Tunisia is the North Africa trip I haven't taken yet (and my Moroccan travel brain won't shut up about it)

I spent three weeks in Morocco in 2022 and it rewired something in my brain about North Africa.

The medinas, the food, the colours, the call to prayer echoing off the walls of the riad at 5am while I lay there jetlagged and sweating and thinking “this is the most beautiful alarm clock I’ve ever hated.” Morocco made me want more of the region. Specifically, it made me want Tunisia.

I haven’t been yet. I’m putting that upfront because I don’t do the thing where I pretend I’ve been somewhere I haven’t. But Tunisia has been building in my head for two years now, assembled from friends who’ve gone, from books, from the kind of late-night research spiral that starts with “Sidi Bou Said” and ends three hours later with me looking at flights.

Here’s what I know. And what I think I know. And what I’m probably wrong about but am excited to find out.

Sidi Bou Said: the village that looks like a painting

Every photo I’ve seen of Sidi Bou Said looks fake. A village of white-washed buildings with blue doors and blue window frames perched on a cliff above the Mediterranean. Bougainvillea everywhere. The kind of place that looks like someone hired a colour coordinator for an entire town.

My friend Leila (Tunisian-French, grew up visiting family there, the most reliable source I have) says the photos are accurate. She also says the village is tiny, you can walk it in an hour, and the Café des Nattes at the top has been serving mint tea since the early 1900s and the view from the terrace makes the tourist markup on the tea completely acceptable.

It’s about twenty minutes from Tunis. Leila says go in the late afternoon when the light changes and the day-trippers thin out.

Carthage: standing where Hannibal stood (sort of)

Carthage. The Carthage. Hannibal, the Punic Wars, the rival to Rome that was so thoroughly destroyed that the Romans allegedly salted the earth (they probably didn’t, but the legend tells you something about the intensity of the rivalry).

The ruins are spread across a suburb of modern Tunis. From what I’ve read and been told, the archaeological park is less dramatic than you might expect if you’re coming from, say, Pompeii or the Roman Forum. Much of Carthage was built over in subsequent centuries. What remains are fragments: the Antonine Baths (Roman, built after they destroyed the Carthaginian city), the Tophet (the sacred precinct, controversial in its interpretation), the harbours.

Leila’s advice: go for the history in your head, not for the visual spectacle on the ground. The Bardo Museum in Tunis has the best collection of Roman mosaics in the world, which fills in the visual gaps.

I’m someone who likes ruins even when they’re just foundations in the dirt. The act of standing where something enormous happened and filling it in with what I’ve read. Carthage is that kind of place, from what I can tell.

Tunis medina: the comparison I can’t help making

I’ve done the medinas in Marrakech and Fes. I know the drill. The narrow lanes, the souks organised by trade (leather here, metalwork there, spices around the corner), the sensory overload, the getting lost that is both the point and the problem.

From what I hear, the Tunis medina is similar in structure (it’s a UNESCO-listed medieval Islamic city) but different in energy. Calmer than Marrakech. Less aggressive. Fewer people trying to guide you somewhere you didn’t ask to go. Leila says you can walk the Tunis medina without being grabbed by the arm, which, if you’ve been to the Marrakech medina, you know is a specific and meaningful distinction.

The Zitouna Mosque in the centre. The perfume souk (the Souk el-Attarine). The carpet merchants. All the elements of a North African medina but (reportedly) at a pace that lets you actually look at things.

I’m curious whether my Morocco calibration will make Tunisia feel relaxed or whether it’s just a different kind of intense. I suspect the latter.

The Saharan edge: Douz, Tozeur, and the Star Wars thing

Southern Tunisia is where the Sahara begins. The landscape shifts from Mediterranean coast to salt flats to oases to sand.

Douz. The “Gateway to the Sahara.” Camel treks into the dunes. The annual Festival of the Sahara (in December). The kind of desert experience that I had a version of in Morocco’s Merzouga and loved completely, lying on the sand at night looking at more stars than I’d seen since the Australian outback.

