A culinary and solidarity tour of southwest Tunisia with Socio Chanty

Tourism without prism: get to know the people, their land and their cuisine!

What’s behind Tunisia’s beautiful landscapes? Its thousand-year-old ruins and captivating medinas hide men and women. You’ll cook their ancestral dishes with them, irrigate their oases with them… From north to south, we offer you 10-day tours to live among us. You’ll never forget that once, for 10 days, you were Tunisian.

Period: All year round, except summer.

Duration: 7 days

Participants: groups of 8 people maximum

Level: all levels.

Languages: Arabic, English, French. Other languages on request.

Starting point: Tunis

Arrival point: Tunis

Transport and accommodation: Cars allocated for the activity. Guest houses. Hotels.

Towns and villages visited: Sidi Bou Saïd, Tunis Medina, Tozeur.

Your hosts : Ali Sadraoui

Ali Sadraoui is a local young man with a master’s degree in computer science. But it’s certainly not computers that he’ll be talking to you most about when you visit his oasis. He will share with you his passion for multi-level cultivation and the centuries-old irrigation system, unique in the world, that serves his vegetable garden, olive, fig and date trees.
What’s more, he’ll take you to Thelja mountain and the country’s longest canyon, before leaving you in good hands to discover the expanses of desert that have long inspired poets. The trip will take place in comfortable and safe 4 X 4 vehicles.

Highlights of the experience

Visit to Sidi Bou Saïd and the Baron d’Erlanger palace.
Visit the Medina of Tunis, the ruins of Carthage or the Bardo museum if it reopens.
Share experiences and acquire know-how in the Tozeur region, around the palm grove, with cooks of ancestral dishes, artisan producers of cosmetics and other crafts using local natural ingredients (see tour program).

Ideal if… :

If you’re curious about places and their inhabitants, their stories and recipes, their medicinal herbs, their know-how, the solutions they’ve found to overcome life’s difficulties by making the best use of their environment, with Mother Nature as their ally.

If you’re interested in acquiring scientific knowledge about the virtues of the date palm: the impact of its fruit on health and the multitude of products that can be extracted from it.

It’s not fixed knowledge that you’ll gather from local characters, often with a lot of character, but an art of living and working that always serves people and nature in the best possible way. You’ll have the chance to experience something new and instructive, while helping some of your guests to become more sustainable and escape the precariousness that is often the lot of women farmers and craftswomen in particular.

The spirit

All the hosts on this tour have been selected by the Tunisian association Balades Solidaires, whose main aim is to support women entrepreneurs in rural areas in perfecting their know-how. The aim is to present a quality product thanks to the training provided by the various experts and advisers, proposed by the association, in fields as diverse as hygiene, tableware, hospitality rules… Only by producing quality products can these women claim a certain financial autonomy, within the framework of sustainable regional development.

Behind this highly supportive project is a woman from Tunisian civil society, convinced that there is a great injustice behind the fact that such admirable women, holders of precious know-how, live in precarious conditions. She has gathered around them equally admirable women from the capital: doctors, architects, teachers, entrepreneurs… to help them. A virtuous circle has thus been created, and today you have the opportunity to be part of it.

There’s nothing more beautiful than experiencing a moment of peace and harmony with a soothing landscape. Discovering a country’s history through its architecture, ruins and museums is also fascinating. And that’s what we’ll try to help you discover. But there’s more, and even better, for those who are as curious about nature as they are about its men and women. How do local residents continue to draw on their past to find solutions to their present?

What’s the secret behind Mediterranean cuisine that’s as appetizing as it is admired the world over for its impact on health and longevity? What can their experience offer visitors who come to meet them? Our “solidarity tourism tours”, covering the different regions of Tunisia, have this ambition: to enable visitors to experience unforgettable moments of harmony with places and landscapes that are rejuvenating, while sharing the daily lives of the people who live there. Here, we invite you to discover part of the capital Tunis and the Tozeur region. First and foremost, its women who are the custodians of age-old know-how. What you know will improve you and make others happy. At least that’s our aim.

We’ve got you covered

Culinary and solidarity tour of southwest Tunisia: Tunis – Sidi Bou Saïd – Tozeur

10 days/9 nights

Day 1: Tunis – Sidi Bou Saïd

Arrival at Tunis Carthage airport. Support. Transfer to Sidi Bou Saïd. At ease. The hotel is a restored village villa. A short tour of the village of Sidi Bou Saïd, the world’s first classified and preserved site (1915), even before the creation of UNESCO.

Day 2: Sidi Bou Saïd – Tunis – Sidi Bou Saïd

Guided tour of Baron d’Erlanger’s palace. Guided tour of the Bardo Museum. Lunch in an authentic restaurant serving Tunisian cuisine. Guided tour of the Medina of Tunis. Back to Sidi Bou Saïd. At ease. Free walks.

Day 3: Sidi Bou Saïd – Tozeur

Arrival by plane in Tozeur. Stay in a hotel close to the Oasis. Discover the Medina. Discover the oasis and its products, including rare medicinal herbs. This will be done on a local farm run by the association for the safeguard of the Medina. Culinary workshop in Essia, where a local woman will introduce guests to the preparation of Mtabga, a traditional local pizza. Typical lunch on site. In the afternoon, a craftswoman will introduce visitors to the craft of weaving date palm leaves and fiber. Each visitor will make a functional item to keep as a souvenir. Exhibition of products made by local craftswomen and farmers: products from the palm grove such as date vinegar and syrup, black garlic and cosmetics made from dates, the fruit that some claim is the richest food on the planet. Dinner at the hotel.

Day 4: Tozeur

Morning horse-drawn carriage tour of the oasis. Discovery of an age-old irrigation system invented by Ibn Chabbat (a prolific 13th-century Tozeur scholar). This unique irrigation system is still used to supply water to the various plots in the oasis. Lunch at the oasis. Afternoon soap workshop. A craftswoman will teach visitors how to make their own soap from date tree products.

Day 5: Tozeur – Richet Ennâam

Discover the oldest oasis in the region: Richet Ennâam. The young owner, Ali Sadraoui, presents his estate and its characteristic multi-level cultivation (date palms, fig trees, olives, vegetable garden). Typical lunch on site. Discover the Thelja mountain and the country’s longest canyon.

Day 6: Tozeur – Desert

In the morning, discovery of the desert by 4X4. Afternoon at leisure.

Day 7: Tozeur – Tunis

Back to the Medina of Tunis. Accommodation in a typical Medina guest house. Free day.

Day 8: Check-out

Price

On request.
Our prices include: tour organization, transportation, accommodation, culinary experiences and meals.
Our prices do not include: insurance, options.
Terms of payment: please consult the host.
Reservation and cancellation policy: consult host.

Contact us