Tunisia

Tunisia at a glance

Between the Mediterranean and the Sahara, Tunisia brings together World Heritage medinas, the ruins of Carthage and Dougga, beach resorts and oases. Tunis is a few hours' flight from Europe's main cities, direct or with one stop. The country is on UTC+1 all year round, as it has not used daylight saving time since 2009: 1 hour ahead of London in winter and the same time in summer. The currency is the Tunisian dinar, which can only be obtained in the country. French is very widely spoken, and road signs are mostly bilingual, in Arabic and French.

The French are by far the largest group of European visitors: in 2023 the ONTT (the Tunisian National Tourist Office) counted 2,544,671 arrivals of Europeans, including 1,015,725 French, 303,027 German and 194,970 British visitors. Europeans spend an average of 5.8 nights in hotels; Germans stay 8.4 nights.

People come for three things, often in the same trip: beaches and thalassotherapy, from Hammamet to Djerba; ancient and Islamic heritage, from Carthage to Kairouan; and the desert, from Tozeur and Douz.

Five zones and eleven regions

Sabaro divides the country into five zones and eleven regions, each built around one or more hotels in its selection.

Tunis, Carthage and the North

• Tunis: the medina, a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage site since 1979, holds some 700 monuments. The Bardo National Museum, in a 19th-century palace of the beys, has one of the largest collections of Roman mosaics anywhere. Dougga, 113 km away, is a Roman town preserved as a whole; Thuburbo Majus and the Zaghouan water temple are about an hour's drive.
• Carthage, Sidi Bou Said and Gammarth: the remains of Carthage spread along the Gulf of Tunis, 15 km from the airport. A combined ticket covers the Antonine Baths, the theatre, the amphitheatre and the Early Christian museum, which reopened in December 2025. Sidi Bou Said is home to Baron d'Erlanger's Ennejma Ezzahra palace; the big seafront hotels are in Gammarth. Bizerte and Ichkeul National Park, a World Heritage site since 1980, are less than an hour away.
• Tabarka and Kroumirie: a port on the Coral Coast, 171 km from Tunis airport, with a Genoese fort, dive sites and an 18-hole golf course. Bulla Regia and its Roman houses with underground floors are 159 km from the airport. The cork-oak forests of Ain Draham are covered on the region page, with your country's advice: the town, 4.6 km from Algeria, lies on the edge of or inside the border strips that several ministries advise against, and some advise against its mountains.

Hammamet and Cap Bon

• Hammamet, Nabeul and Cap Bon: Hammamet's medina and kasbah are 75 km from Tunis airport, about an hour by motorway, with the Yasmine Hammamet resort to the south. Out on the peninsula are Kerkouane, the only surviving Punic city and a UNESCO site since 1986, the fortress of Kelibia, the ancient quarries of El Haouaria and the hot springs of Korbous, where you bathe in rock pools by the sea.

The Sahel and central Tunisia

• Sousse and Port El Kantaoui: an Aghlabid medina listed in 1988, a ribat completed in 821 and an archaeological museum in the kasbah. Port El Kantaoui, with its marina and 36 holes of golf, is a few minutes north. Monastir airport is 15 km away.
• Monastir: birthplace of Habib Bourguiba, first president of independent Tunisia, with a ribat founded in 795-796, his gold-domed mausoleum and two golf courses. The Kuriat islands lie about 18 km offshore.
• Mahdia, El Jem and Sfax: built between 238 and 250 and 36 m high, the El Jem amphitheatre is one of the largest in the Roman world. Mahdia, once the Fatimid caliphs' city, runs its medina along a narrow peninsula and its hotels along golden beaches. Sfax has a medina entirely enclosed by walls, and the ferry reaches the Kerkennah islands in an hour.
• Kairouan: founded in 670, the foremost holy city of the Maghreb and a World Heritage site since 1988; its Great Mosque became the model for mosques across the Maghreb and al-Andalus. Kairouan is 56 km from Sousse. The Roman and Byzantine site of Sbeitla, 109 km away, is in Kasserine governorate, which some ministries advise against: the region page describes it without offering it, with your country's advice.

Djerba and the South-East

• Djerba, Zarzis and the South-East: Djerba has been a World Heritage site since 2023 for its island settlement pattern, with Ibadi mosques, the fondouks (old caravanserais) of Houmt Souk, El Ghriba synagogue and the Djerbahood murals in Erriadh. The region reaches Zarzis, the coastal oasis of Gabès, the troglodyte houses of Matmata, 129 km from Houmt Souk, and the ksour, fortified granaries, around Tataouine. Chenini and Douiret, south of Tataouine, are advised against by some ministries: the region page presents them with your country's advice.

