🇹🇳Tunisia

The stay

• No visa for a tourist visit of up to 90 days, or 120 days on a German passport.
• Your passport needs to be valid for the duration of your stay, according to the UK government. Canada and Germany tell their own citizens to have six months of validity, so check what your own government says.
• Border officers may ask for contact details, an onward or return ticket and an accommodation booking, and have refused entry when they were not produced.
• Overstaying carries a fine, payable on departure.

The passport itself

• A damaged or torn passport is a problem leaving, not arriving. The FCDO warns specifically that people who enter Tunisia on a damaged passport run into difficulty when they try to leave. If yours is coming apart, replace it before you fly.

Cash at the border, three numbers

All three are stated in dinars, and all three are about foreign currency you are carrying.

• 20,000 TND equivalent or more must be declared on arrival, on departure and in transit. Failing to declare can mean confiscation.
• Above 5,000 TND equivalent, declare to airport customs on arrival, or the excess is confiscated when you leave. This one costs money quietly, months later.
• You cannot leave with 30,000 TND equivalent or more, even if you declared it coming in.
• These rules are for non-residents, and the customs authority publishes them in French and Arabic only.

How it works

• The care a visitor uses is private. Doctors' fees, medication and treatment in private clinics are paid on the spot, and the costs can be high.
• Some clinics will accept your insurer directly if they can get a payment guarantee from the company first. That call takes time you may not have.
• So carry accessible funds as well as a policy. A card that works and a policy number are the two things to have on your phone.

Cover

• Insurance must include medical evacuation and hospital stays, not just treatment.
• Check that it covers what you are actually doing, which in Tunisia often means desert excursions, quad bikes and diving.

Everyday risks

• Typhoid is present but low risk for most travellers, and travels in food and water.
• Biting insects and ticks are the routine nuisance, and Canada lists tick-borne encephalitis as a risk in some areas, mainly from April to November and for people who hike or camp in forests.
• Heat is the underrated one. Between June and September inland and southern temperatures pass 40 C, and sand and dust storms are frequent.

Before you go

• Check routine vaccinations are current at least 8 weeks before travelling.

The tax, again, because it is charged at check-in

• 8 TND per person per night at 3-star hotels, 12 TND at 4 and 5-star, up to a maximum of ten nights.
• It is paid on arrival, and it cannot be reclaimed if you leave early.

Where the arrival lands you

• Tunis Carthage is close to the city, so an airport-area hotel is not a category here the way it is elsewhere.
• The medina is where you came to stay and not where you want to arrive at midnight. Its streets are not addressed in a way a driver can find in the dark.
• Lac 1 and Lac 2, on the way in from the airport, are where the business hotels are, and a reasonable place to lose one night.
• Sidi Bou Said and La Marsa are on the TGM line from Tunis Marine, which the airport bus connects to.

Booking practicalities

• Confirm whether the property takes cards. Small guesthouses often do not, and you cannot arrive with dinars.
• Dress modestly outside resorts, particularly during Ramadan, and at religious sites everywhere.

The operators

• Ooredoo, Orange Tunisie and Tunisie Telecom are the three networks. All three sell prepaid.
• Coverage on the coast and in the tourist belt is good. The interior and the south thin out, as they do everywhere in North Africa.

Registration is in person, with the passport itself

• A Tunisian SIM is registered to a named holder against identity documents. That is a legal requirement, not a shop policy, and it is why a SIM cannot simply be handed over.
• Ooredoo's Holiday SIM is pre-ordered online, and you choose the collection shop in advance: Tunis airport or Djerba airport.
• After the confirmation email you send back a copy of your passport by email, and on arrival you present the passport itself at that shop for identification and to sign the contract.
• Which means the reservation does not save you the queue. It saves you the paperwork at the counter.

The practical answer

• Reserve before you fly if you are landing at Tunis or Djerba, and buy at the counter otherwise.
• A roaming eSIM covers the gap between landing and finding a shop, which matters most on a late arrival when the shops are shut.

Power

• 230 V, 50 Hz, sockets type C and E - the same round two-pin as France, so a European plug fits.
• UK and US plugs need an adapter.

Language

• Arabic is the official language and Tunisian Arabic is what is spoken.
• French is the working second language, on signs, menus and in offices, far more than English.
• English is common in the tourist belt and rare outside it. A little French goes further here than it does in most of North Africa.

