Deal of the Day

February 15, 2012 - FrugalTravelGuy

If you’re going to be in Tokyo for a mileage run or otherwise, you can stay in the Hilton Narita for 5,000 ¥which is about 3,000 ¥ cheaper than normal. You may have to use the Japanese site (instead of English) as there was a glitch, but it should be fixed now.Check out FlyerTalk for two targeted offers from AMEX. One is a 75,000 point bonus for the Premier Rewards Gold card and the other is a 77,500 mile bonus for the Delta Gold card. Go hereto see all the details.MJ on Travel has a great reminder that we can earn “free” miles just by signing up for the Thanks Again rewards program that partners with local businesses to offer miles! He earns miles every time he goes to the dry cleaners!

[Targeted] – There is an 80,000 point bonus for the Priority Rewards Visa. Use promo code DMOMOPJVC1 to get the offer.

Here is this week’s Top 20 from Travel Zoo

Anonymous

nice
Evelyn

Great trip so far. I've always wondered about arranging a trip like this on my own. I see that the hotel gave you the driver you needed. I've traveled in Africa and know the importance of a trusted driver. Thanks for the video too- monkeys in trees are worth it all;)
Evelyn

Oh, glad you missed the cyclone!
Anonymous

Andrew, thanks a bunch for sharing your experiences. Inspires me to get out more often.
TheInternationalLine

Thanks for posting! Back when you were planning your Madagascar trip, my wife and I were inspired to schedule our own trip to Madagascar and South Africa — so we burnt some Continental miles, set up a free stopover in South Africa (Kruger Park), and started figuring out tours from Tana. As you mentioned, we've found that there is very limited tourism infrastructure in Madagascar, so finding a reliable and inexpensive guide/driver has been difficult. That being said, we're really excited about seeing the lemurs and experiencing the local culture — your photos and videos are fantastic! One question — do you feel like the hassle at TNR was worth it to get the free tourist visa, or would we be better off just coughing up the cash and getting our visa ahead of time?
Travel and Credit

Sounding like an incredible trip so far, wow!
One question though:
"Surprisingly, I wasn't charged for my entry visa. I didn't ask any questions."

You're certain you got all of your entry requirements so you can exit right? In 2009, my travel partner and I had a heck of a time leaving Bolivia to fly back home to the states. We had even applied in advance and received our Visa in our passport and paid the reciprocity fee… however something must have went wrong when we crossed the border via bus from Peru, b/c when we flew home out of La Paz, they said we somehow didn't have an entry stamp (whatever they stamped our passport with when we entered, was not the right one)… we had to leave all the lines, withdraw money from an atm, budge past hundreds of people in the immigration line, pay $60 each for an entry/exit stamp on the spot (sketchy), and barely make our flight. Since I'm not 100% sure what went wrong, I guess the only lesson we learned is to make sure we have what we're supposed to have.
- David
peachfront

To the visa worryiers: It's a special promotion that U.S. citizens staying less than 30 days can get a free visa. So he's fine. Definitely no reason for a U.S. citizen on a short stay to pay for a visa in advance. If the promotion is over when you arrive, the visa stamp I had to buy was cheap (maybe around $14 U.S.) and it's very attractive.

I wandered out alone in Tana, there are times when one must stroll to the Shoprite for cheap bottled water and the post office for those cute stamps, but I kept it to daylight hours. Maybe things have changed since 2007, because there was lots of tourist infrastructure and lots of people trying to sell/hustle tourists, which I mostly just ignored since the prices on the goodies weren't good. Just thinking…most of the tourism stuff was aimed at French speaking people.

My real question is where did you get the photo with the Ring-Tailed Lemur? The Indri was a "gimme" at Andasibe when we met, but I remember the bold Ring-Tails like that more at Berenty. They got into everything. Maybe I'd have ended up with one of my head too if I didn't keep my hat on!

Good report. I look forward to the next episode.

Deal of the Day

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