Why Not to Land in Tunisia With a Chunk of Cash?
The answer is simple: YOU WON’T NEED IT! Tunisia is a great destination for any budget traveller. The cost of living is so low, that it’ll make your money four times more valuable, and can further lower your daily budget in Tunisia. Firstly, €1 gets you around 3.15 Tunisian Dinar.
As to get the best rate possible, we used Revolut to withdraw cash in the Tunisian currency. Revolut is an online banking service of which two of the many services offered are free foreign currency withdrawal (up to €200 per month on the standard plan) and unlimited card transactions in over 130 currencies. This banking service is manageable on a smartphone, both on android and apple.
Why is This Better Than Physically Exchanging Money Back Home?
The traditional way of exchanging money from a local bank or an exchange firm is great. So why use Revolut? Because Revolut does that for you at the full real-time rate without commission and also, from the comfort of your phone.
How to Set it Up?
It’s the simplest of tasks. All you need to do is download the application on your phone and follow the onscreen instructions. From there, just link a visa card or your bank account and walaa……. you’re set!
Withdrawing Your Daily Budget in Tunisia
With Revolut, you always avoid paying the fees issued from your bank. For instance, let’s say you are using Bank A’s visa card. If you try to withdraw from a foreign ATM (Bank B), your bank (Bank A) will charge you for that, since you’re withdrawing from Bank B in a foreign currency. You’re avoiding this with Revolut.
Now, Bank B may issue a fee as well, just for withdrawing from its ATM. Here is a list of ATMs around the world that doesn’t charge these fees. Although not listed there, we found Bank de Tunisie to be great in Tunisia as it’s ATM’s never charged us any fees!
Accommodation
We generally prefer to sleep in shared hostels for two reasons:
- Firstly, you’ll get the best experience out of it while meeting and interacting with locals and other like-minded travellers.
- It’s cheaper!
However, accommodation in Tunisia is VERY cheap! So, if you’re two or more people, it would cost you much less if you consider renting a private room than renting two beds in a dorm!
Obviously, this depends on what you settle for, as this can range from a 5-star resort to a small budget hotel. As you can imagine, we went for the latter and for such accommodation, prices range for approximately €25 per night, that being €12.50 per person.
That’s in Tunis. In other cities such as Sousse and Sfax, you’ll find even cheaper!
Food
We loved the Tunisian cuisine. It’s like a combination of Mediterranean and Berber. More often than not, the norm is that certain food is spicy without notice. Therefore, it’s good to ask when experimenting with new dishes.
Our favourite meals were lamb and a traditional dish called Shakshuka, which is kind of like a stew made of tomatoes, onions, garlic, courgettes, broad beans and slowly cooked poached eggs on top.
Food prices in Tunisia are extremely low compared to Europe. You can easily get a good meal for €2.50 in an inexpensive restaurant, and even less if you decide to go for street food. A three-course meal in a mid-range restaurant should cost about €10, which is still an absurdly low price for such a treat!
Daily budget in tunisia
Transport
If we all agree upon visiting Tunisia, there’s one thing which we are against – DRIVING IN TUNISIA! We strongly advise not to test your driving skills there, as absolutely no rules exist on Tunisian streets. It’s mad CHAOS!
Lights, stop signs, zebra crossings, keeping lanes, indicators – They don’t have much use!
A one-way bus ticket costs around €0.15, although sometimes, you won’t even have the chance to pay since the bus conductor is squashed in the mass of people inside the bus. More than once, we travelled with half our bodies outside the bus, holding onto the door’s rails.
Understanding the public transport system is a big task, a huge one to be honest. Google maps don’t help much, and your best shot is asking the locals. Luckily, taxi fares are super cheap. So, most of the time you’ll opt for that instead of public transport.
Mentioning taxis, NEVER agree to enter into a cab operating without a meter – never! A lot of drivers run around the city, trying to rip off tourists with ridiculous prices compared to the metered fare. Taxi fare starts with a base fare of 0.46 Dinars (that’s for jumping in), and then at a rate of 0.78 Dinars per Km. If your destination is 10Km away, it’ll cost something around 10 Dinars, which is equal to €3.
If you’re travelling between cities, the Louages are your mode of transport. This is a shared minivan, that does trips all around Tunisia. They all leave from a Louage station in the city, which you can find on Google maps or otherwise, you can ask around for guidance. To give you a rough idea of the cost, a 2/3-hour trip should cost around €4 per person
So, How Much Should be Dedicated as a Daily Budget in Tunisia?
This is entirely up to the individual, but here we’ll break it down to you based on our own personal travels. This daily budget is set for a single person and includes everything besides the cost of the flights. Here are some other tips on how to score cheap flights, as easy as it can get!
Accommodation (double room) €11: Prices in Tunis are different than other cities, but on average it’ll cost around €11 per person per night.
Food €10: A meal in a mid-range restaurant costs around €7 per person, while you’ll easily find street food for €2 or less.
Transport €4: Considering buses start at €0.15 each way, it’s very generous to spend more than €1 in a day. Averaging the price of louages, it’ll be divided to around €3 per day, visiting 4 different cities in a 7-day period.
Entrance tickets / Entertainment €3: This will surely not affect much your daily budget in Tunisia. We never managed to keep track of these, as being so cheap makes it quite difficult. Most attractions are completely free. One that comes to mind is an entrance to a zoo which cost around €0.50. Let’s go for €3 per day for attractions, with no idea how we’re going to spend it.
Spending money €10: You’ll need some cash in hand, firstly to get the utmost experience in bartering and bargaining in the souks. We never got tired of that! You’ll need to test your skills on how low on a price can you go! Let’s spoil ourselves with €10 per day. Saying all this, if you save your daily budget (€10) for one specific day of your trip, it’ll sum up to €70. It’s enough to buy much more than your suitcase can carry back home!
In total, that’s a daily budget in Tunisia of €38 per person per day, including all expenses besides the flights – and that’s very generous as we’re sure you’ll manage to do it for less, just like we did. It’s indeed an experience you won’t find anywhere else in Europe!
