Tunisia Discovery Guide

Tunisia packs an unusual amount into a small country: Roman cities, a Mediterranean coast, and the Sahara, all within a day’s drive of each other.

The Roman remains are the headline and are genuinely first rank. El Djem has one of the largest amphitheatres ever built, better preserved than most and almost empty of visitors. Dougga is the best-preserved Roman town in North Africa, spread across a hillside with its temple, theatre and baths intact. Carthage itself, outside Tunis, is the city Rome destroyed and then rebuilt.

The Bardo museum in Tunis holds the world’s finest collection of Roman mosaics, taken from these sites.

Then there is the south: the Sahara at Douz and Tozeur, the oasis towns, the troglodyte houses at Matmata, and the fortified granaries of the Berber south. The island of Djerba has a Jewish community nearly two thousand years old.

If you want the Roman sites

Dougga first — the best-preserved Roman town in North Africa, on a hillside with a capitol, theatre and brothel still legible. Then El Djem’s amphitheatre, which held perhaps 35,000 people, and Bulla Regia, where the villas were built underground against the heat and their mosaic floors are still in place.

If you have a few days from Tunis

The Bardo museum for the mosaics, Carthage’s scattered ruins on the bay, the blue-and-white hill town of Sidi Bou Said, and the medina of Tunis, which is UNESCO-listed and still a working city rather than a display.

If you want the desert

Douz as the gateway to the dunes, the salt flat of Chott el Jerid crossed by a causeway, and the mountain oases of Chebika and Tamerza. Matmata’s pit dwellings and the fortified granaries — ksour — at Ksar Ouled Soltane.

If you want Islamic Tunisia

Kairouan, the fourth holiest city in Islam, with the Great Mosque begun in 670, and the ribat fortress at Monastir.

If you want the coast

Djerba for beaches, the El Ghriba synagogue and a distinct island culture; Tabarka and the north coast for something greener.

Tunisia is Arab, Berber and Mediterranean at once, and is among the most socially liberal countries in the Arab world — a position it has held deliberately since independence.

Women’s status

The Personal Status Code of 1956 abolished polygamy, gave women the right to divorce and set a minimum marriage age — far ahead of the region at the time and still unusual. Women are visible in universities, professions and public life, and the constitution of 2014 guaranteed parity in elected bodies.

Berber roots

The population is overwhelmingly Arabic-speaking, but the Amazigh substrate is old and survives in place names, some southern villages, crafts and a small number of Berber speakers in the south and on Djerba.

Layer on layer

Phoenician, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Arab, Ottoman, French — each left something, and Tunisians are conscious of sitting on all of it. Carthage is a national symbol as much as a ruin.

The 2011 revolution

The uprising that began in Sidi Bouzid and toppled the government started the wider Arab Spring, and Tunisia was its one durable democratic outcome. The politics since have been turbulent and are discussed openly, often with frustration.

Hospitality

Tea or coffee is pressed on visitors constantly and refusing is awkward; accept.

Tunisia’s tourism collapsed after the 2015 attacks and has only partly recovered, so money spent here matters more than in most Mediterranean destinations, and it matters most outside the beach resorts.

Go inland and south. The all-inclusive resorts of Hammamet and Sousse keep most of their spend internally. Guesthouses in Tozeur, Douz, Dougga and the Berber villages support people with far fewer options.

Water is the constraint. The south is genuinely arid, oases are under pressure from irrigation, and resort swimming pools and golf courses sit in a country with serious water stress. Be sparing, and refuse the daily towel change.

Camel and quad trekking into the dunes: choose operators who keep to established routes, and check on the animals’ condition and workload before booking.

In the souks, bargaining is expected and good-natured, but the margins are thin at the bottom — haggle hard on carpets, gently on a few dinars of dates.

Photographing people, especially women, needs permission.

March to May and September to November are the best windows: warm rather than hot, the Sahara comfortable, the sea still or already swimmable, and the Roman sites bearable in the middle of the day.

June to August is the beach season, with coastal temperatures around 30 to 33°C moderated by sea breezes. Inland and in the south it is severe — Tozeur and Douz regularly exceed 45°C, and desert excursions are genuinely unpleasant or unsafe.

December to February is mild on the coast, around 16 to 18°C, cool and wet in the north, and cold at night in the desert — the Sahara drops near freezing after dark, which surprises people. The archaeological sites are at their emptiest.

Ramadan moves through the year; daytime eating and drinking in public are avoided, many restaurants close by day, and the evenings come alive.

The Douz Sahara festival in December and the Carthage film and music festivals in summer are the fixtures.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the country

Tunisia is inexpensive by Mediterranean standards. The dinar is a closed currency, which affects how you handle money — see the payments section.