The week

• Friday is the day the rhythm changes: the midday prayer empties offices for a while, and supermarkets stop selling alcohol.
• Ramadan reshapes the day, with restaurants shut in daylight outside resorts and everything happening after sunset.
• Public holidays follow both the Gregorian and Islamic calendars, so dates move year to year.

Climate

• The north has hot dry summers and rainy winters; the south is semi-arid.
• October to May is the northern rainy season. In the south it barely rains at all.
• Severe multi-year droughts happen and can put water supplies under pressure.

The closed currency

• It is prohibited to import or export Tunisian dinars. Not limited - prohibited, in both directions.
• So you cannot buy dinars at home, and the exchange desk at your own airport does not stock them for a reason.
• And you cannot take the leftovers home. There is no keeping a note as a souvenir and no changing them back next year.

What that means for how much you change

• Change in stages rather than all at once. The airport bank on arrival is for the first day, not the trip.
• Keep your exchange receipts. Converting dinars back on departure is the official route and receipts are what the counter asks for.
• Do the last conversion landside, before you clear security, and leave time for it.
• Spend the coins. They will not convert.

Cards and ATMs

• ATMs are widely available in tourist areas and in every major centre.
• Cards are accepted in urban and tourist businesses, and much less so outside them.
• Cash still runs the country for taxis, cafes, markets and the medina. Assume cash unless you can see a terminal.

The tax nobody quotes you

• A hotel tax is charged per person per night: 8 TND at 3-star hotels and 12 TND at 4 and 5-star hotels, capped at ten nights.
• It is not in the room rate and it is collected at the property, in dinars, which you may not have brought with you.

On the road

• Road surfaces are reasonable, but large potholes open up after rain.
• Many towns and villages have unannounced speed bumps.
• Do not drive at night outside towns. Unlit roads and livestock on the carriageway are the reason.
• Driving standards are poor, with right of way and traffic signals treated as advice.
• The drink-drive limit is stricter than England's and the penalties are severe.
• Carry an International Driving Permit alongside your own licence.

Louages

• The louage is a shared long-distance taxi and it is how the country actually moves between towns. They leave when full rather than to a timetable, from their own stations.
• Fares are fixed and posted, so this is not a negotiation.

Trains

• SNCFT runs the rail network, useful along the coast between Tunis, Sousse and Sfax. It is slow and cheap.

Strikes

• Strikes in transport and public services happen, and can hit rail, sea, air and city transport at short notice. Build slack around a departure day.

Terrorism

• There is a threat of terrorism, countrywide. Attacks have targeted resorts and tourist attractions as well as government and military sites.
• On 9 May 2023 a shooting took place near the Ghriba synagogue on Djerba, during the annual pilgrimage and despite an increased security presence.
• Governments advise against all travel to several areas: within 20 km of the Algerian border, within 30 km of the Libyan border, the governorate of Kasserine including the Chaambi, Mghila, Sammama and Selloum mountain ranges, and the closed military zone south of Remada.
• The coastal tourist strip is not one of those areas, which is the distinction the advisories are actually drawing.

Crime

• Theft is the main risk, often set up with a confidence trick as a distraction.
• Reports of sexual harassment and assault rise in summer, in busy areas at night and in parks and on beaches during the day.

Demonstrations

• Demonstrations and strikes happen, mostly in downtown Tunis, and can turn violent or block traffic.

Laws that catch visitors

• Photographing government buildings and military sites is prohibited.
• Supermarkets do not sell alcohol on Fridays, and sales are restricted during Ramadan outside resorts.
• Same-sex sexual activity is illegal, and prosecutions happen.
• Drug offences carry long prison sentences.
• Taking antiquities out of the country needs advance government permission.
• In daytime during Ramadan, eating, drinking, smoking or chewing gum in public causes offence, resorts excepted.

The numbers

The one that is easy to get wrong

• 197 and 193 divide the country between them. The police cover towns and cities; the National Guard covers the countryside and small villages. On a desert road or between towns, 193 is the number that answers.
• 198 covers road accidents as well as fire, which is the one to reach for after a crash.
• 112 is not the general emergency number here. Learn the four.