Traveling to TUNISIA in 2025¿ You NEED to Watch This Video!

Hello my fellow travelers and welcome back to another travel guide from Tales from the Road. I'm Pierce, thanks for stopping by. Today we're headed to North Africa to talk about an amazing country that gets little recognition and actually isn't that touristy for as cool as it is. The country I'm talking about of course is Tunisia and today we're going to talk about everything you need to know before you go. I spent six weeks living in this country this year and I fell in love with it. It's an amazing place and I can't wait to share it with you. So let's get into the video, let's talk Tunisia. So as we always do with these videos, let's talk a little Tunisian history. First and foremost the modern nation of Tunisia sits in North Africa. Specifically it's the most northern country in Africa sitting right on the Mediterranean. It has Algeria to the east, it has Libya to the east. As with any old world country, one that's on the Mediterranean, it means that they have a long and storied history. The times of history that I find the most interesting for Tunisia specifically are number one, the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians were Phoenicians or the cousins of the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians came from Lebanon, Israel, modern-day Syria. They took boats, they floated over to North Africa, landed in modern-day Tunisia and set up a trading post which then became an empire. Carthage was a great rival of Rome. They had one of the greatest generals in history, the only general to really give the Roman Empire a run for its money. His name of course was Hannibal and because he was so successful, the Romans hated him. They hated the Carthaginians, they hated their rivals and Rome took it upon themselves to exterminate Carthage, to eliminate it as a rival, to make sure that Rome dominated. And this is where you see a lot of interesting history as Carthage was centered in today's Tunis which is the capital of Tunisia. With this North African Southern Mediterranean powerhouse of a civilization rivaling the great mighty prowess of the Roman Empire, there were these wars called the Punic Wars and the Romans took it upon themselves after loss, after loss, after loss against the Carthaginians to destroy their civilization. They didn't do it in one war, they didn't do it in two wars, but I believe they did it in three or four wars over a span of 60 to 70 years. But the whole goal was to destroy Carthage. So when you go to modern-day Tunisia, you can find Carthaginian ruins although they are really really destroyed because the whole idea of the Romans was to exterminate any culture, any buildings, any sense of civilization that the Carthaginians had built, which is pretty savage. The whole idea was the Romans came in, they also put salt on their fields so they couldn't grow anything there for a millennium, a generation, which really changed the state of Tunisia there on forward. While Carthage was a homegrown story, after the fall of Carthage, Tunisia was very much a different place, always being under some sort of colonial rule. The Romans were there, colonizing it. The different Arab caliphates from different parts of the Arabic-speaking world were there, which of course is why today they speak Arabic in Tunisia as a first language. The French were there, the Ottoman Empire was there, and many more. Upon this layer of many different historical peoples that have all like left something on Tunisia, they also have the Berber or Amazigh community. These people who are actually from the land originally, pre-Arab conquest, pre-Ottoman conquest, pre-French influence, the Amazigh community has always been there. So when you look at Tunisia, you just have all these layers of different things. And after all of it, they were able to make their own state, a country called Tunisia. It's not that big but it has a long and deep history and it's pretty cool if I must say so myself. Now that we've talked about all these different people who went to Tunisia, let's talk about you going to Tunisia. First and foremost, we're going to need a visa. If you're a United States citizen, you get 90 days visa-free arrival in Tunisia. The only thing that I would say is that if you're a photographer or if you have a drone or you have anything that's technological, make sure that you read the rules and regulations for Tunisia. I brought my drone. It was an absolute disaster. I had to wait two hours at the airport before they could let me like leave it in a locked box in the airport. Don't take a drone. And if you're taking cameras, make sure that your SD cards are clean. Make sure that you explain why you have a camera. The security apparatus is quite challenging in Tunisia. They're very worried about terrorism. So be aware that if you have anything strange or odd or might look strange or odd to the Tunisian government, maybe think about leaving that at home. Camera wasn't such a big deal. Drone was a really big deal. Don't take a drone to Tunisia. It's just not worth the trouble. So let's talk getting to Tunisia and then transportation within Tunisia. Getting to Tunisia is pretty reasonable. There's a couple different major cities you can