Some of us may have in the search of a cheaper destination for honeymoon or any other vacation time out of the country. Me and my husband being Turkish (TURKEY is THE CHEAPEST one right now) decided to go Tunusia for our honeymoon. It is preferable for many aspects. Let me list some of the advantages:
1- No visa
2- Cheap BUT DO NOT GET CHEATED
3- Beautiful (with its views and history)
4- Offers diverse types of vacation at the same time
After this short description words I want to go in detail and write about these as informative as I can be. This may take several chapters.
NO VISA means grab your passport and go to the gate. There you will encounter with a very short form given by the police. This short form may surprise you if you are more than one person entering the border. My husband and I were exposed to different forms and apparently whatever we write on the form would be accepted in anyway. When you exit the country you are going to fill such a form as well. The police and most of the people in the country do not speak English. You will see that even hotel staff will try to speak French or Arabic to you.
CHEAP because it has the currency of Tunusian Dinar which is 1/3 of American Dollar. Labeled as tourists they want to charge you more than it values. For example the first time we took taxi we went from Sidibusaid to TunusiaMAll. The taxi driver took 15 dinars for this travel. My husband asked his name with his little French. The driver is Muaz with bald head. I am saying this because still I am angry with him since when we return the same road we pay sth like 4 dinars. The only suitable and available transportation way is taxi for tourists but DO NOT FORGET TO REMIND DRIVERS START TAXI-METERS!!! Otherwise they will likely to overcharge you for your travel. We noticed that even going 3-4 more times further did not cost 15 dinars. In addition do not trust the meters only. They may take the longer routes to make you pay more. Please open your map application and follow the route. This happened us on the way back to the airport. The driver chose such a long way that we almost lost half an hour just touring around.
In Tunusia,
A sim-card with 1 gb internet will cost 8 dinars. It seems very cheap to me. We bought the sim card from the company Ooredoo. It helped us a lot. We used the translator and map very frequently.
If you want to buy anything from souvenir shops do not go Sidibusaid or Cartage. These are rather crowded with rich people. Go Medina, a bazaar in the city center. There you can find items 3 times cheaper than Sidibusaid. I know this because I am the victim of the reality. In Turkey, finding snake oil is very difficult and we found it in Tunusia. Even though I bought my bottle with a very good bargain I saw the prices are really down in Old Medina. In Sidibusaid, a shop told me that 250 ml snake oil will cost me 180 dinars. In other shop in Sidibusaid they told me it is 80 dinars. I bout it from this shop around 48 dinars. In old Medina, the shop owner said that 250 ml bottle is 30 dinars. My husband bought 1 botle 250 ml and 1 bottle 120 ml for 30 dinars from the same shop. So here they are saying one price but never buy anything from the price they told you. Compare it with your country and try to name a cheaper price. And insist on this price. If the shop you are in do not give you the price you want you may go and try it with another shop. Eventually one agrees with you. For example, my husband buy key chains for 1 dinar after seeing 5-6 shops.
Asking price just out of curiosity may not be the best move in Tunusia. Generally the shop owners are very persistent. And you may end up buying some unnecessary items such as darbuka xD It really happened to us. The only intention was to know price of a darbuka in Tunusia but they sold it to us. So you dont have the luxury to learn the price without spending some money.
I will write about the beauty and info about different locations in the next chapter.
