Day 73: A New Hope for Dune Messiah

That’s right friends, we’re in Star Wars country and have the Sahara to make Dune references.

Tunisia is the filming location for many scenes from A New Hope, Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and the Last Jedi. There is a real town named Tataouine and the ancient/modern troglodyte homes inspired Luke Skywalker’s childhood house. We visited Hotel Sidi Diss where they filmed scenes inside the Lar’s homestead.

Next we drove south to get as close as possible to the Sahara dunes without an organized tour guide. The car didn’t have four wheel drive so we knew we could only drive so far. Our effort paid off and we were able to park a 20 minute hike away from true dunes. The hills were huge and the sand was so soft. Partially for good friend Raj (mostly for ourselves) we recreated many Dune scenes.

We drove on to the town of Douz which is the official gateway to the Sahara for Tunisia and visited a local museum on the Sahara nomads. We ended the evening with a local tour guide camel trek to watch the sunset in the Sahara dunes. The colors were so beautiful and we captured a few more Dune reference shots.Read more