Travel Planning When Your Currency Is Taking A Nosedive

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Tara

I’ve always had big dreams and big plans to travel to lots of countries where I can see wild birds and parrots in particular. Dreams are not enough, I also carefully spreadsheet my goals for accumulating enough miles to make these dream trips come true. I’d like to say I am in charge of my own travel destiny but in some ways I can’t be. Having your country’s currency lose 20% of its value can throw a huge monkey-wrench into even the best laid plans.

This first chart represents the last 6 months for those who have AUD and want USD. Pretty shocking, especially when you consider how many tour operators quote in USD.

This chart shows the last 5 years to give a bigger picture. We’ve had some ups and downs but mostly ups. It’s been a good few years for Aussies!

This year we are only doing one overseas trip to Thailand and Malaysia for birding and the Cook Islands (to see family). The AUD has also gone down against the Thai Baht, but the overall cheapness of the country makes the visit still economically possible. Surprisingly the AUD has pretty much stayed the same against the Malaysian Ringgit.

Next year we are in trouble. I had big plans for Peru, Bolivia, the Caribbean (birding) and the USA (to see family). The birding in Peru & Bolivia requires dealing with locally based tour operators who price their packages in USD and you have to pay a substantial deposit up front and the balance 30 days before arrival. We can’t do these trips as DIYs as you have to use private river transport (Peru) or possibly small planes (Bolivia) packaged with accommodation and birding excursions. So the unfortunate result is these two trips have to be postponed to a time the AUD is more favorable. The Caribbean is also USD-centric but I can use points in some places like Puerto Rico and Hotels.com Welcome Rewards to ease the pain and all other expenses would be paid on the spot, not in advance.

I still want to go birding in South America so what to do? The answer is to find countries where I can book and pay for lodges online ad-hoc and watch for discounts on hotel booking engines such as Pointshound & Rocketmiles. I found the ideal countries in Ecuador & Colombia. Ecuador is small, easy to get around and other than the Amazon region I can book lodges online and pay for guides and other expenses when we get there. Colombia is no longer as risky as it used to be and has an amazing bird list, plus it’s still cheap.

We can use Lifemiles for Aerogal in Ecuador and Avianca in Colombia and also use Avios for LAN in Ecuador and Colombia. In fact either option even gets us to the Galapagos! Some places can be cheaply accessed by bus. By choosing countries where I can pay with Aussie credit cards or withdraw the local currency from an ATM against my Aussie bank and avoid involving USD, I can keep the costs down and take advantage of better rates in cheaper countries.

The lesson here is don’t let currency fluctuations derail your whole trip! Peru and Bolivia will still be there when the AUD goes up again…………..and it will. Just be flexible and look for alternatives, they are out there!

Vakona Forest Lodge – Lunch With A View

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Tara

This is the lunch that almost didn’t happen. The Vakona Forest Lodge is the only place in Andasibe that accepts credit cards and since my cash reserves were low after paying for the hike in the park and guiding fees, I was keen to use plastic wherever possible.

Vakona Forest Lodge is quite a ways out of town, you can’t walk it so you need transport to stay or visit here. It is a beautiful drive and you may see birds on the way. After passing the gate, you still have a km or so to get to the main building.

I was so nervous about the credit card not working, I insisted they run the card and get an approval code before serving our lunch. Turns out I had good cause to worry. It took them forever to get a signal! The clerk was taking the machine and walking as far up the stairs as possible, then climbing a small hill while I waited below biting my nails. It was a good 45 minutes before he finally succeeded in getting a signal and charging the card. Woohoo – we can eat!

Actually, they had already given our order to the chef and the food was prepared before the card was approved. I don’t know what they would have done if the card hadn’t gone through as we didn’t have enough cash to pay for it and I had asked them not to prepare the food until I was sure it was paid for. I had also charged a few bottles of water to take with us to get us through until we were back in Tana and could hit up an ATM. The food was really good. I can’t remember exactly what we ordered but it was good, we were definitely satisfied customers!

