While spending 5 days in Tunisia, as avid Star Wars fans, we couldn't miss the opportunity to see the original film sets from the Star Wars movies.
There are options for group excursions, however, we were staying in Madhia, which was too far away and some trips were too long with around 7 days to explore all of the filming locations!
With some research we decided to plan our own road trip, condensing the best bits in 2 days. We would recommend planning your own trip as it's great value for money with lots of flexibility. You can follow our itinerary below with recommendations from our experience and map of our route.
Getting on the road
The first thing you'll need is a rental car, we chose to use a well known company Herts, with an office located in Monastir airport. Our car cost around £50 for two days hire.
We got the metro to the airport which was just 1.6 Dinar / 50p! We later found that petrol in Tunisia is also quite cheap. At 2.6 Dinar per litre and only needing to fill up twice in our entire trip it's 1/3 the price of UK fuel.
Day 1: Tozeur and Lars Homestead
After picking up our car around 10am we planned to drive straight to Tozeur, our overnight base to visit some local Star Wars sites.
On our drive we passed through many towns and villages with a small insight into local Tunisian life and culture.
The drive was quite long and took us around 6 hours in total, including a couple of short stops for lunch etc. But, this direct route we took was a lot shorter than the route we took on the way back.
Lars Homestead
After a few stops along the way and checking into our hotel, we got to our first location for sunset, roughly 30 minutes west of Tozeur. This was ideal timing to recreate a famous shot from the original film.
This is the only location on our itinerary where we couldn't get directly to the site by car. Deciding we didn't want to risk getting our rental car stuck with some off road driving, we parked on the side of the road and walked 30 minutes across the salt plane.
Walking across the salt plane with the shimmering ground crunching beneath our feet and nothing in sight beyond the horizon, we really did feel like we were on another planet in a galaxy far far away.
While we did get some great photos at sunset it was starting to get dark on our walk back to the car. We would recommend heading back just after the sun sets to ensure you're back in your car before dark.
Overnight in Tozeur
With a recommendation from our hotel owner we headed into Tozeur for some food at 'Dar Deda' a local restaurant serving traditional Tunisian food. If you have an adventurous palate there is camel available on the menu, something we saw quite often on our drive through Tunisia. As vegetarians, the food choice was limited while on the road, however this restaurant had some good options and we enjoyed the vegetable couscous and Chakchouka.
Day 2: Mos Espa, Lars Homestead (Inside) and El Jem Amphitheatre
Mos Espa
We had an early start, leaving our hotel and heading to Mos Espa at sunrise, another short 30 minute drive from where we were staying. The golden glow against the sand buildings created the perfect atmosphere with a magical feel. A great perk of doing your own road trip is that you miss the crowds, being the only people there, we were able to take our time exploring the set and taking photos.
Shown in the movies as a bustling town, walking through the set you will be transported to the main city streets of Mos Espa. Built from wood framing, wire mesh and plaster, many of the buildings and Moisture Vaporators are still in tact. Although the sand storms of the Sahara desert and visiting tourists have taken their toll, we found this to be our favourite set we discovered on our trip.
After heading back to our hotel for our breakfast and to check out, we got back on the road to head to our next location - Hotel Sidi Idriss, where the interior of Lars Homestead was filmed.
We stopped a couple of times on the way to admire the landscape. Along the Chott el Djerid road, sculptures and mounds have been made out of salt as a photo opportunity for tourists, a good opportunity for photos across the vast salt plane with an elevated point of view.
Driving through Tunisia the environment can change dramatically in an instant. From the vast expanse of the Chott el Djerid salt flats where you can see nothing but the horizon, to the winding roads up the cliff side and desert oasis that seemingly appear out of nowhere.
Hotel Sidi Idriss - Lars Homestead (Inside)
Sidi Idris, the hotel where Luke Skywalker's home was filmed, is the most ‘well preserved' set that we visited. However, the restorations have made it feel more touristy than an accurate restoration. With the film set on one side of the hotel, the other half is a restaurant and hotel rooms where you can stay. This could be a potential option if you wanted to extend this to a three day trip, as we packed a lot in two days. This is also here the original cast stayed when filming! This took us around 3.5 hours to get to from Tozeur, but we also checked out the salt flats during this time.
As we were now aware of the limited vegetarian food available on the road, we stopped for our lunch at the hotel restaurant. The food was good and still reasonably priced for being a tourist hotspot.
Before heading back on the road we walked around the top of the hotel to recreate another shot from the film and to explore the berber cave houses from above. This can be found by going round the back of the shops and climbing over a small, metal wire fence.
The drive to our next stop - El Jem Amphitheatre was less of a scenic route with a large part of the drive on the new motorway toll road, close to 3 hours from the hotel, there were also limited service stations at the time of our visit, although we saw a few getting built which might be ready by the time you visit!
El Jem Amphitheatre
Driving into El Jem you can’t miss the grand roman amphitheatre towering above the buildings. Arguably better than the coliseum in Rome, due to it better preserved nature, this UNSECO world heritage site is a great addition to your Tunisia road trip, even if it’s not in the Star Wars films.
With only a handful of tourists around you can enjoy the beauty of the Roman architecture without the crowds.
Returning the rental car
After our visit to the amphitheatre we left El Jem to return our rental car in time for drop off. As it was dark by the time we arrived at the airport we chose to get a taxi back to our hotel rather than the metro as we did on the way there as we were not sure of the train prices.
Some of the taxi prices were outlandish to begin with, so definitely haggle with the plentiful selection of drivers and confirm a price before you get in, none of them seemed to have metres. We haggled down from €70 to €30 to get to our hotel, which was around one hour's drive away. Paying in Dinar may also help to lower the price.
FAQs
Is it safe to travel around Tunisia?
While we are cautious wherever we travel, we didn’t feel unsafe travelling around Tunisia without a guide. Although other drivers can be erratic and unpredictable we didn't have any problems and enjoyed our trip.
How do you navigate your trip?
Before leaving our hotel, using the WiFi we installed the ‘Maps Me’ app and downloaded the map of Tunisia. This allowed us to set routes and provide directions without using our mobile data. We recommend using this app rather than Google Maps as you can plan a route when you're offline and your GPS will still function.
Follow our route
You can download the map to view the pinned stops and follow our route Here.
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