07/26/2020
Day 1: Arrival in Djerba
On the island of Djerba you will be able to start your location traveling with quite a few nice and important ones, namely the cantina exterior, Anchorhead, and the home Obi-Wan Kenobi lived in during his exile.
You will find the cantina in the city of Ajim, near the south of the island where the ferry is located. It is here that you will face your first test with the streets that have no names, but if you print out the above map, you should be able to find it. The GPS coordinates to this location are: 33°43’26.69″N, 10°44’59.95″O. The building is now no longer in use, but was originally a bakery. Nearby the cantina is also the site where the sandtroopers stop Luke, Obi-Wan, and the droids in the landspeeder and where the sandtroopers see the Millennium Falcon blasting off and leaving Mos Eisley. This location can be tricky to find due to a lot having changed in the last 38 years, also the production crew used a lot of set dressing like the extra domes that they put on flat roofed buildings and crashed spaceship junk to cover trees and electric telephone lines that ran above the ground. So make sure you have plenty of good reference pictures with you.
Luckily the other two locations on Djerba are easier to find. Follow the marked coastal road from the map, and within five minutes you will see the familiar building of Obi-Wan’s Tatooine home. Funny contrast is that this location looks much nicer in reality, with the backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea, than the dusty isolated outpost in the desert that it appears to be in the movie. This building is now used by local fishermen to store their supplies.
Even further up north on the same road, for some 10-15 minutes more, you will arrive in Sidi Jemour. Sidi Jemour was primarily used to portray Anchorhead and Tosche Station from the deleted scenes where Luke spoke to his friends Biggs who told him he was joining the Rebellion. This big building is quite recognizable when you approach Sidi Jemour. The building stands on an inlet used by fishermen and is these days used as a mosque. This building, and a smaller domed building next to it, can also be seen in the Special Edition of A New Hope, where a new scene shows the landspeeder arriving and entering Mos Eisley. An extended version of this scene can be seen on the Blu-ray, in which a local Tunisian woman is nearly run-over by the landspeeder and raises her fist in anger to Luke.
Slave Quarters Row; from left to right, clockwise: Medenine, Ksar Ouled Soltane & Ksar Hadada.
Slave Quarters Row; from left to right, clockwise: Medenine, Ksar Ouled Soltane, and Ksar Hadada.
Day 2: Djerba – Medenine – Tataouine
If your arrival in Djerba the previous day was late and you missed any of the locations, then do so in the morning before setting of southwards on the C108 to Medenine (roughly 45km).
Medenine was one of the three locations used in The Phantom Menace for the Slave Quarters Row where Anakin and Shmi lived. This location is in the middle of the city, and can be hectic to find, but if you keep following the C108, you end up reaching a roundabout near Hotel LOKSSOUr. Take the roundabout and exit on the last possible exit, then take the first exit right and then the next exit right and you should reach your destination. This is the front of their home, where they find shelter from the sandstorm and where Shmi and Anakin said their teary goodbyes. The Gorfas you see are used as CGI backgrounds in various shots.
Leave Medenine on the P19 to Tataouine. While Tataouine was not used in any of the movies, it is obviously the inspiration for the name of the desert planet that till that point was known as Utapau, as evidenced by some production schedules that Charles Lippincott, the advertising publicity supervisor for A New Hope, recently uploaded on his page. Find a hotel here and use Tataouine as a base to travel to nearby Ksar Ouled Soltane
Ksar Ouled Soltane, resting on a hilltop, was originally used as a granary vault and is the second location used for the Slave Quarters Row. From Tataouine it is a 22 km. drive that takes 20-30 minutes along the Maztouria Loop to reach Ksar Ouled Soltane.
The Lars homestead.
The Lars homestead.
Day 3: Tataouine – Ksar Hadada – Matmata (135km)
From Tataouine take the C207 that passes by Ksar Hadada, but as soon as you reach the city, take a right turn. This long road goes through the entire city and ends back up at the C207. Along this road you will see the third location used for the Slave Quarters Row. You know you have reached the right location when you arrive at a plaza with a mosque to your left. This location was used for the balcony scene where Qui-Gon Jinn and Shmi discuss Anakin while he is working on his Podracer.
Return to the C207 and keep following it, eventually you reach a roundabout with an exit to the C114 towards Beharya, take the exit. Drive trough Beharya and keep following the C114 until you can take a left and drive up the C104. The C104 takes you straight to Matmata.
