Matmata is a Berber village in the hills above Gabes where, for centuries, people dug their homes downward instead of building them up. A pit is excavated into the soft sandstone, courtyard-style, and rooms are carved horizontally into its walls — a design that keeps interiors cool in the fierce southern summer and warm through winter nights, without a single imported building material. Some of these pits are still lived in.
One, Hotel Sidi Driss, is instantly recognisable to a certain kind of visitor as Luke Skywalker’s childhood home from the original 1977 Star Wars film, which is why Matmata now sits on almost every southern Tunisia itinerary alongside its own considerable architectural interest, usually paired with Ksar Ghilane or Douz on a longer route.
| Where | Matmata mountains, around 40 km south-west of Gabes |
| Cost | Pit-house visits typically 5-10 TND; troglodyte hotel stays from around 60-100 TND a night |
| Time needed | Half a day for the village and Star Wars set; a full day combined with Toujane or Chenini |
| Getting there | Around 5.5 hours’ drive from Tunis, or as a stop on a southern Tunisia tour |
| Best time | October to April for comfortable walking; the pits themselves stay mild year-round |
A landscape built for going underground
The hills around Matmata are made of a soft, chalky sandstone that erodes into rounded, almost lunar shapes, and it’s this combination — soft enough to dig, structurally stable enough to hold a roof — that made pit dwellings possible in the first place. A typical house starts as a circular or oval pit, six to ten metres deep, dug from ground level down to a flat courtyard floor. From there, rooms fan out horizontally into the surrounding rock: bedrooms, a kitchen, storage for grain and olive oil, sometimes a stable. A tunnel slopes up from the courtyard to the surface as the entrance, and from outside, at ground level, a pit house is nearly invisible — you can walk within metres of someone’s home and see nothing but scrubby hillside.
This wasn’t an aesthetic choice. Summer temperatures in this part of Tunisia regularly pass 40°C, and the thermal mass of several metres of rock keeps a pit’s interior noticeably cooler than the air outside, with the reverse true in the relatively cold desert winters. The design also offered some defensive advantage in a region that saw its share of raiding over the centuries, though the climate argument is the one still borne out every summer by anyone who’s stepped from the surface heat into a shaded pit courtyard.
For more on the wider culture that produced this and the ksour further south, see this guide to Berber heritage in Tunisia and this dedicated guide to Matmata’s troglodyte houses.
Visiting a pit house
Several pit houses in and around Matmata are open to visitors, either as standalone attractions with a small entry fee or, in the case of guesthouses, as places you can actually sleep. A visit typically takes fifteen to thirty minutes: a look around the courtyard, a peek into a furnished room set up to show traditional daily life, and usually tea offered by the family. It’s worth choosing one that’s still family-run rather than the largest, most coach-tour-oriented option, since the smaller visits tend to feel more like an actual conversation and less like a transaction.
Hotel Sidi Driss is the pit house most visitors specifically seek out, since its courtyard and several rooms were used as the Lars family homestead in the original Star Wars and appear again in the prequel trilogy. It still operates as a modest hotel and restaurant, and non-guests can visit for the price of a meal or a small entry fee. Fans should manage expectations: it’s a genuine, unrestored pit house rather than a polished film set, which is either the appeal or the disappointment depending on what you came for.
| Site near Matmata | Distance | What it offers |
|---|---|---|
| Hotel Sidi Driss | In Matmata itself | Star Wars filming location, still a working guesthouse |
| New Matmata (Matmata Jedida) | Around 15 km | The relocated village built after severe 1969 flooding, standard above-ground architecture |
| Toujane | Around 20 km | Cliffside Berber village, dramatic gorge views, carpet weaving |
| Chenini | Around 65 km, near Tataouine | Fortified hilltop ksar village, among the best-preserved in the south |
Anyone weighing up how to see these sites — as part of an organised loop or with a private driver — may want to read this comparison of private versus group tours in Tunisia before booking, since a small group with fixed stops moves very differently from a private car that can linger at Toujane’s viewpoint or double back for a missed pit house.
