Tunis to Nice: How two US TikTokers sparked an Africa phobia debate and high travel drama

Dubai: Two American twenty-somethings set out for the French Riviera and instead got a surprise geography lesson—complete with a bonus stamp in their passports.

Brittney Dzialo and her friend missed their Rome-to-Nice flight and asked for “a flight to Nice.”

Somewhere between their lips and the ticket desk, “to Nice” morphed into “Tunis,” and an airline agent pointed them toward Tunisair.

A few clicks and a boarding pass later, they were buckled in for a ride to Tunisia, blissfully unaware.

Reality hit mid-air when a fellow passenger casually dropped, “Yeah, this is going to Tunis.”

A few frantic Google searches and the dawning horror of homophones: Nice is “neese,” Tunis is “too-neese.” One tiny syllable, whole different continent.

They tried pleading with the flight attendant, but the doors were closed and destiny was North African.

Hours later, after a bewildered layover in the Tunis airport and a tangle of “how did we even do this?” chats with airline staff, they finally hopped a plane to their intended Riviera playground.

TikTok, of course, lost its collective mind.

Dzialo posted a photo of her friend by a Tunis fountain with the caption “NICE, COMMA, FRANCE,” which is chef’s-kiss viral bait.

Here’s where my side-eye kicks in: the over-the-top fuss about a plane simply landing in Tunisia was almost comical. Over dinner with a few Tunisian journalist peers this weekend, I watched them shake their heads—equal parts amused and exasperated—at the travelers’ ignorance of the country and their nervousness about ‘Africa.’ Only in America could a basic geography lesson turn into a spectacle, they felt.

Meanwhile, comments on TikTok and Insta were ruthless: “How do you not read your boarding pass?” “Didn’t you see the giant ‘TUNIS’ at the gate?” “There are, like, five checkpoints!” Fair questions—but hey, viral fame demands a little chaos.

Accidental or engineered, one thing’s certain: these two will never confuse to Nice with Tunis again—and maybe they’ll broaden their travel mindset while they’re at it.