Madagascar is one of those places that completely surprises you! Especially if you came to the country with little to no expectations… the wild landscapes, copious amounts of baobabs, lemurs up in the trees and picturesque beaches. Road tripping around Madagascar sounds like such an adventure and a dream – and don’t get me wrong, it was! But let’s get realistic… what does a trip like this actually cost?

I’ve just returned from spending almost 4 weeks exploring the island. From Antananarivo down the RN7 to Toliara, up the West Coast to Morondava, driving the back roads to Tsingy before finally looping back to Antananarivo. It’s quite a range of landscapes and scenery… from rainforests to national parks to quiet coastal villages. You can take me out of engineering but you can’t take the engineer out of me! So – I’ve obviously tracked every single Madagascar Ariary (MGA) along the way and broken it down by category.

This is my real Madagascar travel budget breakdown… the real costs, where we went wrong, where we could’ve improved, the surprises and breakdown. I’ll be sharing tips so you don’t come home as broke as we did! Whether you’re hiking, camping or indulging in a few comfy lodges – this guide shows you what to expect.

The Numbers at a glance

• Total spent: OUCH – roughly £5 255 (including our car rental of £3454) / €6 000 (± €4000 on car rental)
• Trip length: 25 days
• Average per day excluding the car rental: £82 / €94
• Average per day including the car rental: £210 / €240
• Travel style: Unfortunately… It was not very budget friendly! Mix of guesthouses + beachfront lodges, mainly eating out.

Average per person per day including car rental: £105 / €120

Accommodation in Madagascar

Total Accommodation Cost: 4 000 000 MGA (approximately £675 / €775)
Average per day (for two): £28 / €32

We mainly stayed in guesthouses. It was a little tricky knowing how much accommodation would cost as it varies depending on the area/city. It’s also quite difficult as a lot of accommodations aren’t on Google Maps or online booking systems. We did a lot of research and also heaps of valuable information in the Bradt’s Guide for Madagascar.

The prices below (a range just so you know when planning) is quoted per night for two.

• Camping: 15 000 – 20 000 MGA (£3 – 4 / €3.50 – 4.50)
• Guesthouses: 70 000 – 140 000(£11 – 23 / €12.50 – 26)
• Mid-range guesthouse: 140 000 – 200 000 MZN (£23 – 33 / €26 – 38)
• Hotel: 300 000+ MGA (£50+ / €57+)

While we did rent camping equipment, we didn’t actually do any camping during our time in Madagascar. We tried to keep a budget of 135 000 – 150 000 MGA per night. Except for our splurge for our last night in Tana, where we opted for a resort spa. We also couldn’t be picky about our accommodation in Salary Bay, where the villa was 300 000 MGA (£50 / €57) per night and we had to stay two nights because I was too sick to travel.

You can definitely camp in some places, even in some hotels/guesthouses you can ask to pitch your tent in the parking lot or on the property for a small fee. But of course if you opt for this, just keep in mind that it’s not quite the same camping standard as you would get in Southern Africa.

Car Rental in Madagascar

Total Transport Costs:  MGA (approximately £3 454/ €4000)
Average per day (for two): £138/ €158

So – we opted to self drive Madagascar because we thought that arranging public transport would be a challenge (plot twist, it seemed relatively straightforward). We did look into booking an organised tour but figured we might be able to do it for cheaper and do the loop we wanted to (which included seeing the Western Coast of Madagascar). I’m sure you could arrange a customised tour but we decided to DIY it.

We rented our car from RoadTrip Africa and since we were planning to do the Grand Circuit, we had to go for the more expensive rental (€140/day). There’s plenty of ways we could’ve cut down our expenses. We could’ve shortened the time we spent exploring the West Coast, cut down our rental period and not rent camping equipment.

• Fuel: 4 500 – 5 000 MGA/litre for diesel
• Car Rental: €140/day
• Camping equipment rental: €10/day
• Pisteur hire: €25/day

As we had plans to drive from Toliara (Tuleur) to Morondava via Salary Bay, Andavadoaka and Belo Sur Mer, we needed to hire a pisteur. A pisteur essentially is someone who is local to the area that will help you navigate the sandy roads (famously, they don’t have any road signs). They also come in help for knowing which parts of the “road” you should speed up on so you don’t get stuck.

