Getting Around Maradi
Maradi is an easy city to get around in, and the city center is very walkable — provided you are willing to brave the heat and the winding morass of unnamed streets. That last point matters more than it sounds: few streets in Maradi are named, and even when they are, nobody knows them, and certainly not the house numbers on them. The practical convention when taking a taxi or asking for directions is to name a landmark near your destination. Be aware that each driver keeps his own mental inventory of landmarks, and he may call the place you are headed something different — or in a different language — than what you or your guidebook think it is called.
Rail, Metro and Tram
There is no access to Maradi by train, and the city has no metro or tram network. The closest railhead might be at Kano, Nigeria, to the south. For a visitor, this means rail simply is not part of the picture for getting around Maradi or reaching it.
Buses and Other Public Transport
All of Niger's major bus lines serve Maradi, with one or two departures and one or two arrivals per day. Buses are reasonably fast, reliable, and punctual, at least in their departures from their point of origin, and your ticket buys you one seat all your own, making them the budget way to travel. That said, few buses have amenities to speak of, and with rigid seats, heat, and lack of suspension, the trip can still be brutal.
Seats are ticketed and first-come, first-served, so do not count on turning up at the station just before departure and getting a ticket. Your ticket also covers baggage, though a company may ask you to pay for excess baggage, and stowed luggage should not be expected to be treated gently.
Bus lines serving Maradi include SNTV (the national transport company), Aïr Transport, Azawad, EHGM, RTV (also known as Rimbo Transport), and Sonitrav. Bus companies come and go with some frequency, so check when you get there. There is not a whole lot to separate the various companies — their prices and schedules are basically the same — so choosing your bus based on the convenience of the station is entirely reasonable. In Maradi, the buses are strung along the main street: EHGM is farther north, SNTV and Azawad are central near the market, and RTV, Sonitrav, and Aïr are more southerly. The city's bus station is the Gare routière de Maradi.
The same network of buses can get you directly to Dosso, Konni, and Zinder, among many smaller towns, and with a one-night stopover you can reach Tahoua, Agadez, Gaya, and Diffa. Many companies also offer international service to destinations including Benin, Togo, and Burkina Faso.
Bush Taxis
Bush taxis are the central means of transportation for most of Niger, and Maradi is the bush taxi hub for the region. If you are traveling within the Maradi region or coming from Nigeria, this is often your only option. Bush taxis arrive and depart from several locations within the city for the rest of the region, with costs ranging from 200 to 1500 FCFA for travel within the region.
If you are traveling from other regions of Niger, buses are cheaper and have the fringe benefits of being faster, more comfortable, more reliable, and safer. If you are coming from Kano or Katsina, you will probably have to take a bush taxi, since no Nigerien bus companies service Kano or any other city in Nigeria. Expect that trip to take eight or ten hours counting the border crossing. Citizens of ECOWAS countries do not need papers to cross the border, but westerners do; do not count on your ride being willing to wait for you to go through the formalities, so make sure you have an understanding with the driver, or bring your bags with you. The border has been closed spontaneously and without warning on occasion, and it is always closed after nightfall.
Taxis and Ride-Hailing
For getting around inside Maradi, taxis are the practical motorized option, and the landmark convention described above is how you will communicate your destination to a driver. The source material does not describe any ride-hailing services operating in Maradi, so plan on arranging transport in person rather than through an app.
Walkability
The city center is very walkable, assuming you wish to brave the heat and the winding morass of unnamed streets. Because streets are largely unnamed and house numbers are not known, walking is easiest when you navigate by landmarks rather than addresses.
Getting from the Airport into the City
Maradi has a working airport, but the country's national airline no longer operates, and most of the traffic to the airport is government or military — during joint Nigerien-US military exercises, the airport became quite lively indeed. If you have the contacts, the UN and some other development organizations operate aircraft that call from time to time in Maradi; you can sometimes buy a seat on one of those planes, though this varies from organization to organization and even from manager to manager, not to mention the flight's planned payload, so do not count on it. If you can swing it, you will have the much-envied experience of making the trip in the fastest, most comfortable way possible.
Because scheduled commercial service is not something a visitor can rely on, the realistic ways of reaching Maradi are overland. The city sits at the intersection of National Route 1, Niger's principal southern highway, and National Route 9, which runs south through the town of Madaroundfa and into Nigeria toward Kano. On National Route 1, a trip by well-maintained car might take about eight hours from Niamey and two and a half hours from Zinder, depending on factors including the time of year, the weather, and the status of a massive highway maintenance project in the regions of Tahoua and Dosso. N.R. 1 skirts the city to the north; the turnoff is clearly marked in both directions but very poorly regulated, so slow down and watch for trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and donkey carts coming from all directions. That turnoff puts you on the main street leading to the center of town. National Route 9 is more straightforward: you arrive in the city from the south and find yourself right on the main street.
Car rental is possible in Niamey only, and it is expensive. Cars can be hired with their drivers in most major cities, including Niamey and Maradi; the rent for the car is somewhat cheaper, though you are still on the hook for gas as well as the driver's per diem and upkeep. As a general rule, the quality of car you can get diminishes the farther you get from the capital. Hiring a driver with the car is strongly recommended anyway — traffic patterns are distinct in Niger, the network of police and tax checkpoints can be very difficult to understand, and you really do not want to be behind the wheel if you have an accident.
By Boat
A seasonal river springs up in late May or early June to the south of the city and flows along until perhaps October, and in some remote places you can find dugout canoes being used as ferries. There does not appear to be regular service along the river in this way, or canoe rides marketed to tourists. At any rate, this is not a realistic method of travel to the city.