Tasmania is Australia’s best-kept travel secret, and people who’ve been there will fight you on the word “secret” because they’ve been trying to tell everyone for years. This is a place of almost reckless natural beauty — where wilderness takes up 42% of the land area in protected national parks, where the air is routinely described as the cleanest in the world, where the food is so good it draws chefs from the mainland the way Tuscany draws them from Europe. It is also the most undervisited state in Australia, which means that even in peak season you can hike for hours without seeing another person, camp on beaches that belong entirely to you, and experience a version of untouched Australia that has largely disappeared from the mainland.
Seven days is the ideal minimum for Tasmania. Less than that and you’ll spend too much time driving; more than that and you’ll start discovering how many days you could actually use. This itinerary covers the essential circuit: Hobart (the charming capital), the Freycinet Peninsula (arguably Australia’s most beautiful coastal national park), the Tasman Peninsula (dramatic sea cliffs and the sobering history of Port Arthur), and the wild southwest. It’s designed as a self-drive loop — you’ll need a car — and it hits everything you’d regret missing while still leaving breathing room for the kind of unplanned moments that make Tasmanian travel so memorable.
📋 TL;DR – Tasmania 7-Day Itinerary: The Perfect Week on the Island State
- ✅ You need a car: Public transport in Tasmania is limited outside Hobart. Hire a car at Hobart Airport — it’s non-negotiable for this itinerary.
- 🏔️ Non-negotiables: MONA in Hobart, Wineglass Bay at Freycinet, the Bay of Fires, and the view from Cape Hauy on the Tasman Peninsula.
- 🌊 Weather warning: Tasmania’s weather changes fast. Pack layers, waterproofs, and good walking boots regardless of season. The famous saying is “four seasons in one day” and it’s not an exaggeration.
- 🥩 Food highlight: Tasmanian food is exceptional — particularly the beef, lamb, salmon, oysters, cheese, and cool-climate wines. Eat local at every opportunity.
- 🌿 Best time to visit: November–April for reliable weather and longer daylight hours. January–February is summer peak. June–August is off-season — cold, quieter, some attractions have reduced hours.
- 🎨 Book MONA in advance: MONA is one of the world’s great contemporary art museums, and it occasionally has ticketing capacity limits. Check and pre-book before you arrive.
- ✈️ Getting there: Fly into Hobart from Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane (1–2 hours). The Spirit of Tasmania ferry from Melbourne is also an excellent option if you’re bringing a car from the mainland — but the overnight crossing takes 9–10 hours.
🗓️ Day-by-day Tasmania itinerary at a glance
- Day 1: Arrive Hobart, Salamanca Place, waterfront evening
- Day 2: MONA in the morning, Hobart city, Mt Wellington/kunanyi summit
- Day 3: Tasman Peninsula — Port Arthur and Cape Hauy walk
- Day 4: Drive north to Freycinet, afternoon hike to Wineglass Bay lookout
- Day 5: Bay of Fires — swim, walk, camp or lodge night
- Day 6: Cradle Mountain day or west coast drive (loop back south)
- Day 7: Return to Hobart, Salamanca market (Saturday), depart
🛳️ Day 1: Arrive in Hobart
Hobart is the second-oldest capital city in Australia and feels nothing like any other Australian city. It’s small by mainland standards — around 230,000 people — and built around the extraordinary natural amphitheatre of Sullivan’s Cove, with the bulk of Mount Wellington/kunanyi rising 1,271 metres above the city behind it. The architecture is largely colonial-era sandstone and Georgian brick, and wandering the waterfront streets feels more like a well-preserved British port town than the modern glass cities of the Australian mainland. It has an atmosphere that’s hard to define but immediately felt: a certain quietness, a seriousness about food and art and nature, a slightly rain-worn beauty that Hobart residents are fiercely, justifiably proud of.
