Tunisia Itinerary: 6 Nights

May 2025

I don’t know the answer to that question. Tunisia came onto our radar when a daughter of a friend who works at the State Department started going there a lot. When our latest transatlantic cruise ended up in Barcelona, we flew to Tunis to check it out.

6 days was probably not long enough to see the whole country, but we managed to get the feel for the country. People go to Tunisia for the Carthage ruins and the historical/archeological stuff or the beaches, it seems. We didn’t cover the beaches, but, we live near a beach & we don’t always seek beach resorts when we travel. So we were content with what we saw.

Itinerary:

We flew to Tunis via Rome, spent 2 nights in the Tunis suburb of Sidi Bou Said (had a tour of Sidi Bou Said and the Carthage Archeological Park), rented a car and drove down south (540 km; 5.5 hours) to Douz to explore the Sahara area (including Djerid Lake, Tozeur) for 2 nights, drove back to Tunis via El Jem, returned the car, spent 2 more nights in Sidi Bou Said (did a Tunis city tour), then we flew out to Duesseldorf.

How much?: 2 friends joined us for the trip. Per person costs below.

Flights: Barcelona to Tunis on ITA Airlines ($220 with a checked bag); Tunis to Duesseldorf on Tunis Air ($75 with one checked bag)

Rent car: an automatic midsize car with a full* coverage for 3 days ($240 = $60pp) *we don’t usually buy extra insurance because our credit card covers the CDW, but, not knowing what to expect in Tunisia & the price was not too expensive, we got the full coverage.

Lodging: Airbnb (2 BR/2 BTH) in Sidi Bou Said for 4 nights ($75 pp), B&B in Douz for 2 nights ($95 pp)

Meals: no matter which restaurant we went to, the final tab tended to be around 50 dinars (around US$17) per person – with a soda/beer

Others: gas was a little cheaper than the U.S. Admissions were reasonable enough so that I wouldn’t even itemize them. The Sahara desert activities arranged through the B&B owner were quite reasonable (about $5/hour per person)

Total local costs per person for the 6 nights in Tunisia: about $450 – 500

Road condition: highways were in good condition & not very busy in early May. City streets could be congested and even chaotic at times

An important note: currency exchange was not readily available. Euros were accepted at times but not USD. Most ATMs disbursed up to 200 dinars (about US$ 70) at a time. This made it a chore to find an ATM that handled international transactions and kept enough dinars in the wallet since credit cards were not always accepted.

Impressions:

We couldn’t help comparing Tunisia (population: 12.5 million) with Morocco (population : 37 million) – both north African countries historically tied with Europe & having the presence of the Sahara Desert. There’s a big country of Algeria in-between the two, but they seemed to have similar climate and the cultural mixture of Europe and the Middle East.

Tourism seemed to dominate Morocco & they were much more ready (a bit too eager?) to welcome foreign tourists. Tunisia was only waking up to the potential of tourism. This meant more competition within the industry in Morocco which translated into cheaper prices for tours and such.

Even though the per capita GDP is similar ($3,500 – 4,000), Morocco felt more modernized and affluent. I thought food was better in Tunisia: Moroccan food was great but most local restaurants seemed to offer the same menu of tagines, couscous, and grills – and I got a bit tired of them after 4-5 days. Tunisian local restaurants offered a more varied style of cooking and ingredients (even though I can’t remember the names of the Tunisian dishes) in my opinion.

So would we want to go back? We will never say no, but we won’t likely to rush back to Tunisia.

blog links:

Sidi Bou Said – Carthage – Douz – the Tunisian Sahara – El Jem – Tunis