Northern Africa and France

We not only keep a list of countries that we have visited, we also have “The Second 100” list. Sometimes, it’s a really long time before we return to a country. In 2023, we returned to Spain after a gap between visits of 44 years, but this year we beat even that. Our second big trip of 2025 was to northern Africa, visiting Algeria (through their new visa on arrival program), Tunisa, and Morocco. It was our second trip to Morocco after an interval of 46 years!

We had some new experiences in both the “new to us” countries of Algeria and Tunisia as well as in “second visit” Morocco. Algeria has the kasbah in Central Algiers that is a UNESCO world heritage site, as well as six more UNESCO sites. We managed to see five of the seven. And we flew into the world’s largest sand desert, the Sahara, to visit the oasis town of Ghardaia. Check out our post and video Camel Riding in the Sahara!

In Tunisia, despite the fact that we were there on Star Wars Day, we didn’t visit any of the Star Wars movie set sites on this trip. (Always good to have a reason to return!) Instead, we saw historical ruins, including Carthage (another Unesco site), and Mediterranean towns before heading to Morocco.

On our long-delayed Moroccan return we took a guided tour of the historical cities of the north, ending up in Marrakech. Marrakech has had almost mythic status since at least the 1960s (“Marrakesh Express” by Crosby, Stills, and Nash) and we enjoyed (and stayed in) its world-famous medina with its souks and spice market. We also went hot air ballooning in the surrounding desert one morning.

After almost a month in northern Africa, we spent a few nights in France, not just because we flew Air France (so that stopping over was easy), but mostly because France and especially Paris are places to which we could easily return every year. France is the most visited country in the world for tourism, and for a very good reason!

Read our Posts about this trip!