On arrival day, head to Salamanca Place — the row of converted sandstone warehouse buildings along the waterfront that now houses galleries, restaurants, cafés, and bars. It’s the heart of Hobart’s social life and the best place to get your bearings. The Salamanca Square behind it is equally charming. Have dinner at one of the Salamanca restaurants — Peacock and Jones (excellent share plates), Cargo Bar (waterfront views), or the more formal atmosphere of the Franklin on Morrison Street nearby. Tasmanian beef and lamb are national treasures; order them wherever you can.
🦪 Tasmanian food to eat on day 1
Tasmania produces some of the best food in Australia, and Hobart is its showcase. The Tasmanian oysters — both Pacific and the native flat oysters from the east coast — are extraordinary: cold, clean, and briny from the pristine waters. Order a dozen at any waterfront oyster bar and understand immediately why chefs make pilgrimages here. The Atlantic salmon from the Huon Valley aquaculture farms are world-renowned. The King Island and Cape Grim beef are genuinely among the finest in the world — grass-fed, wind-swept, mineral-rich. Bruny Island Cheese (particularly the soft washed-rind varieties) is some of the finest artisan cheese in Australia. Eat everything.
🎨 Day 2: MONA and kunanyi/Mount Wellington
MONA — the Museum of Old and New Art — is David Walsh’s gift to Tasmania and one of the most extraordinary cultural institutions in the Southern Hemisphere. Walsh, a professional gambler who made his fortune through mathematical card-counting systems, built MONA as a personal collection made public: three underground levels of contemporary and ancient art exploring themes of sex, death, religion, and time, displayed in a space that is itself a work of art. It’s provocative, frequently confronting, occasionally bizarre, and consistently brilliant. The MONA O — the museum’s smartphone app, which guides you through the collection with Walsh’s own commentary — is one of the best curatorial tools of any museum anywhere. Give it at least 3–4 hours.
The MONA ferry from the Hobart waterfront is the way to get there — a 25-minute trip up the Derwent River on a catamaran that’s an experience in itself. Return to Hobart for lunch, then drive up Mount Wellington in the afternoon. The summit road is 22 km from the city and reaches 1,271 metres — on a clear day you can see the entire Derwent estuary, the Channel, and out to the Tasman Sea. In winter the summit is often snow-covered. In summer the view is simply extraordinary, and the temperature at the summit is typically 5–8°C cooler than the city below. Bring a layer.
In the evening, explore Hobart’s Battery Point neighbourhood — the original residential suburb of colonial Hobart, a maze of sandstone cottages, Georgian houses, and narrow laneways climbing the hill above Salamanca. It’s one of the most beautifully preserved colonial streetscapes in Australia and almost entirely overlooked by first-time visitors to the city.
⛓️ Day 3: Tasman Peninsula
The Tasman Peninsula is a 90-minute drive south-east of Hobart and holds two of Tasmania’s most important experiences: Port Arthur and the sea cliff walks of Tasman National Park. Start early — you want the whole day here.
Port Arthur Historic Site was one of the British Empire’s most significant penal settlements, operating from 1833 to 1877 and receiving over 12,000 convicts during its operation. The ruins of the site — the penitentiary, the church, the lunatic asylum, the model prison — are extraordinarily well-preserved and set in beautiful grounds around a sheltered cove. The guided historical tours bring the stories to life in ways that the ruins alone don’t fully convey: the separation from family, the systematic psychological pressure of the silent system, the extraordinary escapes that failed and the few that didn’t. Allow 3–4 hours here and don’t rush it. The ghosts are real — Port Arthur is one of the most genuinely atmospheric historical sites in Australia.
In the afternoon, drive to Cape Hauy for the clifftop walk. The Cape Hauy Track (return 5 km, 2–3 hours) through Tasman National Park leads to one of the most dramatic coastal viewpoints in Tasmania: the Totem Pole (a 65-metre sea stack beloved by extreme climbers), the Candlestick rock formation, and sheer dolerite sea cliffs falling 200+ metres straight into the Southern Ocean. The walk through coastal heath and banksia scrub is beautiful, and the views from the cape itself are extraordinary in any weather. On a wild day with the Southern Ocean swell crashing into the base of the cliffs below you, it’s genuinely unforgettable.
