Carthage in the morning. The Sahara by the weekend.
Which Carthage day actually gets you into the Bardo. What a night in a desert camp costs out of Douz. Whether El Jem is worth the drive from Sousse. The answers, tour by tour, with what each one costs.
The four to book first in Tunisia.
The classic run out of Tunis, a night in the sand, the boat off Djerba, and the Roman city almost nobody drives to. What each costs and who it suits.
01The capital dayPrivate tour: Medina,Carthage ,Sidi Bou Said, Bardo Museum+lunchMedina, Bardo, Carthage and Sidi Bou Said on one loop with lunch built in. Private, so you set the pace at the mosaics.
02The desert night2-Day Tunisian Sahara Tour with Food & Stay from HammametTwo days south from Hammamet, sleeping out in the sand. The booking that turns a beach week into a Tunisia trip.
03The island boatDjerba Flamingo Island Pirate Boatrip – Trip, Lunch & Pick-upA wooden boat out to the flamingo island off Djerba, lunch and hotel pickup included. The cheapest good day here.
04The Roman dayPrivate Excursion to Testour, Dougga and Bulla Regia from Tunis.Dougga and Bulla Regia, inland from Tunis. Whole streets, a capitol still standing, and villas built underground.
Three Roman days in Tunisia, and only one of them is Carthage.
Every Roman day out →Carthage is the famous one and the easiest to reach, half an hour up the coast from Tunis. El Jem hides one of the largest amphitheatres Rome ever built behind a country high street. Dougga is a whole hill town with its streets and its capitol still standing.
Tunis, Djerba or Hammamet, and what each one puts within reach.
The capital with its ruins on the tram line, two beach towns on the Gulf of Hammamet, an island with its own way of doing things, and the two oasis towns where the tarmac gives up.
The Sahara starts four hours from the beach at Hammamet.
Camps at Ksar Ghilane and Douz, the salt crust of the Chott el Jerid at first light, and the Berber villages strung along the escarpment above them. Most people go for two days. One is not really enough.
What most visitors to Tunisia end up booking.
The whole Tunisia list →The days out that fill up first, and what each one gets right.
1
VIP Tour: Tunis Medina/Bardo, Sidi Bou Said, Carthage
Review of a private Tunisia day tour from Sousse to Sidi Bou Said, Carthage, and Tunis Medina, with flexible pickup and driver-host service.
From · $30
Read our review →
2
Fun VIP Tour: El Jem, Kairouan, Monastir/Sousse
from $30
3
Private Tour to Kairouan, El Jem & Monastir from Tunis Hammamet
from $98
4
Private tour: Medina,Carthage ,Sidi Bou Said, Bardo Museum+lunch
from $46
5
Discovery ride on horseback or camel 2h30
from $45
6
Cook and Connect: Tunisian Culinary Adventure with a Local Family
from $75
7
Quad ride on the hills of Hammamet
from $46
8
Private Excursion to Testour, Dougga and Bulla Regia from Tunis.
from $127
What fifty dollars buys in Tunisia, and what a hundred and fifty does.
Tunisia is cheap by Mediterranean standards, and the gap between a good day out and an expensive one is narrower than you would expect. Three brackets, and what each one buys.
Medina walks, museum entry, the flamingo boat, and the short runs out of the beach towns.
Full days: Carthage with the Bardo, El Jem with Kairouan, quad tracks, and the one-day dashes to the sand.
Two and three day desert trips, a private guide for the whole day, and the long drives to Dougga and Tataouine.
El Jem, the Bardo and Tatooine.
An arena for thirty five thousand people stands in a farm town at El Jem. The best Roman mosaics anywhere are under one roof in Tunis. The desert sets are still out past Tozeur, and people still live in some of them.
El Jem
The amphitheatre at El Jem held thirty five thousand people and stands in a town of about twenty thousand. Nothing on the drive in prepares you for the scale of it. You walk out onto the arena floor and then down into the vaulted corridors where the animals and the fighters waited, which is more than Rome will let you do at the Colosseum.
