Matmata and Tataouine, Tunisia

The Amazigh people of southern Tunisia dug downward to survive. Not metaphorically, literally: they excavated large circular pits in the soft limestone bedrock and carved rooms into the pit walls, creating underground homes that stayed cool in summer and warm in winter without any modern infrastructure. The technique is called troglodyte architecture and it is roughly a thousand years old in this region. The people who built these homes were not primitive. They were solving a specific engineering problem, extreme heat, minimal materials, no forests for timber, with elegant underground logic. You should remember this when the Star Wars tour guide explains that this is where Luke Skywalker grew up.

The Star Wars connection is real and it brought most of the international visitors who come here. George Lucas filmed parts of the original 1977 film in Matmata’s troglodyte homes and around Tataouine’s fortified granaries. The planet Tatooine is named after the Tataouine region. But to visit only for the films and skip the actual history is to miss what makes this part of Tunisia genuinely strange and interesting.

Matmata: The Underground Town

Matmata sits 600 metres above sea level in the Gabès governorate, about 40 kilometres south of Gabès city. The town consists of two settlements: Matmata Ancienne (Old Matmata), where the troglodyte homes are concentrated, and Matmata Nouvelle (New Matmata), a modern town built about 15 kilometres away after floods in 1969 displaced much of the original population.

The troglodyte design involves digging a central pit, often 10 metres across and several metres deep, with the rooms opening off the pit walls. Multiple pits connect to each other through passageways carved at ground level. From above, these homes are nearly invisible. The surface appears as bare ground with holes in it. Step to the edge of one of those holes and you look down into a courtyard with doorways, stairs, maybe a fig tree growing toward the light.

Locals give tours of their homes and demonstrate Berber traditions including couscous-making and rug-weaving. These visits are worth doing and worth paying for. The people who open their homes to visitors are doing something more interesting than tourism; they are keeping a very specific way of life visible to an outside world that would otherwise have no reason to know it exists.

The nearby hamlets of Haddej (3 kilometres from town) and Tamezret (12 kilometres) are worth the detour. Tamezret in particular is a stone village perched on a ridge with an old mosque and panoramic views of the desert. Almost no one goes there compared to the main Matmata sites and the silence and landscape are both striking.

No banks or ATMs in Old Matmata. Bring cash from Gabès or Nouvelle Matmata before you come.

Hotel Sidi Driss: Sleep in the Film Set

Hotel Sidi Driss is the only hotel in the world that is also a UNESCO-recognized site that was used as a film set. The same underground chambers where Beru and Owen Lars fed a teenage Luke Skywalker are now a hotel where you can book a room. The rooms are simple and cool (underground temperatures stay relatively stable) and the experience of falling asleep beneath carved rock ceilings, inside a space that most people have only seen on screen, is genuinely unusual.

Do not come expecting comfort. The rooms are basic, the facilities are modest, and the experience is about the place not the amenities. But few hotels in the world offer anything remotely similar, and the Star Wars nostalgia, while commercial, does not diminish the underlying architectural reality of what you are sleeping inside.

Tataouine and the Ksour

Tataouine itself is a modern working town with not much to specifically recommend it as a destination. What draws visitors here is the surrounding landscape of ksour, singular ksar, the fortified communal granaries that the Amazigh built across southern Tunisia to protect their grain through lean years and defend against raids.

A ksar is typically a multi-storey structure of small cells (ghorfas), each belonging to a different family, arranged around a central courtyard with a single narrow entrance. Some have stood since the 12th century. They are the architectural equivalent of a safety deposit box network, built by communities for collective security.

Ksar Ouled Soltane, about 20 kilometres south of Tataouine, is the best preserved. It has two interconnected courtyards and ghorfas reaching four storeys, the cells still used by local families to store grain and goods. It appeared briefly in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. More importantly, it is extraordinary architecture in a dramatic landscape and would be worth visiting with no film connection whatsoever.

Chenini is about 18 kilometres from Tataouine and is probably the most visually arresting settlement in southern Tunisia. The old Berber village climbs a near-vertical ridge, its troglodyte dwellings carved into the rock, crowned by a white mosque. The oldest structures date to the 12th century. The village is partially ruined and partially inhabited, which creates a slightly disorienting atmosphere, you are walking through ruins that are also someone’s storage space and occasionally someone’s home.

Douiret, further south, is a ghost town. The population moved to a new village at the mountain base in the 20th century. What remains is an abandoned ksar and Berber village that has been slowly returning to the landscape. The quiet here is absolute.

Guermessa is the least visited of the main sites and the most panoramic. If you have a car and a day, do all four.

Where to Eat

In Matmata, options are limited. Hotel Sidi Driss serves simple Tunisian food in its courtyard, brik (a fried pastry often filled with egg and tuna), couscous, and tagines. It is honest food in the right setting. Café La Princesse in the new town is open from morning until late.

For better food, base yourself in Gabès and day-trip south. Gabès is a coastal oasis city with a proper restaurant scene and significantly better hotel options than Matmata or Tataouine.

Street food in Tataouine includes grilled meats and fresh bread from the morning market. Worth having before a day of ksar visits.

Getting There

The most practical approach is to fly into Jerba-Zarzis Airport (the nearest international airport, about 120 kilometres from Tataouine) or Tunis, then hire a car. Driving from Jerba to Tataouine takes around 90 minutes. Shared taxis (louages) connect major towns, but reaching the more remote ksour without a car requires negotiating with local taxi drivers in Tataouine town.

Bus services exist from Tunis and Sfax to Tataouine and Gabès, but the journey is long (7 to 9 hours from Tunis) and schedules are infrequent. For the ksour circuit, a car is the only practical option.

When to Go

October through April. The summer months (June through August) bring temperatures regularly above 40 degrees Celsius and visiting the desert landscape in that heat is a serious undertaking. Spring and autumn offer clear skies, manageable temperatures (20 to 28 degrees), and the best light for photography. The desert is at its most atmospheric just before and just after sunset, when the colour of the stone changes and the shadows deepen.

Stargazing from the desert around Tataouine is exceptional on any clear night. The light pollution is minimal and the sky is among the clearest in North Africa. Bring a mat and lie on it for an hour after dark. That is free, requires no planning, and is better than most dedicated astronomy experiences that cost money.