The dining room has a beautiful view of the small pond and an outdoor terrace so you can watch birds while you eat. A birding group staying at the hotel came in shortly after us so it was interesting to compare notes. They had clearly seen a lot more birds than we had so it does pay to have the best possible guide. Money talks and the large birding companies do have a big advantage over independent birders. Unfortunately, we will never be in the financial position to join one of those tours so we have to do the best we can.

My apologies for not taking notes on these birds. If anyone can help me identify them, please do so in the comments. It was still fun to just enjoy them while having lunch!

Andasibe Village, Madagascar

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Tara

After our morning hike through the Andasibe National Park, we met up with our driver to see some of the villages surrounding the park. There is a tourist enclave with a few small hotels in the road leading to Moramanga.

This is the only place I could find that is advertising wifi.

Another small guesthouse – Chez Luc in the village.

Small shop selling souvenirs and general items

Feon’ny Ala is one of the most popular hotels and often booked out with formal birding tour groups.

Another small shop

Now we are entering the village where the locals live. There is a small train station but service is very limited.

Beautiful church

Some scenes of the market and main drag.

The sole was coming off my shoe after the hike in the park so I had it repaired in the village cost less than $1!

Chase Ultimate Rewards Loses Major Travel Partners

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Tara

One of the biggest incentives to pay with a Chase credit card is the opportunity to earn bonus points by using their “Shop through Chase” online mall (formerly called Ultimate Rewards Mall). Although I don’t buy a lot of consumer goods, I have used them primarily for Expedia and Hotels.com.

I am currently chasing United miles for next year’s travel plans so I would make Rocketmiles my first port of call. But in this case, the hotel options on Rocketmiles were too expensive. I only want a mid-range guesthouse in Chiang Mai and Hotels.com has several in the $25-30 range. Who goes to Chiang Mai to sit around a hotel?

Anyway, I logged into Chase about to use the portal as usual and saw that Expedia, Hotels.com, Priceline, Hotwire and all their travel partners are gone. The travel category has disappeared from the drop-down menu.

A quick look at Flyertalk confirmed it. The only thing I have to fall back on is TopCashBack as a portal since Hotels.com don’t partner with any of the airlines. If you are in the same position and want to go for the cashback option, you and I both get $10 bonus by clicking my link. I must admit that I rarely use cashback instead of portals that earn miles as I get more value from the miles but sometimes there isn’t any other option.

Anyway, now I am feeling better about my decision to cancel my formerly prized CSP. It was once my go-to card but I don’t think its worth the $95 fee anymore. I will be using a combination of the Freedom and Ink to maximize the 5x bonus categories.

New Lightweight Scottevest – The Featherweight

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Tara

During our trip around Africa, the use of Scottevests was essential to allowing us to stick to carry-on bags only. It wasn’t the size of the bags, it was the weight. Most birders have lots of heavy camera gear and bird field guides. At several airports, they weighed our carry-ons and we would have been forced to check some bags if we didn’t have the Scottevests to stuff the heavy stuff into! Here’s their latest product – the Featherweight Vest! Don’t forget to check out the daily sale tab, they have a different item on sale each day!

If you use my link, I will get a small commission for which I thank you. I wouldn’t recommend these products if I didn’t use them myself and were very happy with them.

Visiting Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, Madagascar

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Tara

Andasibe-Mantadia National Park will be one of the highlights of your trip, even if you are not a hardcore birder. The scenery is amazing and you can see several species of lemurs, everyone wants to see lemurs in Madagascar! Even before you enter the park, if you are staying at one of the lodges near the entrance, you will hear the call of the indris!

If you aren’t on an organized tour, you will find several guides hanging around the entrance. You can choose one of them (ask for one who knows birds well) or let the park assign you one when you buy your ticket.

Entrance to the park, ticket office and small museum

In this park and all others in Madagascar, you have 2 fees to pay, the entrance fee and a guide fee. The entrance fee depends on how many days you want to spend in the park. You can come and go as much as you like within the number of days you purchase. For non-French-speakers, please note that we are the “etranger” category you see on the sign.

