Hi Mark, Did the hotel in Hammamet provide a stamped voucher to allow you in the country from Italy?

We reached out to GNV and even they could not find their information about vouchers. What a mess.

Thanks for the info. We’ll do our best to get all the paperwork and hope that the entry process is not too difficult.

I’m now in southern Tunisia. It’s an awesome place to ride around.. really have to suggest riding down south to the Sahara and see (and ride) the desert, if that’s something one haven’t done. Tunisia has lovely people, and you get much more bang for your buck than in western europe, and ten times the adventure. Haven’t been to Marocco, so cannot compare. But I’ve ridden in all european countries (except Iceland, Spain and Portugal), and I’m very happy I’m here.

No, I only had phone confirmation by one of the internet hotel booking companies but I came with Grimaldi ferries. Booking and return ticket was all I had. Many euro bikes are here, none seem to be having any problems with people or food.

Internet bookers should be able to supply a voucher you can print out, some hotels want a voucher via email.

Mark

Wish us luck…
 

We’ve got a ferry scheduled from Palermo to Tunis with Grimaldi Lines for tomorrow.
Documentation printed:
- COVID certificates
- Receipts and vouchers for all accommodations
- Return ferry to Palermo receipt
- Tunisia “Health Monitoring Form”

We’ve got a bunch of stuff we are excited to see in Tunisia - especially the history, Berber towns, the Sahara, and STAR WARS sites. Thanks to all for answering our questions.

Wish us luck! We’ll be boarding the ferry in about 9 hours…

Cheers,
Travis and Chantil
www.viajarMOTO.com

Good luck
 

You two will have an awesome trip to Tunisia, Travis and Chantil!
There isn’t much motorcyclists over here at the moment. I’ve seen adventure bikers twice in the last week + 2 two large groups of GSs (seemed like paid tours). There’s alao a desert- Rally going on in the south, started in Djerba. But I haven’t crossed path with them.
There’s historical sites all over the country. The best riding experienses by far was in the area of Tozeur-Deuz-Ksar Ghilane-Tataouine. The great salt lake and the desert with camels everywhere were brilliant. I couldn’t find nice routes from the internet, so I’ll throw some tips that I found out on the road. If you’re not gonna go desert riding (I mean like dakar rally -style), you should go and ride the gravel and sand -roads (easy with dual sport bikes with fairluy novice offroad skills). To see desert, ride to Cafe La Port Du Desert, from there you can take the extremier route to Ksar Ghilane via ”Cafe du Park”, or easier straight north back to the paved road and down via the pipeline -road. Ksar Ghilane has a natural oasis and is right in the dunes, spending a night seeing the sunset is a good idea. But mind that there is no gas station between Douz and Tataouine, and don’t buy gas from bottles, even the locals said it’s crap (diluted). And take a ride on the salt lake, slippery but awesome! Best knee scratcher and scenic -roads were the roads east and west of Matmata (where you’ll find troglodyte holes where Luke lived). Also the town and road to Chenini (where you’ll also find peculiar berber -housing) was nice (coming from Khar Gilane). there is also lots of gravel roads into different directions, that I didn’t explore, but i bet would be worth exploring.
I’m now at the coast. It’s rather cool here (low 20s centigrade), and it was warm (but not overly hot, low to mid 30s) in the desert. And as it gets warmer by the day, it could be a good idea to start south and then go coast/north, if you’re staying for a longer time.
Have a great one here! I’m on my way back tomorrow, maybe we’ll bumb into each other in the port of Tunis.

Thanks DonkeyKong for the insight to great places. We’re looking forward to our time in Tunisia even more now!

We’re in TUNISIA!
 

We’re in! The excitement of a new country to explore is so exhilarating. We are extremely elated!

We scheduled the Palermo to Tunis ferry via Grimaldi Lines. The ferry left at 2:30 in the morning BUT you must be there at least 3 hours ahead of time because the customs gates all closed at midnight.

Before reaching the customs gates, we had to check into a ticket office where we were asked to present our COVID certificate, that was scanned, a return ticket from Tunisia, and vouchers for the hotels during our stay. We booked four separate hotels covering 26 Apr to 07 May with a return ferry booked for 08 May. The vouchers were a bit of a pain to get - especially from the Airbnb host. Hotels seemed to be familiar with this and were good about getting scanned copies to your email account.

After getting our tickets for us and the motorcycles, we rode to the customs gate and got stamped out of Italy just before midnight. We then had to wait for the ferry to dock and unload for about 1.5 hours.

We loaded at around 1:30 AM. It seemed normal to just trust that the deck crews would strap down the motorcycles, but we waited until they were strapped and we could check that they were secure. The deck crew seemed a bit annoyed with us for making sure our motorcycles were strapped down. We are rather attached to our motos that have carried us through 60,000 miles and 37 countries. Forgive us.