Star Wars beyond Matmata
Matmata is usually one stop on a wider loop through southern Tunisia’s Star Wars filming locations, most of which cluster in the desert and mountain terrain toward Tataouine and Chott el Jerid. A 2-day tour between Tataouine and Matmata covers the two ends of that loop properly, with an overnight rather than a single rushed day.
If Matmata is a stop on a broader south Tunisia trip rather than the whole point of one, a 3-day tour through southern Tunisia’s desert, oases and Star Wars sites takes in the pit villages alongside Ksar Ghilane and the mountain oases, which suits travellers with more time than a single overnight allows.
For visitors starting from the capital rather than already in the south, a 3-day Sahara desert and Star Wars tour from Tunis removes the need to arrange the long drive south independently, bundling transport, guiding and the desert crossing into a single booking.
The ksour: fortified granaries further south
Beyond Matmata, the road toward Tataouine passes a string of ksour — fortified hilltop granary villages built by Berber communities to store grain safely away from raiders, with tall, narrow storage cells called ghorfas stacked several storeys around a courtyard. Chenini and Douiret, both a comfortable half-day from Matmata, are among the best preserved and are still partly inhabited. A tour to Tataouine, Chenini and the ksour, including Star Wars film sets combines this heritage trail with the region’s other main draw in a single day, which is the efficient way to see both without excessive backtracking.
Getting to Matmata
Matmata sits around 5.5 hours’ drive from Tunis, most practically reached as part of a longer southern loop rather than a dedicated round trip, since the drive alone eats most of a day. From Gabes, the nearest larger town with rail and bus connections, it’s a straightforward 40-kilometre drive or shared taxi ride. Most independent travellers without a rental car join an organised tour that includes Matmata as one stop among several, which avoids the awkwardness of finding onward transport from a small village with limited public transit options.
Several multi-stop routes fold Matmata into a wider south Tunisia loop taking in El Jem, Douz and Tozeur without requiring each leg to be organised separately, which works well for anyone also weighing up a two-day against a three-day desert itinerary or comparing Sahara tour options from Tunis more broadly.
Mistakes people make in Matmata
Frequently asked questions about visiting Matmata
Do people still live in the pit houses?
Yes, some pit courtyards remain family homes, while others have been converted into guesthouses or small attractions with an entry fee. It’s a working village, not a preserved museum.
Is Hotel Sidi Driss really from Star Wars?
Yes — its courtyard and several rooms were used for the Lars family homestead in the original 1977 film and again in the prequel trilogy. It continues to operate as a modest hotel and restaurant today.
How long does a visit to Matmata take?
A single pit-house visit takes fifteen to thirty minutes. Most visitors budget half a day for the village, or a full day if combining it with Toujane or the ksour villages further south.
Can I stay overnight in a troglodyte hotel?
Yes, several converted pit houses in and around Matmata operate as basic guesthouses, offering an experience of the cool, quiet underground rooms that a day visit can’t fully convey.
How do I get to Matmata without a rental car?
Most independent travellers join an organised tour from Tunis, Djerba or a southern base, since Matmata has limited direct public transport. Gabes, 40 km away, is the nearest hub with wider bus and rail connections.
Is Matmata worth visiting if I don’t care about Star Wars?
Yes. The pit-dwelling architecture and the surrounding lunar landscape are worth seeing on their own terms, and several travellers rate the village higher for its Berber heritage than for the film connection.
What’s the difference between Matmata and the ksour villages near Tataouine?
Matmata’s pits are domestic architecture built for climate control. The ksour, further south, are fortified communal granaries built for storing grain securely — a different tradition from a different, though related, Berber building culture.
Is New Matmata worth visiting too?
Briefly, mostly for contrast — it’s the standard above-ground village built after flood damage forced residents from some of the old pits in 1969, and seeing the two side by side clarifies why the underground design mattered in the first place.
Is Matmata hot in summer like the rest of southern Tunisia?
Surface temperatures get just as high, but the pit interiors stay noticeably cooler thanks to the thermal mass of the surrounding rock, which is part of why the design persisted for so long.
