Quick Answer — Port El Kantaoui is a resort built from nothing in 1979 on the coast 10 km north of Sousse: a marina of whitewashed, Andalusian-style buildings ringed by restaurants, two 18-hole golf courses, a water park, a funfair, and a line of large hotels along a good sandy beach. It is the most packaged place in Tunisia, which is precisely what many visitors want, and it is a comfortable, safe, easy base for the Sahel. It is also, and the brochures will not tell you this, the site of the 2015 beach attack, after which it was rebuilt and reopened. Go for the beach, the golf and the convenience; go into Sousse for the country. Here’s the whole story.
There is an old joke in Sousse that Port El Kantaoui is the only town in Tunisia with no medina, no history and no reason to exist except that somebody decided it should. That somebody was the state tourism office, which in the late 1970s picked a stretch of empty beach north of the city, hired architects to design a fishing village that had never been fished from, and opened it in 1979 as the country’s first integrated resort.
Pastel walls, blue shutters, arcades, a marina with berths for 340 yachts, and hotels set back behind the palms. It worked. For 40 years it has been where northern Europe comes to lie in the sun, and on a July evening on the quay, with the pirate boats coming in and the restaurants filling, it looks exactly as it was drawn.
The Marina
The port is the centre and the reason for the name. The quay is a horseshoe of cafés, restaurants and shops selling the same leather and ceramics you will see from here to Hammamet, with a car-free promenade around the water and the tourist train shuttling in from the hotels.
Boat trips leave from here all day: glass-bottom boats, fishing trips, and the mock pirate galleons that are a fixture of the Tunisian coast and which children adore. In the evening it is the place to walk, and it is pleasant. Eat with modest expectations; the better Tunisian food is in Sousse, and our Sousse guide names the places.
The Beach
The beach runs north and south of the marina and is one of the better stretches on the Sahel: broad, soft, gently shelving and cleaned daily in front of the hotels. South, it merges into Boujaffar and eventually Sousse; north, past the big hotels, it empties out.
Most hotels have their own section with loungers. Public access exists at several points along the main road. The water is warm from June to October and the sea is usually calm. If you are choosing between resorts, our Hammamet or Sousse comparison applies here too, with the caveat that Kantaoui is more self-contained than either.
Golf, Water and Rides
El Kantaoui Golf has 36 holes across two courses, the Sea and the Panorama, laid out among olives and palms with the Mediterranean on one side; it is the busiest club in the country and the reason a good share of winter visitors come. Full details, green fees and the other Tunisian courses are in our golf guide. For families, Acqua Palace is a mid-sized water park and Hannibal Park a funfair with rides for small children; both are walkable from most hotels. Quad, camel and jeep excursions are sold at every hotel desk. Our Tunisia with kids guide has a frank view of which of these are worth the money.
What Happened in 2015
On 26 June 2015 a gunman walked onto the beach in front of the Imperial Marhaba hotel and killed 38 people, 30 of them British. It was the deadliest attack on tourists in Tunisian history and it emptied the resort for two years. The hotel was rebuilt and reopened under a new name; British travel advice was lifted in 2017; security on the beaches and at hotel gates was permanently increased, which you will notice.
The resort has long since filled again, and Tunisia’s tourism numbers have passed their pre-2015 peak. We mention it because an honest guide should, because there is a memorial, and because our readers ask. Our fuller piece on whether Tunisia is safe sets it in context.
Honestly
Port El Kantaoui is a bubble, and a well-run one. You can spend a week here and see nothing of Tunisia beyond the hotel, the pool and a stall selling fridge magnets, and plenty of people do exactly that and go home happy. If that is the holiday you want, it is a good choice: the beach is real, the hotels are mostly decent four-stars sold as five, the all-inclusive is generous, and the drive from the airport is short. If you want anything more, the resort is a base, not a destination.
Sousse’s medina and ribat are 15 minutes away, the catacombs a little further, and the amphitheatre at El Jem is an hour by train. The marina restaurants are tourist-priced and tourist-flavoured. Touts at the port are persistent but harmless; our guide to scams covers the usual moves. And from November to March the resort is quiet to the point of melancholy, which golfers like and nobody else does.
Practicalities
Getting there. Enfidha airport is 35–40 minutes by road; Monastir airport about 40 minutes; Tunis around two hours. Transfers are usually included in packages; otherwise see Enfidha airport to Sousse. From Sousse itself, a taxi is 10–15 minutes and a handful of dinars, and the little tourist train runs along the coast road in season. Tipping expectations in the hotels are set out in our tipping guide.
Staying. The hotels are reviewed in where to stay in Sousse, which treats Kantaoui as its own zone. The large beachfront properties north of the marina are the classic choice; the apartment-hotels around the golf course are better value for longer stays.
Drinking. Hotels and marina restaurants serve alcohol; the Brauhaus by Hannibal Park brews its own. The wider rules are in our guide to alcohol in Tunisia.
When. May–June and September–October are ideal; July–August are hot and full; winter is for golf.
From the Carthage Magazine Bookshelf
Port El Kantaoui makes it easy to never leave the hotel; these three books are for the traveller who decides to.
- 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.
- The Authentic Tunisian Cookbook — sixty traditional recipes from the heart of North Africa. For when you get home and find yourself missing the food. $9.99 · PDF & EPUB.
All three available as a bundle for $39.99 — guide, language, and food, delivered together.