fly to. You can fly to Tunis, the capital city. You can fly to Sfax, which is the second city, which is I think three or four hours south by car or by train. And then you can fly to Djerba, which is the sort of like holiday retreat, sort of North African, Maldives is what they call it. If you go there, you're pretty far away from the rest of the country, so that's probably a specific sort of resort vacation. The other two airports are really good if you want to explore Tunisia like proper. Tunisia is unique because the bordering countries for Americans in particular are really hard to get into. To get into Algeria, you really need a specific visa and they're really hard to get. And Libya, it's almost impossible for Americans to visit at the moment unless you have like family or something. So if you're going to Tunisia, you're going to fly to Tunisia and once you're in Tunisia, you're going to stay in Tunisia. The borders around the Sahara area, meaning like towards Algeria and towards Libya, the more away you get from the capital cities, also is a sort of terrorism zone, so best not to even really play around by the borders. Stick to the well-known places in Tunisia, should be fine. Traveling within the country of course is actually pretty easy, not too bad. They have buses, which are not the best, but they do function. It's very old school, very kind of like developing nation bus system. They have trains, although the trains are really really slow, so maybe don't use the trains. And then of course they have domestic flights. You can fly from of course Tunis to Jaraba, Jaraba to Sfax, however you really want to get around the country. You can do it by plane. It's of course more expensive, but it is doable. Renting a car is something that some people might find interesting or they may want to do. I don't know if I personally recommend it because number one, Tunisians follow almost no road rules. It's really like a no-man's land. They barely use the lanes, so it can be dangerous if you're not used to it. And then number two, with any developing nation where you're renting a car, hard to say what they're going to do with you if you get pulled over by a police officer and don't speak the local language. I think for me, I'm just a hassle-free guy. I don't want to deal with any of that, so I'd rather just take a bus. But that being said, there were some places I couldn't go to because I didn't have a car, so maybe it would be good if you rented a car and maybe you risk it a little bit. Every city has taxis. They have Uber and Bolt as well, so getting around in the city is pretty easy. You could even probably Bolt from city to city if you want to pay like a bigger amount of money, but it was very cheap, the taxis in Tunis specifically, and they're everywhere. The quality of the taxis is pretty low, not gonna lie, but they were efficient. They were easy to call. I think the transportation is easy if you have a solid idea of how transportation in the developing world works. I think if you don't have a solid idea, maybe take a couple days in Tunis, try some stuff out before you go crazy, rent a car, and do the whole thing. There's definitely a learning level that needs to be done in the sort of travel in Tunisia with regards to transportation. So now that you're in the country and you're traveling around, you're probably gonna need to pay for all those taxis that you're taking. The money situation in Tunisia is pretty straightforward. A lot of stuff is paid for in cash. You can, of course, use your credit card at certain locations, but a lot of places are not super technologically advanced, I think, is an easy way to put it. So I would just say always have cash with you. Withdrawing cash is definitely not a problem. There's a lot of different ATMs. They just have Visa, MasterCard. Awesome. Uber, Bolt, you can all connect your card to. Really nice. But that being said, having cash on hand is good, and probably don't walk around with too much cash because, you know, you never know what's gonna happen when you're there. If you're converting from US dollar or euro, your purchasing power is really good. You can probably have lunch for like three euros, two euros. You can have a bottle of water for like 20 cents. Alcohol is a little bit expensive because it's not a big drinking country, so the price, you know, the taxes are a little bit high if you want to do that, but you can drink if you want to go to bars. Hotels were also quite cheap, maybe like $30 to $50 a night for a pretty moderate, you know, accommodation. Nothing crazy, but a nice one. Our Airbnb, we paid $900 for the month in one of the best areas of Tunis, which is of course way over market price, but still pretty good. Honestly, I'm not, definitely not mad about it. And the cheapest thing in Tunisia is definitely the transportation. The buses were incredibly cheap. The taxis were incredibly cheap. So a trip to Tunisia is definitely not gonna break the bank. I like to put it in the same basket as Morocco. Both the purchasing power is really strong and you really have a good value for your dollar or for your euro. So if you're walking around with big wads of money, it's probably good to know about the safety in Tunisia. Tunisia, I thought, was a pretty