Sixty kilometres north of Tabarka, further out than any other piece of Tunisia, a cluster of dark volcanic rocks rises out of the deepest water in the country. La Galite, which Tunisians call Jalta, is the largest of them: five kilometres long, 391 metres high at its summit, with a ruined village, a lighthouse, a military post of a few men, and a population of goats descended from the ones the last fishermen left behind in the 1960s.
The sea around it is the clearest in Tunisia, the sky at night the darkest, and until two summers ago getting there was a matter of knowing a fisherman with a boat and a tolerant attitude to the rules.
That has changed. Since June 2025, licensed excursions run from Tabarka marina, and La Galite has gone from a rumour to a trip you can book. This is the guide to it: what the islands are, what happened there, and how to see them.
Where the Galite Islands Are
The archipelago lies in the open Mediterranean about 38 kilometres northwest of Cap Serrat, 60 from Tabarka, 80 from Bizerte and 150 south of Cape Spartivento in Sardinia, which makes it the northernmost point of Tunisia and nearer to Italy than most of the country. There are six islets in two groups.
The main island, La Galite, is the only one with fresh water, soil and buildings. To its southwest lie Le Galiton, with its 14-metre lighthouse, and La Fauchelle; to the northeast the three “Dog” islets, Gallo, Gallina and Pollastro, named by the Italians who fished here. All are volcanic, which is why the cliffs are a reddish-black you see nowhere else on the Tunisian coast, and why the water drops to forty metres a stone’s throw from the shore.
The Bizerte and Tabarka guides cover the mainland bases; the islands themselves have no roads, no shop, no phone signal and no electricity beyond the military post’s generator.
A Short History of Jalta
The Carthaginians and the Romans used the island as a waypoint on the Sardinia run, and Roman cisterns and the stumps of a fish-salting works survive near the landing. In the modern era the island belonged to Italian coral fishermen, mostly from Ponza, who settled in the nineteenth century and numbered 174 by 1906; their village, school, church and cemetery are the ruins visitors wander through today. During the Second World War the island hosted a small Italian naval base, and the submarine commander Salvatore Todaro, an Italian war hero, was killed in an air attack off its coast in December 1942.
The event every Tunisian knows is the exile. From 21 May 1952 to 20 May 1954 the French colonial authorities held Habib Bourguiba on La Galite, in an abandoned fort above the village, as far from the independence movement as they could put him without leaving Tunisia. The two years on the rock became part of the founding story of the republic, and the fort is the first thing most Tunisian visitors ask to see.
The Italians left after independence, when Tunisia nationalised foreign-held land in 1964, and the village has been emptying ever since. A handful of fishing families kept houses into the 1990s; today the island’s only permanent occupants are the garrison and the goats.
The Wildlife
La Galite is a nature reserve first and a destination second. Le Galiton was declared a reserve in 1980 to protect the Mediterranean monk seal, one of the rarest mammals on earth, which bred in the sea caves here into the 1980s; sightings are now very rare, and the islets are closed to landing partly in the hope that the seals return.
The birds are the sure thing: Cory’s shearwaters nest in their thousands, Eleonora’s falcons arrive each summer to hunt the autumn migration, and Audouin’s gulls, shags and peregrines are resident. Underwater, the posidonia meadows and the drop-offs around the Galitons hold groupers the size of a child, barracuda, bream and the occasional ray in water with twenty-five metres of visibility. Divers who know the Mediterranean rate it alongside the best of Corsica and Sardinia, with the difference that nobody else is there.
On land, the island has gone back to the wild. The fishermen’s vines, figs and pomegranates still fruit along the terraces, and the goats keep the paths open.
How to Visit La Galite
Until 2025 there was no legal passenger service, and the visitors who did reach the island went with fishermen from Tabarka or Bizerte on an informal, weather-dependent basis.