Once we arrived in Tunisia, we had four separate windows or stops that we had to provide info:
1) COVID Certificate verification. They didn’t scan them, just matched the name on our passport to the EU COVID Certificate. Extremely grateful that we had a German friend transfer our US vaccinations to the EU system.
2) Passport, hotel vouchers, and return tickets were verified. The customs guy seemed a bit annoyed that we had four separate hotels that all had to be on the form he wrote on. We got a stamp in our passports for us and for each of our motos.
3) Fixers wearing blue vests with the words “SUP” were here to direct you, but they will ask for a “donation” for their “help”. They were pushy, not much help, and I regretted having them help us because I paid one guy in the lowest bill I had of 10 EUR (32 TND), which he was happy to receive, but his partner was upset when my wife only gave him about 6.50 EUR (20 TND) in coins. It would have been nice to have a couple 5 euro bills for each of them. He later came back to us and seemed to say that “all was O.K.”, after counting all the coins.
An officer, in a smartly dress uniform and hat, was more useful than the pushy fixers since he spoke good enough English and walked us through the procedure of getting the Temporary Import Permit (TIP), getting it stamped, and then paying for insurance. There is also a money changer there that had great rates. We exchanged about 200 EUR into TND and he was super friendly. The insurance for 30 days for one motorcycle was 100 TND (31 EUR).
4) Finally, we presented the officers the blue TIP paperwork and we kept the green one. They also verified that our passports were stamped for us and the motos.

Onward we went, through the gate and into Tunisia. No bag search, and the Health Monitoring Form was never requested. Perhaps it is an outdated document no longer required?

As far as a food shortage. We definitely have not seen that. The markets are full of delicious smelling fruits and many people are selling things like large strawberries and bread from the sides of the roadway.

On our way to the first hotel, we stopped at a market to buy a bottle of Coca-Cola, which was only 3 TND (1 EUR) and some bottled water. The merchant couple could tell we were not locals and asked us about our travels. As we were leaving, they rushed out to give us two fresh oranges, and then the husband ran down the road to bring back some fresh baked bread. We chatted for 10 minutes, as best we could, before giving them a smile, a wave, and a happy “Bislema” (Goodbye).

Knowing a few words goes A LONG WAY with Tunisians:
-Aslema - Hello
-Yaishek - Thank you
-Bislema - Goodbye

So far we are loving Tunisia!

Cheers,
Travis and Chantil
www.viajarMOTO.com

Great sum up, Travis. It was pretty much the same hazzle as when i came through the border. When leaving the coutry there’s even more husslers that wnt to ”help” you for some money, they even try to convince they are part of the Grimaldi crew in order for you to give them their passport. Don’t fall into it!
I didn’t give bribes on the border, everything went smoothly even tho they asked for some.

Tunisia was wonderful, and make sure you will travel south to the wastelands.. it’s quite something!
I’m now back in Italy, leaving Tunis port was disorganized but easy.

You will have a splended time, have a good one! As long as you don’t buy petrol from a bottle and it’s propably wise to stay out from hot red risk-areas (mountains west of Kasserine, south of El Borma or the border-region with Libya).

https://assets.publishing.service.go...Advice_Ed2.pdf

The people in Tunisia seen very friendly, trustworthy and genuine. Awesome place.

DonkeyKong, very happy to hear you had great trip in Tunisia, and most important that you enjoyed the Tunisian Baguette :clap:

Travis and Chantil, have an amazing tour, i guess i saw you riding on the Highway1 from Tunis to Hammamet. bier

Thank you. That was us! We waved as you went by. Happy travels.

Did you leave from the same dock and customs checkpoints that you arrived? Our ferry leaves at 3AM so we plan to arrive at the port before dark to avoid all the craziness of Tunis after dark (no lights, scooters, and people everywhere). Was the process pretty much the same as when we entered? Thank you.

Yes, the ferry left from the same place.
There isn’t very much signs to follow tho. You first need to go to the Grimaldi Lines office by the big parking lot. You need to have all papers with you (but if you don’t have all, like I didn’t, just play dumb and they’ll probably just ignore the papers). Mind all the ”helpers”.. they might ask for your papers, I wouldn’t give them anything. One guy said he was with grimaldi lines and wanted my passport, I was pretty sure he wasn’t and asked for his employment card or something, he didn’t have any. Just give the papers to the booth. After this you drive to wait in line for the customs. It will be the same counter to counter show.. no signs, just try to follow where they point (I went twice to the wrong place, no harm done). After maybe 4 counters and checks you drive up to line for the ferry. Quite easy, but disorganized.

Did you have a pleasant trip? Did you go to see the desert?