Algeria country page

ALGERIA
Lonely Planet, 2026 336pp £14.99
Buy discounted on amazon

Eighteen years after the first edition (review), original author Anthony Ham is back with new co-authors to give this huge country another sweep. In that time guidebook sales have collapsed, but by all means knock yourself out online trying to collate the broad spread of information amassed here. Providing it’s thoroughly done – never an easy job, even with today’s internet resources – this is why a pocket-sized guidebook still works. And after half a century in the business, LP have a new look which has refined the art of laying out a guidebook to be eminently ‘dippable’. While you might call that form over function, flick open any spread and you’ll be drawn to something of interest. Here are my pros and cons:

• Great price for what you get despite the flaws listed below
• Reader-friendly design
• I don’t know the north, but it looks well covered and interesting
• Need for guided tours plus escort aggro not glossed over
• Locals’ PoV and contributions a nice touch. Could have had more of that

• As before, fails to get the big picture down south
• Maps are plain, many with small errors, don’t distinguish main highways from tracks (some non existent), nor show road numbers or some places referenced in the text
• Couldn’t find a legend for the tiny, inscrutable map icons
• Generic library photos are disconnected from body text – as if there were two separate editors at work
• Loads of repeated info/boxes (eg: Foucauld) plus a few pointless or obsolete boxes carried over too, like 153 Club
• Nothing on camel trekking practicalities (best way to experience the true Sahara), Trans Sahara Highway, the oil business, self-drive rental cars (if even possible), etc, etc
• Why recommend flying between Djanet and Tam when there’s a spectacular desert road?
• Despite apparently being in the Immidir for ‘1000s of years’ (p259), you’d think the Tuareg (pictured on the cover) would make a good two-page spread
• Many place names or spellings unrelated to long -established mapped precedents
• Grumbles about sourcing ancient paper maps; so in 2026 why not research/suggest a digital alternative?
• ‘Bedouin’ tents/tea/etc – in Algeria?
• Detailed maps of ‘Sefar plateau’ and Tadrart would be helpful to ID the many places mentioned
• Insistence on amusingly alliterative headings doesn’t always work
• Odd absence of other/European sources of background, history, adventure, reading, coffee-table books and so on. Deliberate or just an oversight?
• 1990s civil war or anything on contemporary social issues also overlooked. Maybe too hot a topic?
• Confusion with travelling with ‘4WD, Camel or on Foot’ makes you wonder if they ever actually did it. Despite what’s implied for Sefar (p300), all overnight walks – ‘Camp out under Saharan skies‘, to quote the back cover – are contingent on pack animals or a jeep. You won’t survive long in the desert without either
• The far west (Tindouf, primarily) is not covered. Why not explain why, given it’s become the way to Mauritania

To people like me who’ve visited le grand sud dozens of times over several decades, Algeria is the Sahara and the Sahara is Algeria; it’s all here in one huge, relatively safe and welcoming country. This being an LP, the populated north (not so safe at the time of the first edition, iirc) gets the full treatment: coastal cities, Roman ruins, Kabylia and the Aures mountains.
But despite global tourism’s onward march, your average Planeteer may need explaining that Algeria resembles Iran, Myanmar or North Korea, with restrictive visa- and access regimes that, since the 2003 mass kidnappings, require local travel agency invites as well as approved itineraries followed by chaperoning in the deep south. On a fly-in tour or in a big group, that’s not a problem and can be fun. For travellers used to independence, especially in an enticing expanse like the Sahara, it’s costly and frustrating, especially if lumbered with a crap agency crew. Dodging the agency escort rule is possible in the north (and, for a couple of years recently, in the south too), but down south there’s a good chance you’ll also get roped into pointless gendarmerie (not ‘police’) highway escorts, even when travelling with an approved agency. This is addressed openly and repeatedly often in the book, and is what holds back the country’s overseas tourism potential.

What They Say
Discover Algeria’s most popular experiences and best kept secrets from sandboarding or quad biking in the spectacular desert oasis of Timimoun; to exploring Tlemcen, an architectural jewel of medieval mosques and palaces; and gazing in awe at the 15,000 prehistoric petroglyphs [sic] at Tassili N’Ajjer National Park.
Build a trip to remember with Lonely Planet’s Algeria travel guide: Covers: Algiers, Tipaza, Constantine, Djemila, Annaba, Timgad, Tlemcen, Oran, M’Zab Valley, Timimoun, Beni Abbès, El-Oued, Tassili N’Ajjer National Park, Assekrem, Tassili du Hoggar [sic].

Review
The guidebook is divided into into four sections. Only bold sections below were read end to end, the other sections were scanned. Added up, the Sahara covers about 40% of the Guide section.

