Tunisia as a lone mother

[theresalwaysguineapigcurry]

I know mumsnet has many horror stories about Tunisia.
I have booked flights as I really want to see the abandoned Star Wars sets with my two kids (5 and 8). I am a lone parent and go all over the world with them, however I am nervous about this one for some reason.
Is it some unconcious islamaphobia or is there really something to be concerned about?
I've been to Morocco as a lone female (pre kids) and it was fine. If it makes any difference I am dark haired and skinned so I'm not sure if that helps. One of my kids looks like me but the other one is pale and has light brown hair. Regardless, we won't pass for Tunisian due to our lack of French or Arabic!
Also, do we go all inclusive (not my usual style but probably cheapest and less stressful) or book somewhere in the city with a kitchen? I think I would feel guilty eating so much when there is so much poverty, but then does tourism help? If I was really that bothered I probably wouldn't go and would donate the money.

Do you think if I found another female friend to go with it would make things worse or better?

Sheesh. After reading all the bad experiences, you want to subject another woman to this?

One thing to be aware of is that coffee shops are very male domains (unless it's a new-fangled one where the cool kids go, you can tell by the clientele). Some will have a family area. This is pretty standard across the region, including in Turkey. Patisseries and bakeries are generally mixed. So that's a cultural awareness thing, if we go for a coffee we go to a mixed place. The Medina is a real place where people live and work, not for tourists outside of a few streets selling tat. You can not agree with the idea of men only cafes while still avoiding them to not make things more difficult than you have to- and they will not be impressed at asking to use the loo!

That is an odd experience though as I go all over the Medina and around downtown and have never been told to go away. You get a lot more out of the Medina with a tour though, the guides know where all the good houses are and where the shrines are hidden. We usually offer extra money to not go to a carpet shop.

I'm amazed by the poster upthread who thought the houses in matmata should be free? Do you expect tourist sites to be free everywhere else or is it only in developing countries you should be allowed to go into people's houses for free? Ofc people make money from their asset, you would to if people came and traipsed through your house for a nosy because it had been in a super famous film.

I went to a house in the UK that expected me to pay to have a nosy around too.

@theresalwaysguineapigcurry

Please read the above post. Do you really want to subject your children to this??

Me too, I think it was the Queen's house, you think she was loaded but hey ho

No. Nopitty no no no.

Go to Greece.

I can totally believe the good experiences people have had, and I’m obviously glad for anyone not having a horrible experience, but I don’t get the risk to benefit maths at all.

I feel like others’ experiences on this thread chime closely with mine and anyone else I know who has been to this part of the world. The feedback is overwhelmingly negative, no?

I really feel for pp who is Tunisian, I can imagine how upsetting it is to hear so many horror stories and I’m sure it is different in less touristy places (?) I do sympathise. I still don’t understand though, who would travel with all that risk hanging over them and having to employ loads of tips and tricks to avoid being sexually assaulted, harassed and intimidated potentially in front of their children.

Things do happen everywhere, but my experience of North Africa has been nothing like any other part of the world IME, and I’ve been all over the world x5 continents and lived abroad for years.

When looking for a holiday last week for myself as a lone mother (a redhead) and 3 very blonde children, I was told that I absolutely should not go to Turkey, Egypt, morroco or tunisia. This was the travel agent trying to sell me a holiday! She said unless I was willing to never leave the resort, it was completely unsafe for me to travel to those places.

@Zone4flaneur thank you for taking the time to explain, that's very interesting about coffee shops being men only, and certainly helps explain why I was made to feel so unwelcome. Though, to be honest, it's just made me view it even more negatively, in that it wasn't that we were unlucky, it's that women are universally unwelcome in coffee shops! Interesting also that you say that Turkey is the same, however when we visited there I felt incredibly welcome everywhere we went (including numerous coffee shops).

We realise that the Medina is a real place where locals live and work - that's exactly why we wanted to venture out of the touristy area, so we could see it! When we travel to a country, we want to see the real country!

I'm sure you are right that we could have made the experience easier by me not getting a drink in the first place we saw when I was thirsty, or daring to need the toilet, or sticking to the tourist tat areas, but that's definitely not the sort of holiday I'm interested in, so I will stick to countries/cultures where I am made to feel welcome (which has been everywhere else I've ever been so far!).

I am genuinely pleased that you enjoy living there however, and I really was blown away how beautiful much of the country was. I'm sure there are many positives to Tunisia, but, as a woman, I definitely won't be returning.

Last place I would ever consider visiting, for reasons I won’t go into.

If I were you I would go to Athens see the acropolis learn about the Greeks then get a boat to a nearby island.

