 to protect the massif and the ecosystems it supports. More especially was the region’s unique flora and fauna species.

In the Park you will have the chance to see seven species of lemurs. They include the aye-aye, the ring-tailed mongoose and a variety of reptiles. Among the reptiles are frogs, geckos and chameleons, as well as more than 70 species of birds.

Montagne d’Ambre National Park

This 18,500ha national park was created in 1958 by the French colonial government. They were recognising the unique nature of the volcanic massif and its forest. The park is part of the Montagne d’Ambre Reserves Complex. This also includes Ankarana, Analamera and Forêt d’Ambre.

The project was the first to involve local people in all stages of planning and management. The aims of conservation, rural development and education have largely been achieved. Ecotourism has been encouraged with good information and facilities now available.

Montagne d’Ambre National Park is a splendid example of montane rainforest. The massif ranges in altitude from 850m to 1,475m. It has its own microclimate with rainfall like the eastern region.

It is one of the most visitor-friendly of Madagascar’s protected areas. The park has broad trails, fascinating flora and fauna. It has a comfortable climate and readily available information. In the dry season vehicles can drive right up to the main picnic area. This gives a unique opportunity for seniors safari to Madagascar. It also allows for disabled Madagascar safaris to see the rainforest and its inhabitants.

Day 4: Montagne d’Ambre – Ankarana

Your Northern Madagascar tour i will travel to Ankarana. This is a nature reserve with karst pinnacles. There are also sacred caves, underground rivers and beautiful scenery.

The rich and diverse flora and fauna includes many lemurs and interesting bird species. Its limestone pinnacles are called tsingy formations. Running through and under the tsingy are hidden forest-filled canyons. There are also many subterranean rivers.

You’ll explore the extensive cave system. This includes several fascinating bat-filled grottoes. Accommodation is on half board basis.

Day 5: Ankarana

You’ll spend the whole day of Northern Madagascar tour in Ankarana nature reserve. You will be admiring the incredibly rich and varied vegetation. There is also plenty of wildlife in the nature reserve. Your accommodation is on half board basis.

Day 6: Ankarana – Ankify – Nosy Be

Your Northern Madagascar tour will leave for Ankify. This is a small village situated along the white sand beaches of Madagascar. You’ll then take a boat to Nosy Be and drive to your next overnight hotel. Nosy Be is also known as “the island of perfumes”.

Nosy Be is the largest of Madagascar’s offshore islands. It is a beautiful tropical island covered with palm trees and bougainvillea. Nosy Be is a postcard-pretty place. Here you could spend the entire day watching the changing sky hues.

Other attractions include luxuriant foliage, friendly people and a relaxed Indian Ocean ambience. You are booked on bed and breakfast in Nosy Be.

Day 7: Nosy Be – Madagascar

Day seven of the Northern Madagascar Tour is spent in Nosy Be at leisure. You’ll visit the Lokobe Reserve. This is a rain forest reserve that protects most of Nosy Be’s endemic vegetation. You might see lemurs, birds and chameleons.

You may go on a day-cruise to the islands “Nosy Komba”. This is the island of lemurs. Optionally there is the “Nosy Tanikely”. This is an underwater reserve offering a rich diversity of marine life. They include beautiful corals and a big variety of fish.

There is excellent diving and snorkeling opportunities. Fish here include surgeonfish, clown fish, barracuda and manta rays. Other water life includes sea urchins, starfish, eels, anemones and many more. You’ll return to your Nosy Be resort for overnight booked on bed and breakfast basis.

Day 8: Nosy Be – Antananarivo

You will start your Northern Madagascar tour day at leisure. This is before being transferred to the airport. You will be in time for your flight back to Antananarivo. This is to connect to your international flight back home.

———- End of 8 day Northern Madagascar Tour Safari ———-

Northern Madagascar Tour Safari Costs:

What is in the cost of Northern Madagascar Tour Safari?