safe country. I found it a lot safer feeling than Morocco. In Morocco, a lot of people were hassling you for money, were following you, were asking you questions, and I think because it's a very touristy country and the culture is a little bit in your face, I think that was just the deal there. In Tunisia, even though it's in the same region and the people are very similar in a lot of ways, Tunisia was just chill. The people left you alone. The people smiled at you. There was no one really requesting you for money. When I went into the old bazaars in a lot of these different cities around Tunisia, it was like really chill. Like no one really pestered you for buying something. So I feel like that was definitely a high note. The fact is in Tunisia, a lot of people don't travel there anymore because they had two pretty severe terrorist attacks about 10 to 15 years ago. One was at a museum and some tourist died and it was like a whole deal. So that turned off a lot of the major tourists that were going there, the French, the Spanish, the Germans, which is of course understandable. You don't want to of course go to a place that has like terrorism issues as like a family holiday. Tunisia also sent I think the most ISIS fighters by population of any Islamic majority country in the world. I really don't know why but that's what the data shows. So I'm not saying any of this to scare you. I thought Tunisia was very pleasant, very safe feeling, but I think you should keep your head on a swivel, watch your money, make sure your taxis are always registered, and just make sure that you know where you're going and don't let anyone lead you astray. I think the terrorism thing is pretty much over from what I can tell. It seems like Tunisia is sort of moving forward. The tourism is coming back for sure, but the scars of that and the stain that that left is still felt and comparative to 2005, there's way less tourists today in 2023 than there were in 2005. So something to note. I think it's safe, but of course do your reading, you know, in advance. The U.S. embassy in Tunisia does put out like a map of where you should go in Tunisia. Most of it's in the green zone, but when you get towards the borders of Libya and Algeria and in the south, especially where it just disappears in the Sahara, there is a lot of like weird Islamic state stuff happening there, and there's a lot of like terror groups, not necessarily terror groups, but there's a lot of people doing weird stuff. So just go to the designated tourist zones, don't mess around on the border, don't get caught doing weird things, like, you know, just avoid it. I think that's my main point. So when I go to Tunisia, what kind of people am I going to find? What's the vibe? Tunisians are pretty complicated because there's lots of different layers of people, of groups, of beliefs in Tunisia. I think first and foremost it's an So there's mosques, there's the call to prayer, there's, you know, women in hijabs, there's men praying five times a day, women too. There's also young Tunisians who don't do any of that, who wear metal shirts, who, you know, listen to American rap music. I mean, it's, it has both, it definitely has both, but it's definitely more traditional than like a turkey, for example. The main Tunisians in the majority of cities, they come from an Arabic-speaking background, so Arabic is their first language, but if they went to any sort of, like, higher level schooling, that means they're also going to speak French fluently. And they actually speak in a sort of dialect of Arabic called Tunisi, which of course is named after Tunisia. Tunisi is very similar to Moroccan Derija. It's a complex combination of Arabic, French, and then maybe local Amazigh or Berber words, the ones that are specific to Tunisia. The Derija, or what they have in Algeria, they have their own dialect as well. They're all different, so a person from Tunisia and a person from Morocco can, of course, understand each other, but their specific dialects are very different, and someone from Saudi Arabia can't understand a thing the Tunisians are saying because they've added so many things. The cool part for you as a tourist is that if you know a little bit of French, Tunisia is the easiest place to travel because you can communicate with everybody. I was in Jordan, and they only spoke Arabic, and the numbers were in the Arabic strip. I couldn't understand anything. But in Tunisia, you can definitely get by with just a little French because everybody, regardless if they went to school or not, speaks a little bit of French, and it makes the whole experience so much easier than a Gulf Arab state country for sure. You also have the traditional Amazigh people who mostly live in the mountains. Very interesting culture, and you can see it in different cities, but it's not something that I think is obvious to the tourist. The main thing for you is Tunisian people are super friendly. They're super generous. The country is very cool to travel in because of this, and it makes the experience so much more interesting as a tourist. So my favorite time of the video, food. Tunisian food is delicious. Number one because I like spicy food, and Tunisians put harissa or spicy chili paste that's local to Tunisia