🌊 Day 4: Drive to Freycinet — Wineglass Bay
Freycinet National Park is 3.5 hours north of Hobart along the east coast — a long but beautiful drive through the Tasmanian Midlands and then down the Freycinet Peninsula. Freycinet is one of the most photographed natural landscapes in Australia, and its most iconic image is of Wineglass Bay: a perfect curve of white beach cupped between pink granite mountains, seen from the Wineglass Bay Lookout above. The walk to the lookout is steep but short (about 2.5 km return and 30 minutes each way) and the view from the top is everything the photographs promise, and more.
For more inspiration, check out Best Things to Do in Tasmania.
If you have the energy, continue down the other side of the saddle to Wineglass Bay beach itself — another 2 km and 45 minutes each way, but the beach is entirely worth the extra effort. The sand is white and extremely fine, the water is a startling shade of pale blue-green, and in the middle of the day you’ll often have a kilometre-long pristine beach almost entirely to yourself. Swim in it. It’s cold — the east coast of Tasmania is cold year-round, typically 14–18°C — but the experience of swimming in Wineglass Bay is one you’ll remember your entire life.
Stay overnight in Coles Bay (the small settlement at the entrance to Freycinet) or at the Freycinet Lodge, which has chalets within the national park. The lodge restaurant is excellent — local oysters, east coast salmon, and a good Tasmanian wine list.
👉 Book a Freycinet & Wineglass Bay Day Tour from Hobart on GetYourGuide →
🔥 Day 5: Bay of Fires
The Bay of Fires is 1.5 hours north of Freycinet along the east coast, and it’s Tasmania at its most spectacular. The name doesn’t refer to bushfire — it comes from the fires Aboriginal Tasmanians had burning on the beach when European explorers first sailed past in 1773 — but the coastline does burn with colour: extraordinary boulders stained orange and red by lichen, set against white sand beaches and the most intensely turquoise water you’ll see south of Queensland. It’s genuinely one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in Australia, and it’s almost always uncrowded even in high season.
The Bay of Fires stretches about 30 km from Binalong Bay in the south to Eddystone Point in the north, and the best approach is to drive the coast road stopping at beaches along the way. The Gardens (a small camping and day-use area about halfway along) has some of the most photogenic granite-and-lichen coastline, with a short walk along the headland. Swimcart Beach, a little further north, is beautiful and usually quiet. The northern end near Eddystone Point is more remote and requires a bit more driving, but the lighthouse (1889) and the granite headland around it are magnificent.
Stay overnight at one of the small lodges or campgrounds at Binalong Bay or the Gardens. Camping here — going to sleep to the sound of the Southern Ocean and waking up on a beach that looks like it was designed by someone trying to illustrate the concept of perfection — is among the finest camping experiences in Australia.
🏔️ Day 6: Cradle Mountain or the west coast
Day 6 presents a choice that depends on your energy levels and driving tolerance. Both options are genuinely spectacular — they’re just spectacular in very different ways.
Option A — Cradle Mountain: Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park is 4 hours from the Bay of Fires (via Launceston and Deloraine) and contains one of the most dramatic alpine landscapes in Australia. The Dove Lake Circuit (6 km, 2–3 hours) circles a glacially carved lake below the jagged dolerite teeth of Cradle Mountain itself — one of the most iconic views in Australian nature. Wombats, wallabies, and echidnas are commonly seen on the circuit. The park also marks the northern end of the 65 km Overland Track, Australia’s most famous multi-day wilderness walk. On a clear day, Cradle Mountain is extraordinary; even in cloud and drizzle (common), the alpine moodiness has its own power. This option involves a very long driving day — Cradle Mountain back to Hobart is another 2.5 hours from the mountain, making day 6 around 6–7 hours of driving plus the walk. Start very early.
