📰 Blog & guides to southern Tunisia
Every village, oasis and ksar visited by our desert tours, explained by the Djerba Holiday team: history, highlights, practical tips and the tours that stop there.
🧭 Practical guides
🏜️ Sahara & Grand Erg
Destinations of our tours
Douz, gateway to the Sahara: dunes, camels and the Thursday market
Douz is where the palm grove ends and the sand begins. Nicknamed the "gateway to the Sahara", it is the starting point for camel rides and desert treks towards the Grand Erg.
Ksar Ghilane: the oasis and its hot spring at the gates of the Grand Erg
A palm grove set on the edge of an ocean of dunes, a pool of hot water where you swim in the middle of the sand, a forgotten Roman fort on a hillock: Ksar Ghilane is the first real encounter with the Sahara from Djerba.
🌴 Jerid: oases & salt lake
Destinations of our tours
Mides: the dizzying canyon and the oasis on the Algerian border
The old village of Mides is perched on a rocky spur ringed by a canyon dozens of metres deep. It is the most spectacular of the mountain oases, a stone's throw from Algeria.
Tamerza: the great waterfall, the canyon and the ghost village
The largest of Tunisia's mountain oases: a palm grove in a canyon, a waterfall that flows all year round and, on the other side of the wadi, the ochre ruins of old Tamerza, abandoned after the floods of 1969.
Chebika: the mountain oasis, its waterfall and its old village
At the foot of the djebel, a spring gushes from the rock, tumbles down as a waterfall and brings a palm grove to life, squeezed into a gorge of red stone. Chebika is the first of the Jerid's three mountain oases, and the most photogenic.
Nefta, Mos Espa and Ong Jemel: the Star Wars sets in the desert
West of Tozeur, the holy city of Nefta watches over its "basket" of springs. A little further on, among the dunes, the village of Mos Espa is still waiting for Anakin: the set of The Phantom Menace is still standing.
The Chott el Jerid: crossing the great salt lake of the Tunisian Sahara
More than 5,000 km² of salt as far as the eye can see, a straight road laid across it, mirages dancing at noon and pink reflections at sunset: the Chott el Jerid is one of the strangest landscapes in Tunisia.
Tozeur: the great oasis of the Jerid, its ochre bricks and its palm grove
Capital of the Jerid, Tozeur is Tunisia's most beautiful oasis town: a vast palm grove fed by dozens of springs, an old town with ochre brick façades and, all around, the salt lake and the mountain oases.
🏘️ Dahar: Berber villages & ksour
Destinations of our tours
Ksar Jouamaa: sleeping in a restored Berber ksar in the heart of the Dahar
On a ridge of the Dahar, a 17th-century ksar has been restored to welcome travellers: you sleep in a ghorfa, dine Berber-style under the stars and wake up facing the Jeffara plain.
Ksar Hadada: the Mos Espa slave quarter, a ksar turned film set
In this ksar converted into a hotel, George Lucas filmed the alleys of Mos Espa's slave quarter in 1997, where Anakin and his mother live. The ghorfas remain, and the place draws fans from all over the world.
Ksar Ouled Soltane: the best-preserved fortified granary in southern Tunisia
Two closed courtyards, hundreds of vaulted cells stacked over four levels, outer staircases climbing in zigzags: Ksar Ouled Soltane is the most impressive ksar in the Dahar, and a setting from The Phantom Menace.
Douiret: the abandoned Berber village on its rocky peak and its underground mosque
Less well known than Chenini, Douiret is its silent twin: a troglodyte village wrapped around a rocky peak, a ruined ksar at the summit, a white mosque and abandoned houses you wander through alone.
Chenini: the hilltop Berber village and the Seven Sleepers mosque
Clinging to a limestone ridge more than 600 metres above sea level, Chenini is the most beautiful Berber village in southern Tunisia: houses carved into the rock, terraced granaries, a white mosque and a thousand-year-old legend.
Tataouine: the capital of the ksour, between the Dahar and the Sahara
The town of Tataouine lent its name to Luke Skywalker's planet, but its real treasure lies around it: dozens of ksour, the fortified Berber granaries, and the hilltop villages of Chenini, Douiret and Guermessa.
Toujane: the Berber village clinging to the mountain, between Matmata and the sea
Between Matmata and Medenine, the mountain road winds up to Toujane: a dry-stone village stacked up the slope, olive terraces, women weaving carpets and a view that stretches all the way to the sea.
Matmata: the troglodyte houses and Luke Skywalker's home
Seen from the sky, Matmata looks like a field of craters: each crater is a house, dug into the earth by the Berbers to shelter from the heat. One of them became Luke Skywalker's home.
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