Cycling Algeria’s Coast – January 2025 Trip Report

Thanks for the heads-up, Tom. I have a colleague who visited Algeria about ten years ago and has wonderful memories of it. I’ll wait a while (a long while??) before following in her footsteps. But even if you didn’t get to meet the locals, at least you had a close-up experience with the local police—that’s a very authentic adventure 😂. I can’t quite picture it, though! Were they the same officers following you the whole trip, or did they change regularly? And did they talk to you?

They’d talk to us when they spoke English or French. And it was different brigades taking shifts at the wilaya borders.

Questions?? How did you manage to get your visas?? What documents did you have to provide for that?? Thanks for shedding some light on this!

We got our visas through the Algerian consulate in Saint-Étienne. We needed a hotel reservation (or an invitation from an Algerian), an online form, insurance, proof of income (last 3 payslips), and the modest sum of 120 € per person for 30 days.

Okay, and I understand your trip better now. At the consulate, for your visa application, didn’t they ask you to specify the daily details of your arrivals and departures at each stop, along with the paid hotel reservation confirmation for each one—like they demanded from me at the Bordeaux consulate?

Hi there, three years ago we wanted to cycle to Kabylie, starting from home. When we asked about visas in Saint-Étienne, we gave up. We were told we’d have to stay in fancy hotels, provide addresses over there, and so on. We don’t travel to stress ourselves out—we travel to unwind. If they don’t want tourists, that’s their loss. So instead, we left home for two months with no set plan. Once we reached Toulon, we found a boat to Sardinia, then cycled to Minorca, Majorca, and back via Barcelona, the Bardenas Desert, the Pyrenees, and the Canal du Midi—all wild camping and never bothered except by wild boars. That made a 3,000 km journey. You can read the full story on our blog

Hi there, As you can check on this forum, it’s clear that depending on the consulate and how the "on-duty clerk" interprets the laws when processing visa applications, it’s completely random and depends on the official’s mood. Some travelers got their visa without any issues (extremely rare), while others, like you, gave up. No wandering wherever the wind takes you like a true backpacker. However, there’s no problem for trips organized by agencies or tour operators. After my experience, I’ve concluded that for now, there’s a little "workaround" for independent travel in Algeria that I used without any problems. First, THE ACCOMMODATION CERTIFICATE. Two options: - Provide one from a hotel along with proof of a fully paid reservation for the entire stay, with the obligation to stay there. This means paying upfront. - Or provide one from an Algerian resident, valid for the entire stay, and stay at their place. I went with the second option, knowing that once you’ve completed the arrival formalities in Algeria, no one will bother you. So I landed in Ghazaouet with my old VW T3 camper van and then went wherever I wanted. During my month-long stay, I almost always camped—at gas stations, often on streets or in parking lots of small towns or villages—only spending three nights in a hotel. All in all, I only had three road checks. I wanted to go back this winter, but the current atmosphere isn’t really encouraging me to do so!! What a shame—such a captivating country!! Kindness, generosity, honesty......

Hello everyone,

This is my first post here to share a little feedback on our west-to-east cycling trip along the Algerian coast in January 2025. We set off as a couple, my partner and I, with French passports and not a word of Arabic. No friends or welcoming hosts in the country.

Given these conditions, we strongly advise against going there.

Our initial plan was to follow the coast from Algiers to Tunis. In the end, we cycled from Algiers to Béjaia, then took the train from Béjaia to Annaba (with a stop in Constantine), before cycling to the border. We were followed by the police the entire time—whether cycling, on the train, or even on foot when visiting towns. What’s more, we couldn’t camp and were restricted to the rare hotels approved by the state to accommodate foreigners. Under these conditions, meeting locals was particularly difficult.

With such an omnipresent and intrusive police presence, we advise against this destination for cycle touring. A truly sad situation that completely isolates you from the local population...

We were warned, we went to check it out, and we weren’t disappointed!

Consider yourselves warned.

Hello, did you later realize that the police were following you for your safety and that they never actually prevented you from meeting locals? You say you were "confined" to hotels, which might suggest you weren’t allowed to leave them. Many travelers returning from Algeria don’t describe it that way at all—they explain they had freedom of movement even though the police were also omnipresent for them (personally, I see it as a guarantee of safety). I’m planning to go to Algeria soon and rent a car, as cycling seems a bit dangerous given their driving habits. Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience.