Car Related Costs

• “Tolls”: 5 000 MGA per “toll”
• Community Taxes: 5 000 MGA (£0.85 / €1)
• Ferry (to and from Tsingy): 180 000 MGA (£30 / €35)

Food & Drink

One thing we didn’t appreciate was that Madagascar is an island nation so a lot of things are imported into the country. Essentially what this means is that a lot of things are more expensive that what we were paying in Southern Africa. On our first day of getting the car, we did do a grocery shop at Carrefour – which, maybe wasn’t the smartest thing because that is an international grocers. We might’ve been better off shopping in a local grocers. Easy to make foods like pasta, granola, yogurt etc were purchased but in all honesty, we did a poor job consuming dinner food. Our breakfast items did finish quite quickly but struggled to replenish stock on the road.

So we mainly ate out during our 3 weeks, so our wallets were hurting quite a bit! While meals themselves don’t cost a lot (in comparison), the costs do add up! What I would suggest here would be to try buy more breakfast items. Majority of the places we stayed didn’t have the typical kitchen/washing up facilities, which is a poor excuse to not cook but yet it was our excuse!

Total Food Costs: 4 070 000 MGA (approximately £680/ €780)
Average per day (for two): £27/ €31

• Tourist restaurants: 25 000 –  45 000 MGA (£4 – 7/ €4.5 – 8) for a main. 60 000 – 90 000 MGA (£10 – 14/ €11.50 – 16) for a three course menu
• Continental breakfast: 10 000 – 15 000 MGA (£1.80 – 2.50/ €2 – 2.80)
  American breakfast: 15 000 – 25 000 MGA (£2.50 – 4/ €2.80 – 4.60)
• Lunch (starters or sharing a main): 15 000 – 25 000 MGA (£2.50 – 4/ €2.80 – 4.60)
• Beer: 8 000 – 10 000 MGA for a big bottle of Three Horses Beer (THB) (£1.40 – 1.70/ €1.60 – 2)
• Our grocery shop: 342 000 MGA (£60/ €70)

Activities & National Parks

We love a good national park and those tend to come at a cost. They aren’t ridiculously expensive but like everything in Madagascar or long term travel – does add up!

Insiders Tip: One way for you to cut down is to be organised and see if you can meet another couple or person to split the cost of the guide! The guide is a set price (up to a group of 4). This is pretty uniformed throughout all of Madagascar’s national parks.

Total Activities Costs: 1 245 000 MGA (£208/ €240)
Average per day (for two): £8/ €9.20

In national parks such as Ranomafana, Anja and Zombitse, guides work with an animal spotter. Essentially they are someone who will go ahead to find the animals and communicate either by phone or vocal calls with the guide to know where to go! They are included in the price you pay for the guide but just something worth noting especially for tipping. All of these places only accept cash to pay for park fees so remember to bring enough to cover the costs of all your activities!

• Ranomafana National Park: 120 000 MGA entry + 150 000 MGA morning hike + 120 000 MGA afternoon guided hike
  I’ve written a no-fluff guide on visiting Ranomafana National Park, which you can read here.
• Anja Community Reserve: 40 000 MGA entry + 60 000 MGA guide
• Isalo National Park: 130 000 MGA + 160 000 MGA guide
• Zombitse National Park: 130 000 MGA + 160 000 MGA guide
• Tsingy de Bemaraha: 110 000 MGA entry  + 165 000 MGA guide

The Sneaky Extras

This definitely caught us off guard – especially the ATM fees… depending on the city you’re in, ATM you use, how much is left in the ATM – you might be limited on your maximum withdrawal amount. I was trying to withdraw about 1 000 000 MGA (£167) and I could only withdraw a max of 200 000 MGA each time, with a fee of 9 500 MGA per transaction. That’s literally £8 / €9.20 spent on ATM fees for this one transaction!!! Yikes…

Like many parts of the world, Madagascar has started to developed a culture that’s heavy on tipping (in the tourism sector). A lot of the amount we spent on tips were related to guiding services. While we generally usually tip when we’ve enjoyed the services, for some places, it felt like an expectation – we were even asked after one of the guides “where’s our tip”… even before the tour was over. Which is quite a stark difference especially considering I’m from a country where there isn’t actually any tipping culture! But I digress.

