Essentials to live in Tunisia

HI,

I am hoping others will respond with advice.  I will be moving to Tunis from the USA in a few months. 

Thanks!

Hard question to answer really.  All electrical items are more expensive than in the West and you cannot have them delivered from say Amazon.  It just doesn't work.  Plus the choice is limited and many things turn out to be unreliable.  In the hypermarket, people routinely open the boxes to inspect the inside.  It is very annoying.  The only thing I can thing of that was noticeably cheap were DVDs, because they are all pirated.  You can buy them for a couple of dollars.  Cakes and pastries are cheap though!  Dinner out at good restaurants is expensive and they still only serve Tunisian wine.  Spirits and good non-Tunisian wine are expensive.  They must slap big tariffs on them.  A bottle of Jack Daniels or good scotch will cost $150.  And I would think carefully now about living in Tunisia.  It was even at the best of times an annoying place. The driving is terrible and their road fatalities are among the highest in the world.  People don't know how to queue and just barge in front of you. And now it is worse with Isis attacks that are likely to get more frequent.  If you don't have to go there, don't.

David - are you still living here 'cos if you are you are paying way too much.  I have lived here now for more years than I will divulge and this is my advice:

Personal items:  you can buy big name brands of shampoo, conditioner and hair care products cheaply.  e.g. Shwarzkopf shampoo is less than tnd6.000 a bottle.  This translates to around PS2.000.  Hair colour is also a lot less here and also big name brands.  Deodorant is readily available as are shower gel etc etc.  Toothpaste such as Sensodyne/Colgate etc much cheaper here.  However, bars of soap are small and while cheap for expat with foreign exchange they are expensive for those of us who live here full time.

Alcohol:  The cost of alcohol has been reduced by around 50% and in Geant eg you can buy good bottles of French wine etc for under tnd20.000.  The local beer is around 1.000 a can and is not too bad.

Household goods:  We have top name brands that are reliable, come with guarantees and are much cheaper than the west.  You can buy cheaply during the many promotions.  Samsung, miele, LG, westinghouse, etc etc.  TV is much cheaper here for plasma etc.

Household items:  I recommend that if you like good quality sheets and towels you bring them with you.  This is the one thing we don't have.  Also bring doonas and covers we don't really have them here.  Also if you prefer blankets then bring them with you, here they are nylon and nasty!

Food:  Don't buy your food in the supermarkets - go to the souqs.  You will find good quality and very fresh at the cheapest prices.  You can also afford to eat all the things considered 'luxury' in the west.  Artichokes eg right now are 800millimes for a bunch of 3!!  Pomegranites in season, oranges, pears.  The only thing not good this year was the apples as bad hail storms hit the apple growing areas.  Bananas are imported and tend to be expensive.  Right now they are around Tnd3.000 kilo.

Pharmacy:  Medication is much, much cheaper here.  You can confidently buy your medicines here for a fraction of the price in the west.  Foreigners generally can buy without a prescription.  Just take the packet into the pharmacy and they will provide it to you.  However, I do find that the painkillers/cold and flu stuff is not great here so I tend to stock up whenever I go to the UK or back to Aus.

Make-up, skin care:  Great products available here from France and much cheaper than I ever found in the west.  Perfume also as everybody is addicted to smelling nice!

Eating out:  You can eat out very cheaply here.  Great pizzas for under tnd3.000, lablabi for nothing, cascroutes (sandwiches) made with 1/2 baguettes and filled to the brim.  Restaurants can cost from as little as as you want to as much as you want.  French restaurants can be pricey but so much cheaper than back in the west and yay not a Maccas in sight!!

As for the comments about ISIS - I am the 'only blonde in the village' and I am so not worried.  We have a great defence force and the Tunisian is a fierce and courageous warrior when the country is under any sort of 'attack'.  You only have to look at the revolution to know how great we are and how great is our army!

So, if you are thinking of coming to Tunisia you are welcome and you will fall in love with it and like the 'lotus eaters' you will want to stay

Thanks for the advice.  No, I am no longer in Tunisia.  I moved as did many others when la BAD moved back to Abidjan.  I hope you are right about the defence force.  Yes, they were great in the revolution - on the side of the people unlike elsewhere and that's why it was relatively peaceful and had a relatively good ending.  But there is still corruption in the government - which is why McDonald's and the others still refuse to come to Tunisia.  All best wishes.

A good tip when looking for accommodation is to visit the area at night and listen out to learn if there are any barking dogs in the area.  Many people have dogs in Tunisia, despite it being a Muslim country (Muslims generally think of dogs as dirty).  The reason is because Tunisia has lots of feral cats, which will come under your garden wall door and if you are not careful will enter your house and spray awful smells.  I made sure I had defences at my beach flat at La Marsa.  This included putting mesh on the windows.  We were unfortunate in that the common dustbin for the area was on the corner and the cats gather there to feed on the rubbish.  Because the Tunisians never shut the lid, this was a big problem.  Hence why people buy dogs.  We had a dog nearby that barked incessantly during the night and made it almost impossible for anyone to sleep in the guest room at the back.

Thanks for your advice.  I would like to bring as least as possible, but want to be comfortable!

The advice about shopping and fresh produce is OK but it depends where you are. Mostly I just wanted to get back home as quickly as possible and saving a few dollars on vegetables was not high on the priorities.  I would repeat that the biggest problem in Tunisia is that they do not know how to drive.  It is the reason that it has one of the highest, if not the highest if you take in to account other factors, death rates on the road.  They are hell bent to get somewhere quickly when in the end it is only somewhere in Tunisia.  Big problem also is women in big wraparound sunglasses (even when it's raining or gloomy) on the phone in four by fours while driving.......

Hi everybody,
I still have my villa in tunisia among the locals but it is not safe there any more there is still to much going on, and the only people suffering are the locals who want nothing to do with it, i was there two weeks ago and could not get out fast enough, cheap to live yes, it will be two years before there is peace or maybe longer

I liked my neighbours a lot, but I really hated the country.  If they could just do some public information to get them driving normally it would improve the country enormously.  They have no idea of the danger they create the way they drive.  I feel sorry for small children who are sitting in overcrowded cars with no one wearing a seat belt.  Total madness.

Hi David
can I ask which area you lived in? Interesting to see different comments. Am thinking of moving to Tunisia in september and have visited many times. My husband is tunisian so i think that'll stop us getting ripped off so much!

La Marsa, overlooking the beach where the fishermen are.  Beautiful but sadly spoiled by the driving, which is in my opinion the biggest everyday problem in Tunisia.  It's why the country has the highest per capita fatalities in the world if you take into account it has modern roads.  I brought a bicycle there and took it out one morning a 6am.  Only one vehicle on the road but it turned right in front of me without signalling.  Never took the bike out again.  You can't even walk safely there because of the driving.  It is such a pity.