Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Lonely Planet Tunisia (Travel Guide)

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher

Lonely Planet Tunisia is your passport to all the most relevant and up-to-date advice on what to see, what to skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. See the huge, undulating dunes of the Sahara, lunch among perfect rock pools in El-Mansourah, or marvel at the roman mosaics in the Bardo Museum; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Tunisia and begin your journey now!

Inside Lonely Planet Tunisia Travel Guide:

  • Colour maps and images throughout
  • Highlights and itineraries show you the simplest way to tailor your trip to your own personal needs and interests
  • Insider tips save you time and money and help you get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots
  • Essential info at your fingertips - including hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, and prices
  • Honest reviews for all budgets - including eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, and hidden gems that most guidebooks miss
  • Cultural insights give you a richer and more rewarding travel experience - including customs, history, religion, art, literature, cinema, music, dance, architecture, wildlife, and cuisine
  • Over 76 local maps
  • Coverage of Tunis, Cap Bon, Tabarka, Bizerte, Ain Draham, Kairouan, El-Jem, Gabes, Matmata, Tataouine, Medenine, the Sahara, Douz, Jerba, Tozeur, the Jerid, Carthage, and more

The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Tunisia, our most comprehensive guide to Tunisia, is perfect for those planning to both explore the top sights and take the road less travelled.

  • Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out Lonely Planet's Africa guide for a comprehensive look at all the region has to offer.

Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, Donna Wheeler, Paul Clammer, and Emilie Filou.

About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in.

TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category

'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times

'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia)


Born in Sydney, and brought up a fishing rod's flick from the harbour, Donna Wheeler knew her Darlinghurst days were numbered when she first set eyes upon a fog-clad St Kilda Pier as a teenage art student. There have been stints in New York, London and rural Ireland, but Melbourne's art scene, bands, bars, coffee and wry sense of self has held her wandering eye for almost two decades. Donna has commissioned food guides and online features for Lonely Planet and has wored as a digital producer, content strategist and art director. She has studied visual arts, English literature and is a graduate of RMIT's Professional Writing and Editing program. She now devotes her time to freelance writing and editing.

Most helpful customer reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
3A guidebook of mixed quality
By Martin Ternouth
There is a lot of information in this guide, but the quality and tone varies from the serious and well-informed to a fluttery gushing: there is no sense that the production has been coordinated by a strong editorial personality. The chapter on Tunis (no doubt unfairly, but that's what it reads like) gave the impression that it had been written up after a weekend's visit to some old college friends who'd been living there for a few months as ex-pats and wanted to show the researcher the clubbing scene to the exclusion of much else. Four examples may illustrate my point.

At one restaurant we are advised not to expect Frankie Knuckles in the early 80's disco, and the decor is patronised as "endearingly eccentric". No mention of it being an attractive, extremely well-run and friendly place with excellent food. Another is is described as a "buzzing place . . . heavily curtained from the street so punters can tuck into the alcohol on offer with impunity." I'm sure it's busy when Millwall are playing an away game in Tunis in the Europa League, or there's a New Order concert at the Parc des Sports, but outside of these invasions it is a pleasant cafe to chat with the locals and eat wonderful fish. There is, despite assurances in the book, no view from the bar at the the best retsaurant/hotel in Carthage: the view is from the restaurant, the terrace outside, and some of the rooms. And the zoo is written off with a brief reference to parrots and monkeys in cramped and old-fashioned cages. The charm of the zoo is in the family groups of locals that visit it: groups such as married couples in their very early twenties with children, pairs of young men or women walking arm in arm, or little toddlers holding on to a grandparent's hand and listening gravely to what they are being told - four species of human grouping that that are almost entirely extinct in 21st Century Britain.

The book also predates the Jasmine Revolution of 14 January 2011 and although the city feels perfectly safe, there is razor wire and Armoured Personnel Carriers and you might get warned off sensitive sites at gunpoint. On a more complex point, some of the purportedly Western music videos (often Lebanese with European production) are far beyond what would be allowed on MTV in Europe or the USA and imply a routine acceptance of violence and paedophilia in Western culture. Some of the guidebook's praise of "edgy DJs" might have been tempered by some understanding of the view of the West that this is giving to ordinary Tunisians.

And finally, the French and Arabic phrasebook pages would be worse than useless outside the holiday camps. You'll get very little out of Tunis as an independent traveller if you don't speak reasonably fluent French or Arabic.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
4Useful guide
By kboz
This was informative and well written. I found the DK Eyewitness Guide did a slightly better job of covering the things I was most interested in, but the two Guides complemented one another.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
3Very useful book
By Susan Marx
I am finding this book extremely useful in planning an upcoming trip to Tunisia. The only thing missing is an index like other Lonely Planet guide books have.

See all 8 customer reviews...

Download Lonely Planet Tunisia (Travel Guide) Now

No comments:

Post a Comment