Tunis itinerary: 1, 2 and 3 days

Tunis rewards a slower pace than its size suggests. The medina is a working quarter, not a museum, and the coast sites sit 20–30 minutes apart on one train line. Pick the row that matches your arrival and departure times, then read the detail below.

Start early at Bab el Bhar and walk into the medina while the shops are opening. The route that works: Bab el Bhar, the souks of the perfumers and the dyers, then Zitouna Mosque from the outside — non-Muslim visitors do not enter the prayer hall, so look at the courtyard and the minaret from the surrounding streets. The Kasbah area above the medina gives you a view back over the rooftops.

After lunch, take a taxi to the Bardo Museum. It holds the country's best Roman mosaics and is the single strongest reason to give Tunis a full day. Two to three hours is enough for the main galleries. If you have energy left, walk the Ville Nouvelle grid between Avenue Habib Bourguiba and the medina for the colonial-era streets and cafés.

With one day you cannot also do Carthage properly. Trying to fit the ruins and Sidi Bou Said into the same afternoon means seeing both badly.

Keep day one as above. On day two, take the TGM light rail from Tunis Marine station to Carthage. The line stops at several points along the archaeological site; Carthage Hannibal and Carthage Byrsa are the useful ones. Byrsa Hill has the museum and the view over the old harbour, and the Antonine Baths sit near the waterfront stop.

In the late afternoon, continue on the same line to Sidi Bou Said. The village is small, steep and white-and-blue, and the light before sunset is the reason most people come. The train back to Tunis runs into the evening; check the last departure at the station rather than guessing.

If you would rather not plan the coast yourself, the combined Tunis and Carthage page covers the same ground.

Three days lets you stop rushing. Give the medina a second, slower morning: the Dar Ben Abdallah museum of popular arts and traditions sits inside the medina and is small enough to see in an hour, and the covered souks are calmer before 11am. Use the middle of the day for the Bardo if you have not been, or for the Ville Nouvelle and the cathedral area.

Day three is the coast at a relaxed pace: Carthage in the morning, a long lunch, then Sidi Bou Said for the afternoon and sunset. If you have a fourth morning, Sidi Bou Said at opening time, before the groups arrive, is a different place.

Do not use day three for a long trip out of the city. Dougga, Kairouan and El Jem are all reachable but each eats a full day with several hours in a car or louage, and they belong to a longer Tunisia route.

Tunis is cheap by Western European standards. The main variable costs are museum and site tickets, which are set nationally and change without much notice, and taxis, which are metered but often negotiated for longer runs. The TGM is the cheapest way to reach the coast and the only one that avoids traffic.

Budget for a few dinars per person per site, a few dinars for a short taxi, and a few dinars each way on the TGM. Food and drink are separate and covered on the where to eat page. Carry small notes: change is often short in the medina.

Buy a local SIM or an eSIM before you start moving around; maps and the TGM timetable are much easier with data. Keep a paper note of your hotel address in Arabic or French for taxi drivers, since not all of them read Latin script quickly.

Dress modestly for the medina and the mosques you can enter. Fridays are quiet in the medina in the middle of the day. Ramadan changes opening hours across the city, including museums and restaurants, so check before you build a day around a specific site.

The medina is a maze and guides will offer to walk you out. A polite no is enough; if you want a guide, agree the price and the duration first.