PLAN YOUR TRIP – 50pp (Highlights)
THE GUIDE 230pp
– Algiers – 28pp
– Northeast – 42pp Algeria (Roman ruins)
– Oran – 20pp
– Northwest Algeria – 18pp
– Central Algeria and the Grand Ergs – 44pp (Northern Sahara)
– Tamanrasset, Djanet and the Sahara – 48pp (Deep south and southwest)
TOOLKIT – 14pp (Travel practicalities)
STORYBOOK – 14pp (Cultural background)

Opening the book, a striking Shutterstock image of granite monoliths (below) jumps off the Contents page and is reused here. Captioned ‘Tassili N’Ajjer NP’, it didn’t resemble the sandstone ramparts and canyons I knew. Searching online drew no answers, bar this similar image by Tom Sheppard, which I’m fairly sure is in the distinctive Tesnou region west of the TSH and miles from the Tassili NP.
This isn’t the first guidebook I’ve reviewed recently that’s entirely illustrated with stock imagery, with authors no more than template-filling content providers. But as listed above, it’s common to read an evocative description and think ‘I wonder where that is or what it looks like’. The text and imagery, even the maps, are often disconnected.

Upfront, Plan your Trip lays out authors’ highlights of the Guide’s five regions followed by suggested Itineraries. The northern ones look good, but what do I know? Down south ‘Into the Heart of the Atakor’ oddly suggests going from Tam up to Assekrem, then coming back 80km and back up the western approach as far as isolated Ilmane peak (left), just 22km west of Assekrem. It’s hard to think why this wasn’t a straightforward 200-km overnight loop via both locales, except later on the missing link is described as a ‘dangerous short-cut’ and ‘perilous clifftop traverse’. Really?
There follows spreads including when to go, Ramadan, dress and manners, visiting the desert and choosing an agency, the food scene, getting a visa (VoA now a staggering €365 for 30 days, vs £85 at a consulate or online!) and the Outdoors.

After the Guide Toolkit practicalities cover arriving, getting around, money (black market recommended, but why US dollars?), lodgings, health and safety (‘avoid Algeria’s border with ‘Western Sahara’; except there isn’t one), women travellers, language and so on. The book ends with Storybook which tackles a sketchy History in 15 Places rather than chronologically, a skimpy ‘Meet the Algerians’, Algiers artists, prehistoric rock art and the Algiers Casbah (left) – site of bitter independence battles in the early 1960s and now a tourist attraction. Here would have been a perfect place to expand on the Tuareg, their enduring mystique, origins, traditions, clans, rebellions, persecution and all the rest. Libraries and the web are awash with material.

Backing up to the two Saharan sections of the Guide, the Ergs and Oases looks like a pretty good account from El Oued to Taghit via Ghardaia and Timimoun. In El Oued the ‘Top Experience’ spread covering camping and quad biking in the dunes is rather reluctantly rendered, and there’s confusion about the location of the Tademait as well as Ghardaia being ‘south’ of Ouargla (it’s WNW). On p212 there’s another typical example of annoying repetition: a column on the left talks of Convoys (escorts) while the body text alongside has a heading ‘Police escort’. They mean the paramilitary gendarmerie (a big difference), but never mind. Templates seem to be being filled with no overall cohesion while I get the feeling that too many of author’s subjective encounters are passed off as typical reader experiences because of a lack of background knowledge. In the meantime, it looks like I’ve long missed the boat to visit once lovely Taghit; now dumbed down to a dune-bashing desert resort, like Erg Chebbi, just 190km to the west.
Moving on to ‘Tam, Djanet & the Sahara’, as with the previous edition it’s either one or the other with no connection between the two towns or ‘hubs’, other than suggesting a flight. As mentioned above, the suggested itinerary into the Atakor (Assekrem) seems odd, and is there really a place called ‘Guelta’ near Terhenanet, or did they just mean waterhole? Maybe authors no longer get to check finished proofs. And you’d think the beautiful Tazrouk loop out of Tam, let alone the N55 to Djanet would’ve been a great itinerary too. Meanwhile, the distinctive Tefedest and Arak Gorge (marked earlier under ‘Action Areas’ as an ‘extreme adventure’ locale) share a sentence, then never get another word. In Salah turns into a masterful exercise in padding – another sunset dune venue (yawn), while dodging actual POIs. It may only be there to pitch as a hub to visit the nearby Immidir (below), by which time the author is definitely winging it in full flow. One person can’t visit every amazing area, so track down contributors to fill the gaps.

In the end it all reads too much like the author spent a night in In Salah once, did a tour or two out of Tam and Djanet and believed what guides told them, then bounced off to their next update. That’s a shame and may be the reality of today’s budget-constrained guidebook research and production. But you’ll still find 15 quids’ worth of ideas and inspiration between the covers.