Tunisia 7 Day Itinerary

Tunisia contains the best-preserved Roman colosseum outside Italy, a medina in Tunis that has been continuously inhabited for over a thousand years, pre-Saharan desert landscapes used as Star Wars filming locations, and underground troglodyte dwellings still in use by some families. It also offers all of this at price levels that make comparable Mediterranean destinations feel expensive by comparison; a thoughtful budget traveller can cover accommodation, food, transport, and site entry fees for around 35 euros per day. Seven days is enough to move from the coast through the ancient cities to the southern desert without feeling rushed.

Visa and Entry

Tunisia offers visa-free entry to most European, North American, and Australian passport holders for stays of up to 90 days. Check the current requirements for your specific nationality before travelling; the list of exempt countries changes. There is a departure tax included in most airline ticket prices, but confirm this at booking.

Day 1: Arrive Tunis; The Medina

Tunis-Carthage International Airport is eight kilometres northeast of the city centre. The official yellow taxis are metered; a standard trip to the medina or the Ville Nouvelle (new town) takes 20 to 30 minutes and costs 15 to 30 Tunisian dinars (TND), roughly 5 to 10 euros. The Bolt ride-hailing app works in Tunis and tends to give more predictable pricing than street taxis negotiating at arrivals.

The Tunis medina is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most intact Arab-Islamic urban environments in the Mediterranean. It was planned in the 7th century and the core structure has not changed. Walk from Bab Bhar (the Sea Gate, at the eastern end of the medina) through the main souks to the Zitouna Mosque; the oldest mosque in the city, founded in 698 AD. The souks are organised by trade in the traditional pattern: the perfume market closest to the mosque (the most prestigious), followed by textiles, then leather, then metalwork toward the outer walls. The medina is free to walk; the Zitouna Mosque charges a small entry fee for non-Muslim visitors.

Eat in the medina on day one. A brik; the Tunisian deep-fried pastry stuffed with egg and tuna, served with harissa; costs 1.5 to 2.5 TND from a street stall and is the standard quick lunch. Sit-down restaurants in the medina serving couscous and lamb tagine run 15 to 25 TND for a meal. Harissa, the chilli paste that appears with almost every Tunisian meal, varies considerably in heat level; the dark brick-red paste sold loose in the souks is considerably hotter than the bottled tourist versions.

Day 2: The Bardo Museum and Carthage

The Bardo National Museum, located in a former 13th-century palace in the western suburbs of Tunis, houses the largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world. The entry fee is around 13 TND. The mosaics were recovered from Roman cities across Tunisia and reassembled in rooms and galleries that give them appropriate scale and context. The Ulysses and the Sirens mosaic and the Virgil mosaic are the most reproduced, but the collection is extensive enough that the less-famous pieces are equally striking. Allow three hours minimum.

Carthage, the ancient Phoenician and later Roman city that Rome destroyed and then rebuilt, sits on the coast 15 kilometres northeast of Tunis and is accessible by the TGM commuter train from the centre (fare around 1.5 TND). What remains is scattered: the Punic ports, the Antonine Baths (the third-largest Roman baths ever built), the Roman villas on the hill, and the Tophet (the ancient Phoenician sacred enclosure). A combined Carthage site ticket costs around 12 TND and covers multiple sites across the archaeological park. The site is more atmospheric than spectacular; the views over the Bay of Tunis from the hilltop are better than any single monument.

Day 3: Hammamet and Nabeul; Coast and Pottery

Hammamet, 60 kilometres south of Tunis, is Tunisia’s most established beach resort. The old medina at the southern end of town, with its ribat (fortified mosque-fortress) overlooking the sea, is worth an hour of your time; the rest of the resort strip is package-holiday infrastructure that is pleasant enough if beaches and pool time are what you need at this point in the trip. The beaches here are clean, the water is warm from June onward, and the afternoon light on the whitewashed walls of the medina is reliable.