in basically everything. Everything is like dyed red. It's awesome. They do amazing couscous. They do amazing fish dishes. They do a bunch of amazing stews that you eat with bread, and the best thing is they have ample street food. Sweets, desserts, all of this stuff that you can find for really affordable prices, and everything is local. It's very hard to find a place or an experience in Tunisia that's not local feeling, so there's so many amazing things to see, to eat, to do, the whole thing. If you want to see more specifically about Tunisian food and you can see specific dishes, I made an entire street food Tunis video with an influencer that I met in Tunisia who showed me around, took me on his bike, the whole thing. It was awesome. So instead of giving you all the details here, I'm going to put a link to my video right here. You can check that out. So much deliciousness. So to end the video, you're probably going to ask me where should I go and what should I do, and I will do exactly that right now. First up, you have to start in Tunis. You have to see the Carthaginian history. You have to go to the Tunis old town, which is this super old Medina with these like little narrow streets and a lot of old culture. You can see the mosque. You can really feel the vibe. And then in Tunis, you can also kind of see what the upper crust of Tunisian society is doing, the people with money. There's a beautiful area called La Marse. They have a corniche or like a really awesome view of the water because Tunisia is a Mediterranean country, so you can get that vibe as well. There's a lot of beautiful things to do in Tunis. I think you spend a couple days there, old town, downtown, and then La Marse for some nice dinners or something. And then you can head into the real Tunisia, the sort of like old-school parts, the things where it's a little bit more to discover. Next, you've got to do some Roman or Carthaginian ruins. They have some really, really nice ruins around the country, especially El Jem, which is an amazing amphitheater, one of the best and most well-preserved amphitheaters from the Roman times in the entire world. You can also go to Duga, which is this incredibly huge Roman bathhouse city, which is just like on a hill. It's almost crazy that it even exists, so definitely go see some Roman history. They also have beautiful mosaics all over the country from the Romans, and they also have this National Mosaic Museum in the capital, Tunis. It's not open, unfortunately, because the terrorist attack happened there, and they haven't opened it since, but theoretically, it's the biggest collection of mosaics from the Roman period anywhere in the world, so incredible. Next up, there's all these amazing cities, secondary cities you can see, like Sousse, like Monastir, like Sfax. I think those are all good to get different ideas of the culture of Tunisia. Almost all of them are on the coast, which also makes for something particularly interesting. Really cool old medinas, really nice places to eat, really good vibes. Do it. If you want to relax a bit, you can go to Hammamet, which is a really nice little beach town that's actually like an hour away from Tunis, really easy to do if you're up there. If you want more of a beach-related vacation, everybody goes to Djerba, which is in the southeast towards Libya. Really beautiful little islands, really like tourist industry town, very pretty, people speak very highly of it. I didn't go there, but I definitely recommend it. And the last thing you can do is go into the old center of Tunisia. That means, one, you could go to the deep south and go to the Sahara desert, very interesting, and number two, you can go to a city called Kairouan, which is one of the holy cities of ancient Islam. They have one of the holiest mosques in the entire religion there, and they have one of the coolest, most beautiful little old towns that I've ever seen anywhere in that sort of medina, sort of oriental, you know, Arabic knight style. It's so, so pretty. Tunisia is such an amazing country. It has so much vibrant architecture, history, like traditions and culture. I love the artistic values that they have, the amazing mosaic paintings, the paintings of the whole cities. I mean, Tunisia is so, so special, and I'm so sad that more people aren't visiting it, and so this is my big pitch for you. If you found this video interesting, Tunisia is waiting, and you definitely need to go visit. So, that'll do it for me in this video. I hope you enjoyed the video. I try to be as clear and as upfront as I can in these videos to tell you everything you need to know before you go. I made a Tunisian dish on my Instagram channel, where I'm cooking every dish from around the world. I made Tunisian oja, which is kind of like a shakshuka, a tomato dish with with eggs and some homemade meatballs. Very delicious. If you want to follow my recipes or anything like that, you can go to www.benpiercejones.com. It's basically the big hub for my whole channel now. I've got lots of different, like, projects going on, but that is the place to find everything there, and if you enjoyed the video, make sure to like and subscribe. Always helpful for me. I'll see you guys in the next one. Thank you so much for watching.