You also have to hire a guide. Guides are mandatory in all Madagascar parks. This is a good thing as it encourages eco-tourism and helps protect the wildlife as it provides the locals with employment. The guides are also familiar with the wildlife, certainly the lemurs though they will have various strengths on birding. If there are organized foreign birding tours, they will have probably booked up the best guides (that’s why you pay the big bucks) so you have to hope you get lucky. The cost of the guide will depend on which circuit you choose. For the first visit, we went for the Adventure Circuit as it covers pretty much the whole park.

Some of the museum exhibits.

There were several birding tours in the area while we were there. The big cameras and long lenses are a dead giveaway. Since they will have the best guides sewn up, it’s not a bad idea to stay within sight of these groups so you can see what they see. If a good bird or lemur is sighted, everyone doing the trail will end up clustered below the occupied tree anyway.

Diademed Sifaka

This was our guide, I forgot his name. He wasn’t a real birding guide, he was an OK all-around guide but not the best for birding.

My husband waiting for me to stop taking photos.

Indris

We didn’t really see many birds here. If this was our only planned park for birding we would have been very disappointed. We did see a lot of lemurs as above. I was reassured after speaking to some of the other birders in the organized tours that I was more likely to see my target birds in Ankarafantsika. So we enjoyed our Adventure Circuit, then headed off to see more of the local area with our driver.

WHERE TO STAY NEAR THIS PARK

Mikalo Hotel – we stayed here, see my review.

Vakona Forest Lodge – can book online, not cheap. Not near the park. Accepts Visa & Mastercard

Feon’ny Ala – no website but popular with birding groups who have booked through their tour operator.

Grace Lodge – in town.

Marie Guesthouse – in town, has wifi.

Eulophiella Lodge – a bit far from the park but looks nice.

Lodge Review: Andasibe Mikalo Hotel, Madagascar

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Tara

Even people who aren’t eco-tourists will generally make at least a short visit to the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park. Although it is the closest park to Antananarivo, it’s still too far for a day trip so you do have to spend at least one night, preferably two. The Andasibe Mikalo Hotel is well located near the entrance to the park, walking distance if you don’t have your own transport. They have a beautiful setting in the bush and the bungalows have nice verandahs where you can sit and watch birds while you relax. I found the staff to be very friendly and accommodating. Prices are very reasonable, they are listed on their website but you can often get a discount in the low season.

The bungalows are very clean and equipped with mosquito nets and ensuites.

Here you see the forest setting of the bungalows.

If you have a hired vehicle, there is safe parking. It is customary for hotels and lodges in Madagascar to provide driver accommodation which could be anything from a backpacker style bunkhouse to an unoccupied unit. Our driver got lucky because there were only 2 occupied bungalows so he got a spare one.

The restaurant is pretty large but we and one other tourist were the only ones there the first night. The food was pretty good. I am not very adventurous when it comes to food so I stuck with pasta.

We had a few power outages while we were there and the staff were quick to bring candles and then escort us back to our bungalow with flashlights. We did have our own small flashlight as well. There is no wifi here, in Madagascar, you can pretty much just go off the grid other than in Tana, but that’s why you came here anyway, right?

First Impressions Of Madagascar – Antananarivo & Road To Andasibe

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Tara

After surviving the visa-on-arrival rugby scrum, I found our driver and the office lady who had come along to collect my cash payment. I also changed what I thought to be a reasonable amount of cash for on the road expenses and put the resulting wads of cash into various pockets as there was no way it was going to fit in my security belt or neck pouch.

I made note of the airport gift shop as I would probably have some left over cash to get rid of on the way back. Very cute embroidery!

I’m no novice traveler, far from it. I even crossed Africa in 1992 local style in chicken buses and the back of utes/pick-up trucks, whatever was available. But the recent years of miles and points have spoiled me and I got a quick flash of culture shock as we slowly made our way out of the airport to the petrol station which was right across from the US Embassy and had “no photography” signs everywhere. Not willing to trust my Canon 60D to the whims of Uncle Sam, I didn’t risk it, even though I was sorely tempted.

This is a taxi-brousse. If we hadn’t been pressed for time, we would have been prepared to use these but we would have paid for a whole row to ourselves so as not to be packed like sardines.