Total “Extra” Costs: Estimated £310/ €355

• SIM card & data (physical SIM): 113 000 MGA (£18 / €20) for 22.5 GB
• ATM fees: 9 500 MGA per transaction. I didn’t calculate the actuals but I estimate ± £40 / €45
• Laundry: 89 000 MGA (£15 / €17)
• Visas: $74 (paid in USD cash) (£55 / €63)
• Tips: 627 000 MGA (£105 / €120)
• Souvenirs: 448 000 MGA (£75 / €86)

Average Daily Budget (By Travel Style)

Take this with a grain of salt… because at the end of the day, everyone’s travel style is unique to them and costs vary depending on what you decide to prioritize speeding your coin. These are just a range for what I would’ve assumed you might spend. As I’ve mentioned previously, we are more comfort travellers these days… especially doesn’t help that I ended up with food poisoning midway through our trip so I was really paranoid about where I was eating. Our wallets was definitely not happy with how much we abused it while in Madagascar… But you could definitely travel on a shoestring by taking public transport and eating at the local spots!

The prices below are per person. Our daily average per person was £42 / €53 excluding the car (add £64 / €74 per person for the car)

• Shoestring Backpacker: £30 – 40/day (public transport, basic guesthouses, 1 – 2 parks) €35 – 46
• Mid-Range: £40 – 100/day (mix of guesthouses & beach lodges, car rental, more parks). €46 – 115
• Comfort/Flashpacker: £100+/day (private driver, nicer stays, internal flights). €115+

Is it cheaper to visit Madagascar on your own or with a tour?

Let’s keep in mind this was our average (including the car rental) per person, per day: £105 / €120

Now, let’s break it down. This will be a little tricky because a lot of tour companies don’t exactly provide the same itinerary. I haven’t contacted any local tour companies with regards to their prices or what they offer – all this is just off Google, which you can easily find yourself as well… so bare with me…

Tour Options:

This 21 day itinerary off TourRadar goes to majority of the places we had visited except for the West Coast between Toliara and Morondava. It will set you back ±£3420 / €3920 per person
£162 / €190 per person per day

An 8 day tour with a twist – cruise down the Tsiribihina River and explore from Antananarivo to Morondava (and back) for £1300 / €1490 per person.
£163 / €185 per person per day

This 8 Day Tour with Explorer MDG from Antananarivo to Morondava (and back) is £1660 / €1900 per person
£208 / €238 per person per day

This 9 Day Tour with Explorer MDG which will take you along the iconic RN7 from Antananrivo to Toliara and back is £1750 / €2000 per person
£195 / €222 per person per day

Intrepid offers a 14 days tour exploring the RN7, starting in Antananarivo and ending with flights back from Toliara for £2620 / €3000 per person
£190 / €215 per person per day

So, with all the facts laid out in front of you, you can clearly see the winner here… but just be mindful, the roads aren’t in amazing conditions… BUT that being said if you do decide to DIY this, if you’re booking a car through Roadtrip Africa, they offer the option to have a driver for £26 / €30 per day!

How to manage your money better in Madagascar?

Oof – learn from my mistakes! We had been pretty careful with our budget throughout our travels and while we didn’t spend a ridiculous amount, we definitely spent a lot more than we should’ve… If I were to redo the trip knowing what I know now – this is how I would change what we did.

Saving on ATM fees

While in Antananarivo, estimate your budget for the next week or so and take out as much as you realistically can. This will probably save you with ATM fees especially in the “smaller” cities because you aren’t as limited on your maximum withdrawal amount. Although, we were struggling to withdraw anything more than 900 000 MGA at any one time. We were averaging about 500 000 MGA per day (£84 / €) between the two of us when you average out the national park fees.

Some places may offer to take card but be mindful that in some places, it will be 3.5-5% extra.

Bring EURs, not USDs

If you’re someone who prefers to try save on ATM fees and rather exchange money, you’re better off at bringing crispy EUR notes rather than the standard USD notes. At the time of writing – the exchange rates were a lot better for EUR from what I gathered from the unofficial black market exchanges. In some places, they are more likely to quote you in EURs than USD as well.

but……

Pay in Madagascar Ariary rather than Euros.

Especially for accommodations! While most accommodations don’t have a website, it was really interesting visiting the ones that did… for the tarrif rates, they would quote MGA and EURs but the EUR rate was often much higher than the MGA rate.

Example: a hotel website we saw quoted a double room for 180 000 MGA (which is €30) but on the website they would quote you €60!!!

Message or call the accommodation for prices!