Hi Tom, I’m really surprised by your experience, because mine was almost the opposite!... Bike trip in October/November 2024 with a paraglider on the luggage rack. Briançon/Genoa/Tunis/Béjaïa/Algiers/Oran/Marseille. (And 5 days in Kabylie).

I wanted to return to this country I’d traveled through by hitchhiking via Morocco (back when the border between the two countries was open) in November 1991 (a few months before the civil war) and see if I’d still find the incredible welcome I’d received back then. I wasn’t disappointed!

My guiding thread: the Mediterranean, a few contacts with paragliders on the ground, and day-by-day travel. I slept on the beach, in a paragliding school’s storage room, in small hotels where locals go, and especially in these youth hostels that form an incredible network across the whole country. (A remnant of the communist era)

For a price that defies all competition (between 10/15 euros), I sometimes found myself alone with the caretaker in large buildings with a sea view. And when the hostel was closed, someone would call the caretaker to come open it.

I made friends with young students from Béjaïa, with whom I spent three days and stayed in touch.

As well as with an executive who worked in oil and his girlfriend, with whom we toured Algiers before ending up invited to a restaurant, and an offer to stay at their place—which I declined because I’d found a small hotel in the lower Casbah that I particularly liked. I also loved Algiers, the Mediterranean counterpart to Marseille, the only cosmopolitan city in France that hasn’t (yet) been too affected by gentrification.

As for the paragliders, they’d drive me up to the paragliding takeoffs with their clients and bring me beers to the storage room where we’d spend evenings talking about society, politics, and of course the Black Decade, which left its mark on hearts and minds!...

A little advice from an old-school traveler (60 years old): put your phones away, and maybe you’ll be a bit more open and available for encounters... Try to be present with yourself, and you’ll naturally be present for others. I’ve been traveling by hitchhiking, bike, and sailboat for over 40 years and never brought a phone with me. (In fact, in France, I only own an old flip phone.) It forces you to communicate with everyone, like before!

That didn’t stop me from wandering from Turkey to Yemen via Iran (though I’d advise against it now), hanging out in the Stans, biking through West Africa, and crossing the Mediterranean and the Atlantic by sailboat, etc...

Maybe I’m at an advantage because of my job as a mountain guide, the experience of all these years of travel—I’m good at connecting with anyone, from any social class. I tend to avoid my fellow countrymen (Westerners in general, though I still run into them in remote lodges) and try to blend in with the locals. Sitting on a sidewalk chatting for two or three hours, I remember—it was in Morocco, I think—I went back to the same old shopkeeper in some souk three days in a row just to enjoy remaking the world. Pure happiness, and I don’t even remember what he was trying to sell me, or if he did either...

To echo your point, yes, the visa is a hassle to get. I’d asked for a month and a half, and they only gave me a month... You really have to gather all the documents. The hotel reservation photocopies (one is enough) must be legible. I ran into a real gatekeeper at the Grenoble consulate who made me have the hotel reservation resent (which, by the way, I never even stayed at) because the ink wasn’t clear enough! They sent me the same one back, and it worked, but I had to come back the next day.

That said, all of this stems from the terrible relations between France and Algeria. Yes, in the wilaya (department) of Béjaïa, I was escorted by the police, but that didn’t stop me from going out that evening to get a beer (they’d gone back to the barracks) and asking them to put my bike in the trunk of their car while I took off paragliding. They even bought me an orange juice at the landing zone. (I’d struck a deal with them: either they took my bike down and went home quickly to their families, or my bike stayed up the mountain, and I’d have to hike back up to get it, making their day much longer!)

Military, police, and locals were also concerned about my safety in Kabylie, where a guide was kidnapped and murdered (Hervé Gourdel) 10 years ago now. That said, I’ve experienced worse—though after two days, I went into a police station to make a scene and demand explanations, but it didn’t help.

Okay, I’ll stop here—sorry for the long reply! But to sum up: go to Algeria, one of the warmest welcomes I’ve ever experienced (along with the Iranians), and if the regime ever falls, go to Iran.

Cheers. Safe travels.

Phil...