Going to North Africa with another woman makes it worse. In Cairo my friend and I were by the end basically stuck in our hotel room as the abuse on the street was constant. Dressing modestly didn’t seem to help we were unaccompanied western women so fair game. Also travelled in South America / Indonesia etc was fine nothing like that.

My friend went alone and felt incredibly unsafe. I wont go due to her reaction and she is very well travelled and I've never heard her become so unnerved.

If you do go, like PP have said, if you leave the hotel dress modestly.

It's a beautiful place but as a woman I would have your guard up.

Don't get me wrong- there are loads of challenges about living in TN, but they are mostly the same things locals experience- administrative, periodic shortages of foods and fuel, the driving. I am here for work so didn't ever choose it as such (although had been before). We have had loads of friends and family out to visit and travelled all over with them, and we've had one tiny incident where a man approached my niece and started to talk to her, I told him to go away, he went away. I absolutely believe that people have had the experiences they say they have but I think it is particularly intense around areas like Port El Kantoui and Mahdia, and most people have a perfectly nice holiday. People come on threads like this to share bad experiences. Honestly we had a terrible holiday at the much beloved by Mumsnet Centerparcs but I get that lots of other people enjoy it. I'm on a Facebook travel group which is currently raving about family travel to Morocco, which also has a bad rep here.

If you're into history it's the absolute bomb. And the coffee in the man-cafes is usually really bad, so I wouldn't recommend. I do think some work needs to be done on the tourism industry, it's horribly dominated by the big chains and most of the money leaves the country which contributes to some of the hustling.

I am a bit bemused by the red hair comment- red hair originates in the middle east and the Amazigh (Berber) people of the Atlas mountains are often fair-haired or redheaded, it's pretty common to see redheads. And plenty of Tunisian (and Egyptian) women are blonde from a bottle! Sounds like someone who's never been there.

Anyway, aslema to the Tunisians here, I'm off to enjoy the rest of the public holiday. I hope the OP has a nice holiday somewhere.

@Zone4flaneur , I have North African friends and am completely surprised at the comments on here. Maa salema.

@Zone4flaneur thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to reply and it's really interesting to hear your experiences of living there! The historic sites were certainly a highlight for us and, despite the other negative experiences, I am glad we saw them. I hope you enjoy the rest of the public holiday!

Interesting that you were put off Turkey! I've heard generally positive things about going - admittedly, specifically about Istanbul - and that people love children and so it's a good welcoming place to go with them. A Turkish colleague did tell some other colleagues (a woman talking to two women) who were planning to go last winter (sometime pre-earthquake) to put off their trip until after the election.

I went with my mum and dad when I was a child. My dad was approached a few times by men asking if he would swap me for camels 😂 😳

I went with the X. He offered to sell me for a camel .

My absolute favourite colleague is a man from Tunisia (now living elsewhere). Polite, funny, family oriented, respectful- a lovely person. So I’m not tarring everyone with the same brush or saying that all Tunisians are a certain way.
but I would absolutely not go back to Tunisia because of the few that seems to be all over, I really hated our holiday there. So much hassle from me , even inside the hotel.
and if it wasn’t sexual - kids being lifted up onto camels, parents asked for money. Birds of prey sat on kids, parents asked for money. Pulled into shops, hassled for not buying something… It was just really unpleasant
i also didn’t like Egypt or Turkey - same hassle (btw no hassle in Dubai, or Malaysia - both Muslim countries, so I don’t think this has much to do with religion)

Me too, although I was 11. I was grabbed in a souk and he ran away with me. Kissing me and groping me. It was absolutely terrifying.

I went in April this year.
We did a three day trip to the desert with a stop at a troglodyte hotel which was used as a set for the family Luke grows up in. Very disappointing. There were a couple of props and some photos in one room but honestly not worth seeing.
The desert was amazing though.
We were in a resort on Djerba. I found the poverty shocking. Rubbish in the streets. No harrassment of a sexual nature ( I'm 50 and was with burly dh and two burly teenagers) but hated being seen as walking wallets.
I wouldn't go again.

The part about sex tourism and toy boys-
I got to know a few guys and spoke to them about the way things are. They said exactly what you said.
Many hotel's ban "relationships" and I know of one young man who was fired because he was flirting with tourists and management found out. They didn't want their resort to get a bad reputation for having these types of things happening and rinsing foreign women's money.

It's not just older women for the toy boy thing, also younger for access to EU and hopefully new life- not sure if that will make a difference for Brits now UK has left?

I’ve been to Tunisia and wouldn’t go back. I too was hassled, despite my husbands being with me.
I didn’t feel safe or relaxed for the whole holiday, and it was the same in Egypt. Wouldn’t go back to either place - not even with my husband let alone by myself with young children .

Plenty of other options & personally I’d look at those

Please don’t do it