The Saharan South

• Douz and the Sahara: in Douz, home of the Mrazig, once nomadic camel herders, the sand desert begins at the hotel gates, and the camel market is held on Thursdays. Ksar Ghilane, Tembaine and Jbil National Park, further south, are presented with your country's advice: some ministries advise against the desert south of a line through Tozeur, Douz and Tataouine.
• Tozeur, Nefta and the Jerid: the brick medina of Ouled el-Hadef and a palm grove of almost 1,000 ha in Tozeur, the Corbeille of Nefta, a centre of Sufism, the Chott el Djerid salt flat crossed by a road, and the Star Wars sets of Ong Jmel and Mos Espa. The mountain oases of Chebika, Tamerza and Midès, inside the Algerian border strips that several ministries advise against, are described but not offered.

When to go

Tunisia has two travel seasons: May to October for the coast, October to April for the Saharan south. Most Europeans visit between April and October; in 2025, July, August and October were the three busiest months.

These are the 1991-2020 normals of the WMO (World Meteorological Organization); sea temperatures are ten-year averages.

• The sea is warm from June to October: 24 to 29 °C at Djerba, 22 to 27 °C at Tunis. July and August bring 32 to 35 °C on the coast; May, June, September and October are milder.
• Winter is mild on the coast, 16 to 18 °C by day, but wet in the north: over 50 mm of rain a month in Tunis from October to February, and 150 to 165 mm a month in Tabarka from November to January. Djerba gets less than 35 mm a month.
• The Saharan south is pleasant from October to April, with 17 to 30 °C by day in Tozeur and Douz and cool nights in December and January, 4 to 8 °C. From June to September it reaches 35 to 40 °C.
• Ramadan 2027 is expected from 8 February to 9 March. The guide Ramadan and public holidays 2027 gives the key dates and what changes for visitors.

The big summer festivals, in Carthage, Hammamet and Dougga, fill July and August; the International Sahara Festival takes over Douz from 19 to 22 December 2026.

Getting there

Each airport serves a different part of the country:

Djerba has direct flights all year from Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes and Brussels, and seasonal ones from Geneva, Basel-Mulhouse, Zurich, Nice and several German cities. Enfidha-Hammamet airport, between Hammamet and Sousse, is served mainly from the UK, Switzerland and Eastern Europe. The Airports and flights page gives the airlines, seasons and flight times of direct flights from your country.

On the ground, the A1 motorway follows the coast from Tunis to the Libyan border: Hammamet is an hour from Tunis airport, Sousse 2 h 10 and Houmt Souk about 7 hours. For the south-west, flying or using the main roads is recommended: Tunisair Express links Tunis with Djerba and Tozeur, and a train leaves Tunis at 7.25 am and reaches Tozeur at 6.30 pm. The guide Getting around Tunisia covers transfers, trains and driving.

Entry requirements

• Passport required. Since 1 January 2025 national ID cards are no longer accepted, even on package holidays, according to the ONTT.
• Visa-free stay and passport validity. Both depend on nationality: the entry requirements table on this page gives the rule for your country. Sabaro recommends a passport valid for at least 6 months after arrival.

The guide Tunisia visa and entry requirements covers border checks and the rules for minors and dual nationals. Dinars may not be brought in or taken out: change money on arrival and keep the exchange slips, as the guide Money in Tunisia explains.

Safety

None of the European foreign ministries Sabaro follows advises against Tunisia as a whole. A state of emergency has been in force since November 2015, and vigilance remains the rule in tourist areas. The ministries advise against the country's edges: the central-western mountains near Algeria, the Algerian border strip, the far Saharan south, which is a military zone, and the town of Ben Guerdane, near Libya. Their limits differ for a few well-known sites, such as Sbeitla, the mountain oases, Ksar Ghilane and Chenini. Foreign ministries do not all give the same advice. Here is your country's:

Sabaro offers no trip idea in an area advised against by any of the five ministries it follows for its offer: those of France, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Germany. The guide Safety in Tunisia sets out the situation area by area and place by place.

Where to stay: the hotels in the selection

Sabaro's selection includes 22 hotels, from medina guesthouses to desert resorts. Prices below were taken from Google Hotels for two adults, 9 to 11 March 2027, cheapest room, taxes included; the tourist tax comes on top, TND 12 per person per night in 4- and 5-star hotels.

The Beach, Boutique hotels, Spa and wellness and Desert pages group these hotels by theme.