okay so i literally landed in kairouan with like 40 dinars in my pocket and a hostel booking that i made at 2am while half asleep and honestly? best decision i made all semester. my roommate told me i was crazy. my mom texted me articles about safety. i went anyway.

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Q: Is this place worth visiting?
A: absolutely yes if you care about actual history and not just instagram perfection. the old medina feels like stepping into a time machine and nobody's trying to sell you a photo op every two seconds.

Q: Is it expensive?
A: laughably cheap for what you get. i ate full meals for under 5 dinars. hostel was 12 bucks a night. bring cash though, card machines are basically mythical creatures here.

Q: Who would hate it here?
A: people who need AC 24/7 and complain about dust. also anyone expecting barcelona-level nightlife. this is not that. go to hammamet if you want that life.

Q: Best time to visit?
A: march through may or september to november. i came in january and it was 18 degrees which sounds nice but the wind gets mean and everything closes early.

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the weather right now is sitting at about 18.4 degrees but it feels like 17.89 because of the humidity which is at 61% and honestly the pressure dropping made my ears feel weird for like two days. a local told me that means rain is coming but it never actually rained while i was there. the sky just looked angry and then didn't do anything. classic.

i stayed in the medina which everyone warned me against but honestly the chaos is the point? like yes i got lost 47 times. yes a random guy tried to take me to a "special carpet shop" (we all know what that means). but i also found this tiny courtyard where an old man makes tea and lets you sit for hours and doesn't pressure you to buy anything. that's the stuff that matters.

*the great mosque is obviously the main thing and yeah it's stunning but here's what nobody tells you: you can only go in at certain times and there's a specific gate for tourists and the whole thing feels a little bit like a zoo sometimes. i went on a friday morning when it was quieter and honestly the best part was just sitting on the steps outside watching people. the architecture inside is incredible but the energy outside is where it's at.

i met this girl from france who's doing a study abroad in tunis and she told me to skip the tourist restaurants near the main square and instead walk like 15 minutes in a random direction until i found a place with no english menu. she was right. i ended up at this hole in the wall where the guy only spoke arabic and i pointed at what other people were eating and it was the best meal of my life. i still don't know what it was called. something with lamb and dried apricots and way too much olive oil.

my hostel owner told me "you are very crazy but very lucky" when i showed up at 11pm without a reservation. he gave me the last room and it had a broken window that he "fixed" with cardboard and tape. i slept like a baby anyway.

budget tip: the trains from tunis to kairouan are like 8 dinars and take about 4 hours but the buses are cheaper and faster if you don't mind being slightly terrified. i took the bus and the driver was playing music so loud i couldn't hear myself think and we stopped like 6 times for random reasons but i made friends with a guy who was going to the same hostel and we split a taxi from the station which was like 3 dinars each.

here's the thing nobody talks about: kairouan is holy city number three in islam so there's this respect in the air that's hard to describe if you're not religious yourself. it's not preachy, it's just... present. people are chill about tourists but there's an expectation that you dress somewhat modestly and don't act like an absolute disaster human. i saw some tourists in like booty shorts and crop tops and everyone was polite but i could feel the judgment radiating off the walls.

the carpet shops are everywhere and honestly the carpets are gorgeous but the hard sell is real. a local warned me to never go in unless i was actually ready to buy because it's culturally rude to just look and leave. i went in one because i felt bad saying no and then spent 45 minutes trying to politely escape while a guy showed me literally 50 carpets and told me about his cousin in germany. eventually i just said i was a student and had 10 dinars and he laughed and let me go. your mileage may vary.

i went to the bir halima which is this ancient water source that's supposed to be holy and honestly it's just a well now but the walk there through the olive groves was incredible. nobody was around. i saw like 3 other people the whole time. that's the secret to kairouan - you have to wander away from the main attractions to find the actual magic.

someone told me the old city has like 800 mosques but honestly i stopped counting after 20 because they start to blur together in the best way possible.

the cost breakdown for anyone who cares:

- hostel: 12 dinars/night (i stayed 4 nights)
- food: maybe 5-8 dinars per meal if you're eating where locals eat
- mosque entry: free for the main one, some of the smaller ones charge 2-3 dinars
- transport from tunis: 8 dinars train or like 15 for bus with AC
- water: 0.5 dinar for a big bottle from any shop
- random souvenirs: depends on your negotiation skills but expect to start at 3x what you should actually pay

safety wise i felt totally fine the whole time. the worst thing that happened was a guy following me for a block trying to sell me stuff and when i said no thanks he just shrugged and left. the medina can feel intense at night but it's not dangerous, just alive in a way that takes getting used to if you're from somewhere quiet.

nearby cities i heard good things about: sousse is like 45 minutes away and has beach stuff if you need a break from the historical stuff. also kairouan to hammamet is like an hour and a half if you want to see what all-inclusive tourism looks like (i didn't go but my hostel roommate left and said it was weird).

i'm writing this from a cafe near the station waiting for my bus back to tunis and i'm honestly bummed. i thought i'd be over it by now but i keep thinking about that tea place and the lamb thing and the way the light hits the old walls in the afternoon. yeah the infrastructure is rough and yeah you'll get lost and yeah sometimes you'll feel like everyone's trying to sell you something. but underneath all that there's a city that's been here for over 1300 years and honestly? it knows what it's doing.

i'll come back someday when i have more than 40 dinars. maybe i'll even buy a carpet.

maybe.

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links for anyone planning a trip:

- tripadvisor has decent reviews but take them with a grain of salt: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g297951-Kairouan_Kairouan_Governorate_Tunisia.html
- yelp doesn't really exist here so don't bother
- the lonely planet forums are actually useful for current info: https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree
- there's a reddit thread about tunis travel that helped me: https://www.reddit.com/r/Tunisia/
- wikivoyage has a solid overview: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Kairouan
- hostelworld for booking (i used it and it worked fine): https://www.hostelworld.com/

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