In June 2025 a regional commission under the governor of Bizerte, including the tourism office, the coastal protection agency, civil protection and the maritime guard, licensed two Tunisian companies to run excursions from the marina at Tabarka, with conditions on passenger safety and on protecting the island. The first boats sailed that summer.
The practicalities, as they stood for the 2025 and 2026 seasons:
- Departure: Tabarka marina, in the morning. The crossing takes three to four hours each way in a fast boat, longer in a fishing boat.
- Format: day trips, with four or five hours on the island for the village, the fort, a swim and lunch; and two- or three-night camping trips with diving, which is the version the island deserves.
- Season: May to October. The Galite channel is exposed, and operators cancel in any swell; build a spare day into your plan and expect a rescheduled departure as normal rather than exceptional.
- Booking: through the licensed operators or the Tabarka hotels, usually by WhatsApp; places are limited by boat capacity and by the island’s rules, so reserve well ahead in July and August.
- Cost: expect a day trip to be priced like a serious boat charter rather than a beach excursion, and the camping trips to be several hundred dinars a head with food, tents and diving included. Ask what is included; there is nothing to buy on the island.
- What to bring: everything. Water, sun protection, a hat, shoes for volcanic rock, a head torch, a mask and snorkel, and a bag to take your rubbish home. The island has no bins and no toilets outside the camp.
The rules of the reserve apply to everyone: no landing on Le Galiton or the Dog islets, no fishing or spear-fishing, no fires outside the camp, nothing taken and nothing left. The island is also a military zone, and the garrison takes an interest in who comes and goes; carry your passport, and expect the operator to have registered the group with the maritime guard before departure.
What to Do on the Island
Walk to the village. From the landing, the path climbs past the Roman cisterns to the abandoned Italian village: the school with its blackboard, the church, the houses with their roofs gone and fig trees in the kitchens. It is a strange and affecting place, and the one photograph everyone takes.
Climb to the fort. Bourguiba’s fort stands above the village; the walk up is short and the view from the top takes in all six islets and, on a clear day, the mountains of Kroumirie on the mainland.
Swim and snorkel. The cove by the landing is sheltered and the water is extraordinary. Snorkelling along the rocks either side gives you groupers and bream within minutes; the serious diving is a boat ride away at the Galitons and needs a licensed dive leader, which the camping trips include.
Hike the ridge. The island is criss-crossed by goat paths and the old fishermen’s terraces. The walk to the summit, the Grand Sommet at 391 metres, with its yellow lookout tower, takes about two hours and is the best thing on the island after the swimming. The hiking guide has the general kit list; here, add water and shade, because there is none.
Pick fruit. In late summer the wild vines, figs and pomegranates are there for the taking, which is the one thing you may take.
Stay the night. The nearest electric light is eighty kilometres away and the stars are the point. Camping is on the terraces near the landing, with the operators’ tents and kitchen; camping in Tunisia explains how the country’s other sites compare, and none of them compares.
Tunisia’s Other Islands
La Galite is the wild one. Djerba is the inhabited one, with hotels and an airport; Kerkennah, off Sfax, is the flat, slow, fishing one; the Kuriat islands off Monastir are the day-trip turtle-nesting one; and Zembra, off Cap Bon, is the other protected volcanic reserve, closed to landing altogether.
Between them they cover most of what a traveler could want from an island; La Galite is for the ones who want nobody else there.
From the Carthage Magazine Bookshelf
If La Galite is the kind of Tunisia you’re looking for, these three will get you to the rest of it.
- All About Tunisia — the definitive English-language traveler’s guide. 572 pages, 27 chapters, all nine regions, every UNESCO inscription, five thematic trails — and the practical answers (visa, currency, transport, etiquette) most travelers wish they’d had on the plane. $24.99 · PDF & EPUB.
- Speak Like a Local — 200+ Tunisian Arabic phrases with native audio recorded in Tunis. The phrases for the taxi, the souk, the café, and the dinner table. $14.99 · PDF, EPUB, MP3.
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