Road trips in Tasmania

Choose a journey, plot a route and hit the road.

This compact island offers the freedom to find whatever you seek – natural wonders, inspiration, adventure, a nip of whisky poured by the hand of the distiller – and so much you never expected.

Tasmania's best road trips

Bordered by the wild coastline of Bass Strait, a journey across northern Tasmania is a chance to slow down, breathe deep – that’s (officially) the cleanest air in the world you’re inhaling – forage and follow your food from paddock to plate at some of Australia’s most fertile farms and pasture. Stop at farm-gate stalls, distilleries and cellar doors for tastings, and to meet the makers. And linger in rural villages and quirky coastal towns along the way.

Drive the Northern Forage

A journey through southern Tasmania is framed by water and defined by river and sea. Explore the hidden coves of the broad D’Entrecasteaux Channel, swing by the farm-gate stalls and cider houses of the Huon Valley, and detour by ferry for just-shucked oysters and farmhouse cheeses on Bruny Island. Venture into the south-west wilderness, lashed by the Southern Ocean, for wildlife watching, walks, stargazing and solitude, and pause at Australia’s southern-most edge – next stop, Antarctica.

Drive the Southern Edge

Rich in history, stories and beauty, this journey through central Tasmania will nudge your sense of time. Detour on convict-built roads and follow country lanes hemmed by hedgerows through farmland that has been worked and loved by generations of Tasmanians. Find old-fashioned country hospitality along streets lined with Georgian-era facades. Then venture into the Central Highlands, a wild landscape of lakes, mountains and moors with a rich hydro-industrial legacy.

Drive the Heartlands

Just when you think you’ve seen the longest, loveliest beach, the road sweeps around and another sparkling coastline stretches ahead. A journey along Tasmania’s east coast mixes peace and pleasure in equal measure, taking in laidback hinterland towns and classic seaside villages. The drive spans the perfect arc of Wineglass Bay, and national parks threaded with walking tracks and inhabited by fascinating wildlife. Embrace simple luxuries – pull over and follow a beach track, order seafood at a fish shack, fall asleep with an ocean soundtrack.

Drive the Great Eastern Drive

Tasmania’s west is known for its wilderness landscapes – cool-temperate rainforests and alpine plains, mountains and glacial valleys, wild rivers and windswept coasts. Less known are the human stories of the Western Wilds: tales of survival, endurance, mining booms and busts, folly and grand vision that live on in local memory and through heritage streetscapes. Take a steam train through the rainforest, haunt a ghost town and cruise mirror-perfect rivers past centuries-old trees. Drive the 99 Bends, and stand at the windswept edge of the world.

Drive the Western Wilds

History trails

Travel back in time on a trio of history trails. The Convict Trail unchains the beauty and brutality of Tasmania’s early years of white settlement, while the Highlands Power Trailis an exploration of the state’s earliest hydro projects across the Central Highlands. Find towns built from sandstone and bridges built by convicts along the Heritage Highway.

Drinks trails

Name your tipple and there’s a trail to match in Tasmania. Four wine trails explore cellar doors north, south, east and north-west, while the Whisky & Spirits Trail is a toast to the golden greatness of Tasmania’s booming whisky distilleries – there are now more than 70 of them across the state. She’s apples on the Tasmanian Cider Trail, while the Tasmanian Beer Trail goes from Australia’s oldest working brewery through to craft brewers fresh out of the keg.

Food trails

Tasmania’s produce is as fresh as the air that sustains it, and readily accessible from its farmers and makers. The Tasting Trail stitches together almost 40 gastronomic stops across the north coast. And set your fish-finder along the Seafood Trails.