Is taking an organized tour genius or cheating? Maybe somewhere in between?

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Whether fueled by the teenage desire to get far away from my hometown or divine providence took me to Madagascar, it was a longtime dream. The mystery of that funnily shaped island in the Indian Ocean. The allure of lemurs and baobabs and beaches people have never been to or even heard of… that was the call of Madagascar.

So when two good friends were planning a trip to Africa, with Madagascar lopped in with Tanzania and Kenya, I leaped(much like a lemur) onto it. The trip was mostly planned save for the Madagascar leg. As we researched more in preparation for the trip I realized just how out of depth we were. This not-so-little island off the coast of the African continent became more and more daunting. Let alone the fact that the 3 of us were pretty green travelers, the more we researched the less easy it seemed to visit. The country receives under half a million tourists a year and is far far off the beaten path of Africa-based tourism. Public transport was deemed unsafe by countless blogs. Going most places without guides was not recommended by our home-countries advisories. A whole spiel of fear-mongering came with the reality that we were headed to this unknown corner of the world.

So to curb our own anxieties and still visit this country we decided to arrange a tour. The tour was 2 weeks in the southeastern area of the island. In short- it was exceptional. The tour was easy and efficient. It took us to places that no busses run to. We hiked and swam and ate in relative comfort. We developed a rapport with our two private guides and understood their views of the country. We even convinced them to take us to local restaurants halfway through the trip. It was comfortable and eye-opening and if I’m honest I would never have to do it again.

The pros were innumerable but the cons were discovered on the ground and while not many did not inspire me to do it again. The constant moving around and having to be in social mode with the guides was not very compatible with my natural state of introversion. Then I felt the lack of interaction with people outside the tourism sector, and the western-geared food experiences hindered what maybe would have been a different more organic experience had we done it ourselves.

But it was exactly what we needed to feel comfortable being so out of our comfort zones. That is the kicker. Sometimes when traveling it is OK to take the comfortable option. Madagascar from outside of the country seemed mythical and intimidating. Hundreds of questions plagued us leading up to arrival: How were we going to book buses? Didn’t we read the story about the tourists who got mugged in XYZ city? Why can’t I find any hotels for this town on Booking? The uncertainty was endless.

So when we found a tour that was within our budget and visited all the spots we wanted to see, we leaped (three lemurs this time). Arrival into the capital city was surprisingly easy… no harder at least than any of the other countries we’d been to. Then the hostel we had booked was also surprisingly comfortable. We spent two days before the tour settling into the capital of Antananarivo. The city was like most of the other African capitals I’ve visited, functional and busy. The stark comparison was the lack of development and the more colonial-era architecture. This however was not the daunting country we had feared before arrival.

Then we embarked on the tour. It was organized and in many aspects quite isolated from any local contact. Often times I would ask what the guides were eating and try and order the same… I was often dismissed and instead offered the “American” menu. This was normally a variety of soggy or flavorless Western specialties. Other times we were invited into people’s homes, workshops, and studios. Here with no pressure other than to learn how they create or live or even just to share a cold drink. It was a give-and-take. We sometimes convinced the guides to stop at the hole-in-the-wall food stands and they sometimes convinced us to have mini photoshoots any time we saw an endemic species. But the longer we stayed in Madagascar the more we realized that we would have been capable of traveling through the country on our own.

The country spread beneath us as we continued on the tour. 2 weeks led us from the lush jungles of Ranomafana to the dry plateaus of Isalo National Park to the crystalline coast of Ifaty, no two days were the same. The people we met from the guides who helped us climb up boulders on the lookout for ring-tailed lemurs; to the kids who stopped us for pictures in the downtown of a small gas-break city, there was no end to the stimulation of all our senses. It was overwhelming and eye-opening. In many ways it was enchanting and in many other ways, it was humbling. I will never unsee the vastness of untouched and pristine land along the plains of the southern highlands. Nor will I ever forget the realization of the privilege I have to even write this as day after day we understood the challenges Malagasy people face to get by and to improve their stations in what is often a hard life.

How could we have known all that from our homes thousands of miles away? During the planning stage, Madagascar was always the wildcard. Whether we liked it or not, our apprehension led us to choose a tour. But I am convinced that that was not such a bad choice. While I never need to do an organized 2-week tour again… the benefits, the peace of mind, and the access that this tour gave were undeniable.

Places like the Anja reserve would have been completely inaccessible by public transport. The smaller park sits at the foot of a mountain, off one of the highways, and is easy to miss. It was however one of the highlights of that tour. As soon as we left the car, a man ran up and propelled us to a massive standalone tree. Nestled in the low branches, a foot from my face was a family of round-eyed, ring-tailed, completely unfazed lemurs. That afternoon is today, a year later, crystal clear in my memory. As is the day when we stopped for lunch in a small town. Our guide ran off on the hunt for a restaurant, and we wandered around sticking out like sore thumbs. Our guide returned, forlorn that there was no “restaurant”, he proposed a move onto the next town or if we would tolerate it, a meal at a local joint. He found a small tin-roofed shack that smelled fantastic. A huge pot of boiling something welcomed us as did the man serving it who seemed to be 100 years old. It was tasty rice soup with chicken and herbs, and better still was the conversational mishmash of Malagasy, French, and surprisingly, German. These two experiences, which are a fraction of that 2-week tour, are technicolor in the huge jumble of travel memories I have.

My theory is that sometimes doing the easier thing is the right way to go…especially in the travel world. Traveling today means you’re exposed to a lot of articles on how to get off the beaten path and hundreds of videos on how to visit every country in the world. The “how to have the most unique and unforgettable experience” often tempts me into taking riskier decisions or worse, into feeling like a failure when I opt for the “easier” or more “touristy” option.

My experience in not only Madagascar but in a number of other countries has convinced me that working to find comfort in those uncomfortable locations is the best way to go. If you are nervous to solo travel, then consider joining a group to start and then work your way up to solo traveling. If you are nervous about a certain region, see which area is the most tourist friendly and set yourself up for a week there. Travel isn’t always going to be easy. The joy is that we can learn from the discomfort, grow more confident in our abilities and have a deeper understanding for different cultures. But making small decisions that allow you to dip your toes in as opposed to diving in, make the experience more intentional and personalized to you.

After two weeks in a van crusading around what now felt like a very comfortable country, we were back in the capital. Being without a guide we realized the benefit of the last two weeks, evident in knowing how to say a few words in Malagasy, recognizing different street food dishes, and overall feeling more comfortable navigating the city. The moral of the story is adapting to your comfort level when you’re already reaching outside of that zone, is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s pretty cool because I don’t know about you? But I would much rather be the girl who bit the bullet and took a tour in Madagascar or any country for that matter, than the one who didn’t try for fear of not doing it “right”. End of the day, there is no right or wrong way to travel, as long as you are being intentional and respectful to yourself and those you meet on the road.