• Car and fuel with a driver
• Guide during the whole tour
• Hotels during 7 nights (Hotels are mid range in the North)
• Park entrance fees and local guide fees
• Speed boat to Nosy Be Island (one way)

Northern Madagascar Tour Safari Price excludes:

• Your food and drinks during the whole tour
• All the domestic flights
• All your international flights

What to Carry on the Northern Madagascar Tour Safari

• Light and a few heavy clothings for evenings
• Closed, comfortable shoes
• Sun protection like sun cream, hat
• Insect repellent

Northern Madagascar Tour Destinations

Antananarivo

The Northern Madagascar tour starts in Antananarivo. It  is a real concentrate of what the island reserves in an urban framework. It is the capital of Madagascar, and is called “the City of thousands, referring to 1000 treasures to discover.

With your family on safari tour to Madagar, visit a “rova,” a palace of the royal era. You can wander through the animal parks to discover the fauna and flora visible all around the island.

In solo or in couple, there is a trek to go through the 12 sacred hills to discover the Malagasy gastronomy in one of the restaurants of the upper city. Antananarivo offers you a rich journey for young and old.

Tana, as the capital is universally known, is all about eating, shopping, history and day trips. The town centre itself, with its pollution and dreadful traffic, puts off many travellers from staying.

But bypassing the capital altogether would be a mistake: Tana has been the home of Malagasy power for three centuries and there’s a huge amount of history and culture to discover, as well as some unexpected wildlife options.

In the city itself, the Haute-Ville, with its beautiful colonial buildings, steep streets and cool climate is a great place to wander about. There are also some excellent markets and shops that stock products and crafts from across the country at very competitive prices.

Finally, Tana is the place in Madagascar to treat yourself to a fine meal on your Northern Madagascar tour. Some establishments rival Europe’s Michelin-starred restaurants, but without the price tag.

Montagne d’Ambre National Park

Northern Madagascar Safari to Montagne D’ambre National Park or Amber Mountain National Park goes to northern Madagascar. This is located 35 km from Diégo. A Northern Madagascar tour to this Madagascar national park takes you to the Antsiranana province, and 1000 km from the capital city.

Here you can wander through the isolated montane rainforest of 18,200 hectares at an altitude ranging between 800 and 1.475 metres.

A prominent volcanic massif, crater lakes and waterfalls make this one of Madagascar’s most beautiful and biologically diverse areas. Taking its name from the resin that seeps from some of the trees (some over 40 m tall), the Amber Mountain sits in a rainforest rising up from the drier lowland surrounds.

These lowland savannas receive only about 900 mm of rain per while the park is drenched with an average of 3.858 mm annually. This water runs into the long rivers and lakes and creates a wild beauty of nearly 18,000 hectares of connected green forests. These waterways provide life for many tree ferns, orchids, mosses and lianas.

Madagascar’s first national park, Montagne d’Ambre (Amber Mountain National Park) offers a cool escape on your Northern Madagascar tour. It is home to crowned lemurs and Sanford’s brown lemurs, plus a wonderful array of reptiles.

What to See in Montagne D’ambre National Park

There are 59 species of reptiles and 34 species of amphibians living in the forests of Montagne d’Ambre. The rate of 11% of endemism includes 3 snake families, 1 chameleon family, 3 lizards families and 2 frog families that exist nowhere else.

Some species to keep a lookout for on your Northern Madagascar tour include: the panther chameleon, the Madagascar tree boa and the two leaf-tailed geckos.

There are also 25 species of mammals living in Montagne d’Ambre. They include the crowned lemur, northern ring-tailed mongoose, fossa and the brown mouse lemur. 6 families of tenrecs, the rare falanouc, and the Galerie Elégante also live in the park.

Montagne D’ambre National Park plays host to an abundance of chameleons and numerous leaf-tailed geckos, and the well-maintained trail system offers some rewarding walks on your Northern Madagascar tour.

Two waterfalls – Cascade d’Antomboka and Cascade Sacrée – form focal points, and there are crater lakes (Lac de la Coupe Verte and La Grande Lac), plus viewpoints over the forest and surrounding area.

Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park

The protected area of Tsingy de Bemaraha in the west of Madagascar consists of a national park and strict nature reserve. The site is unique with its biodiversity and exceptional landscape called the Tsingy – which can be translated into “where one can only walk on tiptoe”.

In 1990, Bemaraha was the first area in Madagascar to be classified a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it also became a UNESCO National Cultural Heritage Site in 1991. Part of the reserve was changed to national park status in 1997.