I found plenty to photograph as we crawled through the Tana traffic jam to get to the road leading to Andasibe.

This is a taxi-brousse station. If you use them, you will be approached by several touts all trying to get you into their vehicle whether or not it is the next one to leave! They will also try to grab your bag and load it into their vehicle and demand a tip whether you want their services or not!

Once we were clear, it was a much more pleasant drive past small village and picturesque countryside.

There was still the occasional traffic jam!

After about 3 hours we arrived at Andasibe which is very well marked as you can see.

Most birding groups stay at either Feon’ny Ala or Vakona Forest Lodge. Unfortunately for us, Feon’ny Ala was fully booked and Vakona was too expensive and too far from the park so after checking around, I decided on Mikalo Lodge because they were also near the park just down the road a bit and I was hoping birds would be around the lodge grounds. Other options include Grace Lodge and Marie Lodge which are in the village.

Planning A Visit To Madagascar

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Tara

Madagascar is one of the most fascinating countries on earth with its unique culture and wildlife found nowhere else on earth. You could spend months here and not see it all. Unfortunately, very few of us have unlimited time and money to spend as much time here as we would like so we need to prioritize and plan very carefully to make the most of our visit to Madagascar. Here’s some things to consider.

VISAS

Madagascar gives a free visa on arrival to the citizens of most countries. This is where it is essential to book your airplane seat wisely as you want to be first off the plane and first in line at the visa desk. It’s like a rugby scrum and very disorganized. People crowd around the desk, most don’t stand in a line and everyone is shoving their passports at the officer who puts them on a desk where other officers grab a passport off the desk, input the data into a computer and issue the visa. Then he holds up the passport and calls out the name of the owner who will be somewhere in the rugby scrum! We were one of the first off the plane and it still took about 10 minutes, I wouldn’t want to be last off the plane! You can also expect to be heat-screened for Ebola as you enter the airport. You walk slowly past a machine that is able to detect if you have a fever.

FINANCES

Once you get here, if you travel like the locals do, Madagascar can be very cheap. You will need lots of cash no matter what. I cannot emphasize this enough as I am very plastic-orientated. And in Madagascar when I say LOTS of cash, I mean literally. If you change even $200 you will end up with a very thick stack of Ariary the size of War & Peace! The bank in the airport is good enough to change cash, there isn’t much difference between them. Even the tour operator went there to change the Euros I gave her as payment to Ariary and she would know the best place to exchange money.

Only a few hotels around the country and some souvenir shops in Antananarivo accept credit cards and then it’s only Visa or Mastercard, not Amex. ATMs are widespread but not all banks accept foreign ATM cards. I totally underestimated this and got into strife in Ankarafantsika as there was no place near by to get cash so we had to seriously curtail what we wanted to do and we could only eat one meal a day in addition to breakfast provided by the hotel. BNI branches are good for foreign cards, Bank of Africa didn’t accept my debit card or my Visa card.

Petrol (gas) stations do not accept credit cards! Not even the big ones like Shell, Total, Jovenna and Galana. This was the main reason I ran low on cash. I knew I had to pay cash for food, guides, park entries and lodges but I had expected to use a credit card to fill the car. Unless you are using public transport such as taxi-brousse, you will have to pay the fuel for your rental car so be prepared!

GETTING AROUND

Getting around Madagascar isn’t as simple as South Africa where you can simply drive off in your own rental car on your own. Car hire companies in Madagascar only hire cars with their own driver. The rate quoted to you will include the daily rate for the vehicle and the driver’s expenses such as food and accommodation and the car insurance. You can either book a full tour package which includes your accommodation, sightseeing and the transport or just book the car & driver. If you book a full package, you will probably have to pay some portion of it in advance by bank transfer as the tour operator has to pay the accommodation. If you book only the car & driver, you can usually negotiate to pay cash on arrival. No tour operator in Madagascar that I could find (and I did look extensively) accepts credit cards or even Paypal.

The above is of particular interest to travel hackers as paying by bank transfer is the worst possible scenario. You have to part with the cash immediately (no 30 days interest free), no miles by using the right credit card and you have to pay bank fees to transfer the money! There is also some risk if the tour operator doesn’t show up or goes out of business, you won’t get your money back. Needless to say, I will bend over backwards to avoid bank transfers!