In Matmata you must book yourself a room in the Hotel Sidi Driss because this hotel is where the cast and crew filmed the interior scenes of the Lars Homestead. Ever since the return in 2000 to shoot scenes for Attack of the Clones, the set decorations mostly stayed in place except for the larger items like the moisture vaporators. An unique experience that the hotel offers, when asked, is the possibility to dine in the original Lars dining room from the movie, with the well-known mural properly restored since 1995. The opening in the room leads to Beru’s kitchen. To see how it looks like these days, follow this link to see Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequels) visit this location for his road trip show The Long Way Down. They arrive there around the 6:50 time mark.
Some of the Sidi Bouhlel locations.
Some of the Sidi Bouhlel locations.
Day 4: Matmata – Tozeur (225km)
Drive from the Hotel Sidi Driss to the C104, and follow that road in the direction of Douz. At Douz make a right turn, entering the C206 that takes you to Qibili. There you need to pay attention while you cross the small city to make sure that you end up on the P16 leading to Rasta and Oum Somaa. If you see the Institut Supérieur des Etudes Technologiques de Kébili on your right hand side, then you have gone the wrong way. The P16 then is a mostly straight road that takes you through the massive salt lake of Chott el Djerid to Sidi Bouhlel.
Sidi Bouhlel: After such a long distance it is nice to stretch the legs, and the next locations can be found in the area surrounding Sidi Bouhlel. Take the first road to the right that you come across when arriving from the P16 at Sidi Bouhlel. This is a road leading to Bouhlel Sdada, however before you reach there you will see a road going left. This road takes you to what has become known as Star Wars Canyon due to many iconic locations that were filmed there.
First up is actually the end of the road and the place where you have to park your car. It was here where the underside of the partially build prop of the Sandcrawler stood when our heroes discover the attacked Jawas, who they decide to give a proper burial. GPS coordinates: 34° 1’56.50″N, 8°16’57.89″O.
At GPS coordinates 34° 2’1.19″N, 8°16’54.40″O you arrive at the so called Jawa Rock, which is the spot where the Jawas ambush Artoo to take him prisoner. Also filmed here is the scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy threatens to blow up the Ark with a bazooka along with Belloq and the N***s.
At 34° 2’10.28″N, 8°16’49.53″O you will find the rocks where the Tusken Raiders attack Luke before being scared away by Obi-Wan Kenobi.
At 34° 2’20.24″N, 8°16’41.39″O is the place where our heroes are seen watching towards Mos Eisley, this is not to be confused with the point of view shot from them that happens a few seconds later in the scene, which was filmed in the USA. Nearby, at 34° 2’21.31″N, 8°16’40.63″O, is where the Tusken snipers were taking aim at the approaching landspeeder.
To the east you can find another Indiana Jones location, namely the Tunis dig site. GPS coordinates are 34° 1’46.95″N, 8°17’39.85″O and page 86 of The Complete Making of Indiana Jones offers a detailed description on how to reach this destination.
Drive back to Sidi Bouhlel, follow the P16 towards Dgauche/Daqas, where it turns into the C106 that takes you to Tozeur. Find a hotel here or in Nefta/Naftah, which is an additional 25km up along the P3.
From left to right, clockwise: Mos Espa set, Camel Rock & Yardang Field.
From left to right, clockwise: Mos Espa set, Camel Rock & Yardang Field.
Day 5: Tozeur or Nefta
Nearby Nefta is La Grande Dune (GPS: 33°52’16.05″N, 7°45’33.21″O), which was used for the Dune Sea and the Krayt Dragon Ridge and the part of Chott el Jerid where the Lars Family Homestead exteriors are filmed. You can find the igloo at 33°50’34.42″N, 7°46’44.48″O.
From Nefta there is a road heading north that takes you to the remains of the Mos Espa set (GPS: 33°59’39.51″N, 7°50’33.69″O). A little to the east is Chott el Gafsa & Yardang Field (GPS: 33°59’39.35″N, 7°50’59.47″O), the location where the Queen’s Royal Starship from The Phantom Menace had landed, and where Qui-Gon Jinn fought against Darth Maul for the first time. Talking about Darth Maul, his landing site is not much farther, at GPS coordinates 34° 0’57.66″N, 7°54’44.97″O. This is a mountain range called Oung Jamel, also known as Camel Rock. This concludes your trip trough Tunisia when it comes to the Star Wars shooting locations.