The Northern Madagascar tour to Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park giest to the Melaky region in central west Madagascar. This is about 300km from Antananarivo as the crow flies. The park stretches over an area of 157,710ha, with a length of 100km from north to south and a width of 10 to 40km from east to west.

The southern part with an area of 72,340ha enjoys the status of being a national park. The northern part, which is managed as an strict nature reserve, covers 85,370ha of land.

The protected area is located on the Bemaraha plateau at an altitude of 150 to 170m, a karst formation bounded to the east by steep cliffs and to the west by gentle slopes.

South of the park, there is a formation of pinnacles where access is extremely difficult. In the north rolling hills alternate with limestone formations.

What to See in Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park

A Northern Madagascar tour to Tsingy, takes you to the Razor sharp pinnacles, The Tsingy are produced by the erosion of limestone massifs over millions of years. There’s a pathway of steps, ladders, boardwalks, cables and suspension bridges that has been installed, with phenomenal expertise, to allow tourists to explore the tsingy in safety.

Sheltered in the Tsingy is an array of wildlife for your Northern Madagascar tour to explore. They include 11 species of lemur, 103 species of terrestrial and aquatic birds, 22 species of amphibians, 15 species of bats, and a variety of reptiles. Strange succulents such as Pachypodiums provide splashes of green amidst the grey limestone.

The Manambolo River cuts a spectacular gorge through the limestone on the southern boundary of the national park. Visitors on Northern Madagascar tour can enjoy a Northern Madagascar tour up the river in a traditional dugout canoe known as a ‘pirogue’.

There’s also the opportunity to visit one of the caves filled with stalactites and stalagmites as well as a few human tombs from Madagascar’s first settlers, the Vazimba (approximately 5th century).

Ankarana Nature Reserve

Ankarana National Park consists of unique limestone tsingy rock pinnacles, this park is also home to crowned lemurs, dwarf lemurs and sportive lemur.

Containing a unique geological wonder – an eroded fortress filled with limestone spires or ‘tsingies’ – Ankarana National Park was established in 1956, 90 kilometres south of Antsiranana.

The topography of the park is varied and in addition to the limestone tsingies includes tropical jungle, raging rivers, green forest, canyons and the biggest underground network of caves in Africa.

The Northern Madagascar tour to Ankarana National Park takes yout 90 km south of Antsiranana covering an area of 182,5 km². It is a spectacularly eroded limestone fortress of sharp ridges, patches of dense tropical jungle, deciduous forest, deep caves and canyons.

It is actually the biggest underground network of Africa and rushing rivers. With an annual rainfall of almost 2000 mm, the underlying rocks undergo a heavy erosion producing an amazing karst topography, being its most known result the fantastically eroded limestone spires, known as “tsingy”.

The Park is in fact one of the most visited specially among hikers: it offers incredible trails, unique and terrific landscapes and a lot of animals!

What to See in Ankarana

This reserve contains one of the highest density of primates of any forest in the world. Its dense forests support one of the largest and least disturbed populations of crowned lemurs.

On the Northern Madagascar tour, ou can see Sanford’s brown lemur, perrier’s black lemur, northern sportive lemur and dwarf lemurs, ringtailed mongoose, fossa, tenrecs and Madagascar striped civet are also a common sight.

Almost 100 bird species, 50 reptiles (including some endemic and threatened snakes and geckos) and 10 frogs cohabit in the Park.

Inside the spectacular and huge labyrinth of caves 14 bat species, local endemic blind shrimps and the world’s only known cave-living crocodiles are waiting on your Northern Madagascar tour. At night swarms of bats and flying foxes swoop in the darkness.

More than 350 plant species grow in Ankarana. The luxuriant forests around the gorge are always green and are the richest ones in number of species. Some significant species are the “vazaha tree”, pandanus, ficuses ad the endemic baobab Adansonia madagascarensis.

Nosy Be

The Northern Madagascar tour goes to Madagascar’s number-one beach destination. The island of Nosy Be has all the ingredients you’d expect. Here your Northern Madagascar tour will find soft white sand, turquoise waters and wonderful seafood. A paradise for water-based activities with its sunny climate most of the year, diving is the top draw, and there is plenty of swimming, snorkelling, sailing and fishing. Operators offer excursions to the surrounding islands with their beautiful beaches and great diving opportunities.