Tozeur. An oasis town with a historic medina built from distinctive yellow-brown bricks in geometric patterns. The Chebika, Tamerza, and Mides oases in the mountains nearby: waterfalls and palm groves and canyons.

Matmata. Okay. The Star Wars thing. Matmata is a Berber village where people have lived in underground troglodyte houses (carved into the earth for insulation against the heat) for centuries. George Lucas filmed the original Star Wars here in 1976. Luke Skywalker’s home on Tatooine is a real place and you can visit it. The Hotel Sidi Driss in Matmata is the actual filming location, still operating as a hotel, with the Star Wars sets partially intact.

I am not too cool to be excited about this.

I am NOT too cool. I will stand in Luke Skywalker’s dining room and feel things and I will not apologise for it.

(The Mos Espa set near Tozeur is another filming location, slowly being consumed by the desert, which is both sad and extremely on-brand for a fictional planet called Tatooine.)

The food: brik and harissa and couscous done properly

Tunisian food is the thing that people who’ve been there talk about most, which is saying something given the competition from the architecture and the history.

Brik. A thin pastry (similar to filo but crispier) folded around an egg, tuna, capers, and harissa, then deep-fried. You eat it with your hands. The egg is supposed to be runny. Leila says the test of a good brik is whether you can eat it without the egg running down your chin. She says she has never passed this test.

Harissa. The chili paste. Tunisia’s national condiment. It goes on everything.

It is not optional.

Leila brings jars of it back to Paris and rations them like currency.

Couscous. The Tunisian version is different from the Moroccan one I know. Served with fish on the coast (couscous au poisson, a Mediterranean seafood stew over couscous) or with lamb in the interior. Friday couscous is a family tradition, the way Sunday roast used to function in England or Australia.

The seafood. Hammamet and Djerba on the coast apparently have the kind of Mediterranean seafood situation where you sit at a simple restaurant, point at a fish, and eat it grilled with lemon and olive oil while looking at the water. This is my favourite genre of eating and I’m annoyed I haven’t done the Tunisian version yet.

The beaches: Hammamet and Djerba

Tunisia has a beach tourism industry that’s well-established and, from what I understand, quite different from the coastal tourism I’ve seen elsewhere in North Africa.

Hammamet. Resort town, long sandy beaches, the old medina on the waterfront. Leila describes it as “the place Tunisians go on holiday” which is usually a better recommendation than “the place travel magazines tell foreigners to go.”

Djerba. An island off the southern coast. Beaches, yes, but also the El Ghriba Synagogue (one of the oldest in the world, reflecting Tunisia’s historical Jewish community), the Houmt Souk market town, the colourful street art. The island has its own character separate from the mainland.

Practical notes (from research and friends, not experience)

Visa. Many nationalities can enter visa-free for 90 days.

Currency. Tunisian dinar. Very affordable. The dinar cannot be exchanged outside Tunisia, so change money on arrival.

Language. Tunisian Arabic (Derja) and French. French is widely spoken, particularly in cities and tourist areas. English is less common than in Morocco, from what I hear. My survival French from Canadian high school might finally justify its existence.

When to go. Spring (March to May) and autumn (September to November). Summer is hot. Winter is mild on the coast, cold in the interior and south.

Getting around. Louages (shared minivans, similar concept to Moroccan grand taxis). Trains between Tunis and some cities. Rental cars for the south.

For mobile connectivity, I’ve put together a guide to eSIM options for Tunisia with current providers and pricing, if you want to have data sorted before arrival.

Tunisia is the North Africa trip I keep not taking and keep thinking about.

The blue doors of Sidi Bou Said. The brik with the runny egg. Luke Skywalker’s dining room in an underground house. The Sahara starting at the edge of an oasis town.

Morocco changed how I think about this part of the world. I have a strong feeling Tunisia is going to do it again.

When I finally go (and I will), I’ll come back and rewrite this with the real details. The specific restaurant. The exact moment. The thing I couldn’t have predicted from any amount of research.

That’s always the best part.