I have to admit that I don’t prefer this type of travel. I much prefer to drive my own car or take public transport. I am just not comfortable being in the role of “boss of a personal chauffeur” even just for a few days. However with a tight schedule and the need to see two specific national parks, we didn’t have time to mess around with public transportation. If I could have added a couple days on to the week we spent in Madagascar, we could have done the itinerary using public transport (buses & taxi-brousse).

CHOOSING WHICH NATIONAL PARKS TO VISIT

How much time do you have? What animals and birds do you want to see? This is where you really have to do your homework. Even us hard-core birders want to see lemurs as well as birds. The good news is that pretty much all national parks have different species of lemurs and birds. If you are after specific species, you need to read trip reports on Surfbirds and see what species are commonly seen where. Also read up on Madagascar’s National Parks. Be realistic in how many you can visit in the amount of time available to you. If you only have a week, choose the two most likely parks to have your target species. Avoid trusting Air Madagascar to get you anywhere on time, you need a day or so as a buffer just in case they cancel or are very late. If one of the parks you want is only reachable by plane, do that one first and save the easier-to-reach park for last.

I was targeting the 3 parrot species in Madagascar – Greater Vasa Parrots, Lesser Vasa Parrots and Grey-headed Lovebirds. After that, I wanted to see as many lemurs and other birds as possible. I only had a week and didn’t want to mess with Air Madagascar so after many hours of research, I chose two parks that were both reachable from Antananarivo easily by road, even by sedan car so we didn’t need a 4WD. I chose Andasibe-Mantadia as a good all-rounder that had two of my target birds and Ankarafantsika that had all 3 species.

In posts to follow, I will go into detail about these two parks, how to get there, where to stay and what to see.

Because I can’t emphasize it enough I will repeat: when in Madagascar, make sure you have plenty of cash!

Getting To Madagascar With Airline Miles

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Tara

Madagascar is one of the most difficult places to get to using frequent flyer miles. The gateway airport, Antananarivo Ivato Airport is only served by a handful of airlines. You will most likely have to route through Paris or Nairobi if you want to use miles. Otherwise, Madagascar will be one destination you have to actually purchase a revenue ticket. All routes will have YQ fuel surcharges applied. At least the destination is well worth it!

STAR ALLIANCE

This airport is not served by any Star Alliance airlines. Some people may be confused because it can look like South African Airways flies there but this is not the case. They code-share with Airlink on this route and Airlink is not a member of Star Alliance.

ONEWORLD

This airport is not served by any OneWorld airlines.

SKYTEAM

This airport is served by 2 Skyteam members: Air France and Kenya Airways. It is also possible to use Flying Blue miles on Air Mauritius segments by calling in. Given Delta’s unreliability on their program, I used Flying Blue miles sourced from my USA based Amex PRG card to get us tickets on Kenya Airways TNR-NBO-ACC for our outbound flight.

Flying Blue generally charges 17,500 miles for inter-Africa flights (Madagascar is grouped with Africa) and they always add YQ so it depends on the route if it is worth it or not. On our route to Ghana, it was well worth it as the base fare would have been over $750 per person!

On the Mauritius – Antananarivo route, you are better off to just purchase a ticket as you get very poor value for your miles. The same 17,500 miles only saves you $179!

EXAMPLES OF OTHER FLYING BLUE REDEMPTIONS

LONDON – Beware the high APD on top of the YQ!

PARIS – Less APD but still high YQ

Routes from the USA (JFK & LAX shown below) can be good, especially if you are using Amex MR points from a credit card!

AUSTRALIA – Aussies are out of luck with high mileage requirements, no credit cards that credit to Flying Blue and very high taxes. If you are coming all the way from Australia, best to make Madagascar part of a larger African adventure such as I did. I used United miles to get to Africa, then just the inter-African award as above.

The example below from Sydney routes via Jakarta and Paris!

Miles To The Wild

Create unforgettable eco-tourism and birding adventures using miles & points!