Nabeul, 12 kilometres east, is the main pottery and ceramics production centre in Tunisia. The workshops producing the distinctive cobalt-blue and green geometric glazed tiles and plates are open to visitors, and purchasing directly from a workshop rather than from a Tunis shop saves money and ensures the piece is authentic hand-painted work rather than the printed imitations that dominate the tourist market. Ask to watch the painting process before you buy; the difference between hand-painted and printed work is immediately apparent once you have seen both.

Louage (shared minivan) from Tunis to Hammamet costs around 5 TND per person. Return to Tunis for the night or continue south and stay in Sousse.

Day 4: Sousse and Kairouan

Sousse is a working Tunisian port city as well as a coastal resort, and the old medina; another UNESCO site; is denser and more lived-in than the resort zone suggests. The Ribat of Sousse, a 9th-century watchtower and fortified monastery, gives the best views over the medina and the sea from its tower (entry around 8 TND). The souks sell spices, leather, and metalwork to locals as well as tourists.

Kairouan, 57 kilometres inland from Sousse by louage (5 to 7 TND per person), is the fourth holiest city in Islam after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. The Great Mosque; founded in 670 AD and rebuilt in its current form in the 9th century; is one of the oldest mosques in the world still in regular use. The prayer hall, with its 414 ancient columns (Roman and Byzantine spolia taken from older buildings across North Africa), is open to non-Muslim visitors during non-prayer hours for a modest entry fee. A combined pass for Kairouan’s main monuments costs around 10 TND. The city’s aghlabid basins; two enormous 9th-century reservoirs used for water storage; are visible from street level and free.

Day 5: El Jem and Matmata

El Jem, about 60 kilometres south of Sousse, contains a Roman amphitheatre seating 35,000 people and still standing to its original height on three of its four sides. It is the largest Roman monument in Africa and the third-largest amphitheatre ever built. The entry fee is 12 TND. Unlike the Colosseum in Rome, which requires booking weeks in advance and comes with several thousand other visitors, El Jem receives a fraction of the attention it deserves. You can walk the arena floor, climb the upper tiers, and explore the subterranean passages used to hold animals and prisoners before events, often with only a handful of other visitors present. The small archaeological museum next to the site contains mosaics excavated from the surrounding town and is included in the entry price.

Matmata, 80 kilometres south of El Jem, is a Berber settlement where troglodyte houses; dug down into the soft rock rather than built upward; have been in use for centuries. Some families still live in the underground compounds; others have converted them to guesthouses. Hotel Sidi Driss, one of the filming locations for Luke Skywalker’s home in the original Star Wars films, charges a small entry fee for non-guests and still displays film memorabilia. Stay overnight in a troglodyte guesthouse: the temperature underground stays comfortable even in summer, the silence is total, and there is no more disorienting experience than waking up and realising the sky above you is the shaft of an ancient courtyard dug twenty metres into the rock.

Day 6: Tozeur and Chott el Djerid

The journey from Matmata to Tozeur crosses the Chott el Djerid, a vast salt lake stretching 5,000 square kilometres. In the dry season (May to September), the surface is a flat white crust of salt crystal with heat shimmer rising from it; the mirages are not a metaphor. Tozeur sits at the northern edge of the Sahara and produces the finest dates in Tunisia from its 400,000 date palms. Walk the Palmeraie (the palm grove) in the morning when the temperature is manageable. The old Ouled el Hadef quarter of Tozeur has a distinctive architectural style; intricate geometric brickwork on every facade; that is unlike anything else in Tunisia. The Star Wars canyon sets (used for the Tatooine desert sequences) are accessible by 4x4 tour from Tozeur for around 60 to 80 TND per person.

Day 7: Return to Tunis and Departure

The drive from Tozeur to Tunis takes around five hours by car or shared louage (with connections). Internal flights from Tozeur-Nefta Airport to Tunis run on certain days and cut the journey to under an hour; useful if your international flight departs the same day and timing is tight. Check the Tunisair schedule in advance.

If time allows before your flight, buy harissa and dried spice mixes from a medina spice shop in Tunis rather than the airport: the prices are lower, the quality is better, and a 150-gram jar of good harissa packed properly in checked luggage travels without issue. It is the most practical souvenir Tunisia offers.