About The Tunisia Guide
Tunisia is one of those countries that surprises people who actually go. Most travellers have a mental image that is either blank or wrong, and the gap between expectation and reality is where The Tunisia Guide comes in.
The country packs an absurd amount of variety into a small geography. You can stand inside the amphitheatre at El Jem in the morning, eat fresh seafood in a Sousse harbour restaurant at lunch, and watch the sun set over the Sahara the same evening. Carthage, Dougga, and Bulla Regia hold Roman ruins that rival anything in Italy or Turkey, yet draw a fraction of the visitors. The medinas of Tunis and Kairouan are working parts of cities, not museum pieces. Djerba operates at its own pace entirely.
Who writes this
My name is James. I've spent over six months living in Tunisia across 2025 and 2026 - long enough to learn the difference between a tourist couscous and a proper Friday couscous, to figure out how the louage system actually works, and to understand why the coffee in Sidi Bou Said tastes different from everything else in Tunis.
Travel is what I build my life around. I've been to over 70 countries so far, but I've never been interested in the version of travel where you tick a place off a list and move on. I want to stay somewhere long enough to start understanding how people actually live - what they eat at home, not what's on the tourist menu. How they get around. What they complain about and what they're proud of.
A lot of what you'll read on this site started as advice given to me by generous Tunisians I met along the way - a restaurant owner in Tunis who insisted I try places that no guidebook had listed, a driver near Tozeur who took a detour to show me an oasis village most tourists never reach, a family in Djerba who explained exactly why their couscous was different from what I'd been eating on the mainland. I'm passing on what was passed to me, with the same spirit it was given.
Why this site exists
When I first researched a trip to Tunisia, the English-language information was sparse and contradictory. Safety advice was often outdated by years. Accommodation recommendations fell into two extremes: budget hostels or luxury resorts, with nothing useful about the mid-range places most people actually want. Tour options were buried behind agency websites that hadn't been updated since 2015.
I started writing the guides I wished had existed before that first trip, and kept going because the information gap was still there.
What these guides cover
The site covers destinations from the capital through the Sahel coast, Cap Bon, the northwest hill towns, the southern oases, and the Sahara circuits. Where to stay recommendations are based on actual stays and confirmed local reports, not press releases. Tour comparisons cover archaeological day trips, multi-day desert expeditions, and the cultural routes that most agencies don't publicise well. Practical pages handle visas, transport, money, mobile data, and seasonal timing.
I don't pretend every aspect of travel here is effortless. Public transport connections between cities can be slow. French is far more useful than English outside Tunis and the resort zones. Navigating medinas takes a certain tolerance for disorientation. I cover these realities directly rather than glossing over them.
Revenue and editorial standards
Some links on this site are affiliate links to booking platforms, tour operators, and travel services. If you use them, I receive a commission. The cost to you stays the same. I link only to services that serve a genuine purpose for the trip being discussed - there's no incentive structure that influences what I recommend or how I rank options.
Read the full affiliate disclosure for specifics.
Get in touch
Spotted an error, have a question, or want to share an update from your own trip? Email hello@thetunisiaguide.com.