Option B — West coast drive via Queenstown: Drive south from the Bay of Fires through Launceston and then west through the mountains to Queenstown — a former mining town of extraordinary visual strangeness, where the mining chemicals stripped the surrounding hills of all vegetation, leaving bare, multicoloured slopes that look unlike anything else in Australia. Then continue south to Strahan on the wild west coast, where you can take the Gordon River cruise into the pristine wilderness of the southwest, before driving back to Hobart via the scenic Lyell Highway through the mountains. This route is longer in total but less of a single-point-destination day — it’s about the landscape itself, rolling through some of the most dramatic and least-visited terrain in Australia.
👉 Book a Cradle Mountain Day Tour from Hobart on GetYourGuide →
🥂 Day 7: Return to Hobart — Salamanca Market
If your day 7 falls on a Saturday — and I strongly encourage timing your Tasmania trip so it does — the Salamanca Market is not to be missed. Running every Saturday from 8.30am to 3pm along Salamanca Place, it’s one of Australia’s finest markets: over 300 stalls selling local produce, Tasmanian wine and whisky (Tasmania produces some of the finest single malt whisky in the world — Lark, Sullivans Cove, and Hellyers Road are all represented), handmade art and craft, hot food from local producers, and the general festive energy of a city that still takes its Saturday market very seriously.
Pick up a Tasmanian whisky, some leatherwood honey (from the bees that pollinate the ancient leatherwood trees of the southwest wilderness — the flavour is extraordinary and entirely unique to Tasmania), and whatever produce calls to you. Then have a final coffee at one of the Salamanca cafés and reflect on the fact that seven days in Tasmania never feels like enough — which is exactly the right way to leave a place.
Hobart Airport is 20 minutes from Salamanca, and the flights back to Melbourne (1 hour) and Sydney (1.5 hours) run frequently throughout the afternoon.
💰 Budget for 7 days in Tasmania
Tasmania is slightly cheaper than Sydney or Melbourne but not dramatically so. The main cost drivers are car hire and accommodation, both of which rise sharply in peak season:
- 🚗 Car hire: AUD $50–100 per day depending on season — budget this upfront as it’s non-negotiable for this itinerary
- 🏨 Budget (campgrounds/hostels): AUD $100–150 per day including accommodation, food, car hire
- 🏩 Mid-range: AUD $220–320 per day including 3–4 star accommodation, dining, car hire, and all entry fees
- 🌟 Luxury: AUD $400–600+ per day — the Freycinet Lodge, Saffire Freycinet, or a Bay of Fires Walk (the guided 4-day luxury walk) push the upper end very high
- 🎨 MONA entry: AUD $35 per day (multi-day pass available) — covers unlimited visits during your Hobart stay
- ⛓️ Port Arthur: AUD $48 per adult including the harbour cruise — book online for slight discount
📅 Best time to visit Tasmania
Tasmania is a year-round destination but with very different flavours in different seasons. Summer (December–February) delivers long days (Hobart gets light until nearly 10pm in midsummer), reliable beach weather, and the busiest tourism period — book accommodation months ahead. Autumn (March–May) is arguably the finest season: the deciduous trees in the Tasman and Huon valleys turn extraordinary colours, the summer crowds thin, and the weather is still reliably good. Winter (June–August) brings cold temperatures (sometimes snow in the highlands), a quieter atmosphere, and a magic of its own — particularly for visiting MONA, which feels exactly right in winter. Spring (September–November) sees wildflowers arriving and the landscape recovering its greens after the cold. The Overland Track is typically snow-free and fully open from October to May.
Whatever time of year you visit, Tasmania will exceed what you expected of it. That’s just what it does. If seven days has turned you into a convert, the best hikes in Tasmania and the best places to visit in Tasmania have everything you need to start planning your return.