This is probably the better advice I can give you: try not to prebook your accommodations. I love using Booking.com especially considering that I’ve got status with them (and usually get accommodations for a reasonable rate). But unfortunately in Madagascar, it will cost you more. A lot of accommodations aren’t online (no online presence or very limited) and the ones that do put themselves on Booking are quoting you a much higher rate!

Case and point: a hotel had their price up as 220 000 MGA, but when I messaged them, they quoted me 180 000 MGA. Although this isn’t always the case. We were much better off Booking Souimanga Hotel in Antsirabe on Booking.com

and while we’re on the topic of accommodation…

If you’re travelling the West Coast, prebook your accommodation!

This is where we probably could’ve saved a lot of trouble. Our first stop was Salary Bay – and unfortunately for us, there was no accommodations available. Literally everywhere we contacted was fully booked. We eventually found one but it did cost us 300 000 MGA (£50) per night!

National park guide

As I mentioned above, the national park guide is for the group up to 4 people. So if you’re able to team up with other travellers – it goes from 160 000 MGA (£27 / €)  for a individual (if you’re solo travelling) down to 40 000 MGA (£6 / €) each if you find 3 others to split with. That is quite a significant saving! Although, note this might be quite challenging since the majority of people would be on a private tour so already have a guide sorted.

SIM Cards

As much as I enjoy using Airalo eSIMs, I would personally recommend getting a physical SIM card in Madagascar. Mainly because of the coverage and for mobile money. We got two (I had Airtel and my husband had Orange) – Orange was by far superior in terms of connectivity and coverage especially along the western coast and in Ranomafana. For mobile money, if you don’t want to carry millions of ariary, you can load it onto your phone and use that to pay in several places.

Do you really need camping equipment?

We could’ve saved about €250 by not renting camping equipment. We had the assumption that camping accommodations would be easy to find. It wasn’t too bad – you could ask to camp on a patch of grass for a fee but obviously, the standards just isn’t the same. We ended up staying in guesthouses.

However, do keep in mind that if you want to stay inside the national parks, you will probably need to bring camping equipment. I would probably work out what you really want to do before deciding if you need to rent camping equipment.

Depending on your hunger levels, it might be cheaper to get a full menu.

I don’t really eat 3 course dinners every day. That to me is a luxury. However, in some places in Madagascar, I did find the portion sizes were a bit on the smaller side. This sometimes resulted in getting a starter and desert as well. There was a couple of times, where my husband ordered 2 courses and I ordered 3 but our meals almost came to the same amount. It might be worth asking how much a full menu costs versus the ala carte menu.

If you’re able to, team up with other travellers!!

I love a good road trip but if renting a car is a bit out of your budget by yourself/with a partner… try teaming up with some other adventurous travellers! You will be splitting your rental and fuel between 4 rather than just 2… 😉

Cut down time along the West Coast

Okay, I know it feels a bit counterintuitive especially considering that you’ve spent all that time! But you might be better off reducing your time along the West Coast by cutting straight to Manja so it’s less days with a car rental and with the pisteur. But I’ll share more on this in my Madagascar Itinerary – stay tuned!!!

So, Was It Worth It?

Madagascar isn’t a $10/day backpacker destination… not even close in our experience. Between transport (ehem, car hire), park fees, and the sheer size of the island – costs creep up fast. But honestly? Worth. Every. Ariary. The landscapes, lemurs and the feeling of being somewhere so wild and untouched make the budget side of things fade away pretty quickly.

If you’re still curious about the nitty-gritty, here are some quick FAQs I kept getting about Madagascar travel costs:

Let’s answer some questions

Is Madagascar expensive for tourists?
Wellllllllll. I think you can make your own judgement from our cost breakdown. It’s not the cheapest place but we’ve also had more expensive countries. I would argue it depends on how you travel! But it’s definitely not a $10 per day country.

What’s the cheapest way to travel around Madagascar?
Local buses/van serices. It’s slow and cramped but by far the most budget friendly.

Do you need cash or card in Madagascar?
Cash. Is. King. Very few places accept cards and ATMs are limited outside cities. You are better off having a Visa card.

What was your itinerary?
Stay tune for this. I will be sharing our itinerary breakdown shortly!

Is it safe to travel to Madagascar?
We felt very safe! It’s probably been one of the safer places we’ve visited in Africa. Of course, sometimes the car can be surrounded by children (asking for bonbon – candy) and they do get quite upset if you don’t have any but we never felt that we were in a position of danger.