- 1Fun VIP Tour: El Jem, Kairouan, Monastir/Sousse★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 451 reviews
- 2Private Tour to Kairouan, El Jem & Monastir from Tunis Hammamet★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 301 reviews
- 3Daytrip to Kairouan and El Jem Colosseum★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 55 reviews
The Bardo mosaics
The Bardo holds the largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world, lifted from the villas of Sousse, Dougga and Carthage and set into the walls and floors of a nineteenth century palace. Whole rooms, metres across, with the fish and the vines and the faces still sharp enough to argue about.
- 1VIP Tour: Tunis Medina/Bardo, Sidi Bou Said, Carthage★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 512 reviews
- 2Private tour: Medina,Carthage ,Sidi Bou Said, Bardo Museum+lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 230 reviews
- 3Tunis: Carthage, Bardo Museum, Sidi Bou Said & Medina Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 33 reviews
The Star Wars sets
Mos Espa still stands in the sand west of Tozeur, a dune slowly taking the far end of it. The domed hotel at Matmata is the Lars homestead, and the ksar at Ajim on Djerba played Obi-Wan’s hut. Tours run from Tozeur and Djerba and take in the ksour and the salt lake on the way.
- 1One night under the tent: Tataouine – Chenini – Ksar Ghilane – Matmata★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 53 reviews
- 2Door of the tunisian desert Ksar Ghilane and Matmata: Full one Day★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 42 reviews
- 3Private Day Trip Tataouine and Berber Village★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 40 reviews
The four to book before you land in Tunis.
Tunisia rewards leaving things loose, and nearly all of it can wait until breakfast. These four cannot: one departure a day, a drive long enough to eat the morning, or a camp with a fixed number of beds.
- 01Circuit the south of Tunisia in 2 days Sahara ExplorerDesert camps take a set number of guests a night and the good ones fill in season. Nobody drives out to add a bed.
- 02Tozeur: Tamerza, Chebika, Mides and Star Wars locations Day TourThe film sets sit hours apart on desert tracks, and the tours leave early and once, from Tozeur or Djerba. Miss the pickup and there is no second run.
- 03One night under the tent: Tataouine – Chenini – Ksar Ghilane – MatmataKsar Ghilane is a hot spring at the end of a long piste. Getting there is most of a day each way, so it is booked as a day, not squeezed into one.
- 04Private Excursion to Testour, Dougga and Bulla Regia from Tunis.Almost nothing scheduled goes to Dougga or Bulla Regia. In practice you are booking a car and a guide for the whole day.
By ten in July, Dougga has no shade left.
Inland Tunisia runs into the low forties in high summer, and there is no shade at El Jem, at Dougga or on the Byrsa hill. Do what Tunisians do. Start at first light, spend the middle of the day under a roof or in the water, and leave the desert until October.
Carthage stone, Sahara sand, or a morning in the medina
A first week in Tunisia, in the order most people drive it.
Tunis
Hammamet
Sousse
El Jem
Kairouan
Tozeur
DjerbaJust reviewed, from Tunis to the Sahara.
Everything else new →
From Djerba : 1 day in the footsteps of Star Wars “Mos Eisley”
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PRIVATE 2 day SAFARI (Ksar Ghilane and Atlas Mountains) from Jerba
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Private Tour Bardo Museum, Carthage, Sidi Bou Said and Medina
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Explore Tunisia in Depth:The Private Grand Tour in 8 Days
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3DAYS 4×4 safari from Sousse/Hammamet/Tunis 100km deep in desert camp
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2 Hour Hergla Visit and Sousse Medina Heritage Tour
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Tour of the island of Djerba the island of Lotophages
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Enfidha Private Arrival Airport Transfer to Hammamet
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Private Excursion of Friguia Park and Medina of Hammamet
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