Best day trips from Hobart: 12 unmissable escapes from Tasmania’s capital
Hobart is one of Australia’s most beautiful capital cities — compact, walkable, historically rich and surrounded by extraordinary natural landscape. But the city is also one of the best bases in Australia for day trips. Within two hours of the CBD, you can be standing on the summit of a mountain with views over the whole island, swimming in a glacial lake, walking through temperate rainforest, tasting exceptional whisky at a hillside distillery, or watching fairy penguins emerge from the sea at dusk. The variety and quality of what’s accessible in a single day from Hobart is genuinely remarkable.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Hobart over the years, and each visit I discover something new within easy reach. The Tasmanian landscape is extraordinarily diverse for a relatively small area, and the standard of local food, wine and whisky means that every day trip here combines natural beauty with excellent eating and drinking. These are the best day trips from Hobart — the ones I’d recommend to anyone.
📋 TL;DR – Best day trips from Hobart
- 🏔️ Mount Wellington (kunanyi) is the best free activity near Hobart — a 45-minute drive to a summit with extraordinary views over the city and beyond.
- 🛥️ Bruny Island is the best full-day trip — great beaches, wildlife, seafood and the famous coastal cruise.
- 🦁 Port Arthur is Australia’s most significant convict heritage site — hauntingly beautiful and historically compelling.
- 🌿 The Huon Valley offers cider, apples, salmon farms and beautiful river scenery just 45 minutes south.
- 🦦 Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary is the best place near Hobart to meet Tasmanian devils, wombats and kangaroos.
- 🍷 Coal River Valley wineries are 25 minutes from the CBD — excellent cool-climate Pinot Noir and sparkling wine.
🏔️ 1. Mount Wellington (kunanyi) — the view every visitor needs
Mount Wellington — known to the Muwinina people as kunanyi — rises 1,271 metres directly behind Hobart, visible from almost everywhere in the city and accessible by car from the CBD in about 40 minutes. The summit road (open year-round except after heavy snow) takes you through several distinct vegetation zones — from suburban gardens through eucalypt forest to alpine heath and then bare dolerite rock — and delivers one of the great panoramic views in Australia at the top.
On a clear day, the view from the summit takes in the whole of the Derwent River valley, Hobart spread below you in miniature, the Huon Valley to the south, and on exceptional days the outline of the Australian mainland to the north. A network of walking tracks descends from the summit back to the suburbs for those who want to walk one way and drive the other. The Organ Pipes — a dramatic series of dolerite columns on the mountain’s eastern face, visible from the city — reward a short detour on the descent. Take warm layers even in summer; the summit temperature can be 10°C lower than Hobart’s.
🛥️ 2. Bruny Island — Tasmania’s best day trip
Bruny Island, reached by a 20-minute car ferry from Kettering (45 minutes south of Hobart), consistently ranks as Tasmania’s best single-day experience. The island has two distinct parts — North Bruny and South Bruny — connected by a narrow sandy isthmus called “The Neck,” where fairy penguins nest in burrows and short-tailed shearwaters raise their chicks in enormous colonies.
The Bruny Island Cruise (three hours, from Adventure Bay) is the headline attraction: a high-speed catamaran tour around the extraordinary southern cliffs, past sea caves, fur seal colonies, sea eagle nests, and the dramatic dolerite formations of Fluted Cape. Tens of thousands of seabirds nest on the cliffs, and the sheer drama of the coastline — seen from the water, at speed — is extraordinary. Allow a full day for Bruny Island: include the cruise, a visit to The Neck lookout for the penguin colony (evening visits give you the best chance of seeing them), and lunch at one of the excellent local producers (the oysters, cheese, fudge and whisky from Bruny Island are all exceptional).
👉 Book a Bruny Island day trip from Hobart on GetYourGuide →
🦁 3. Port Arthur — Australia’s great convict heritage site
Port Arthur, on the Tasman Peninsula about 90 minutes from Hobart, is Australia’s most significant and most visited convict heritage site. From 1833 to 1877 it served as a penal settlement for convicts who had re-offended after transportation to Australia — a place of hard labour, strict discipline, and psychological punishment through the innovative Separate Prison system, where prisoners were isolated in near-total silence.
Today the site is extraordinarily evocative: the ruins of the Penitentiary, the Asylum, the Guard Tower and dozens of other buildings sit in a beautiful landscape of green lawns and water that makes the grimness of the history even more poignant. The guided Harbour Cruise (included in the entry ticket) takes visitors around the settlement by water and past the Isle of the Dead — the convict cemetery — with an excellent commentary. The evening Ghost Tour is one of the most popular experiences in Tasmania: two hours walking the site after dark with ghost stories from its history. Book both in advance.
🌿 4. Huon Valley — apples, cider and river scenery
The Huon Valley, stretching south of Hobart along the banks of the Huon River, is one of Tasmania’s most beautiful agricultural landscapes and an excellent half-day or full-day trip from the capital. The valley has been growing apples since the 1880s and still has some of the most extraordinary heritage orchards in the country — old varieties that supermarkets have long since abandoned, grown by passionate producers who care deeply about the fruit.
For more inspiration, check out Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race Start.
Willie Smith’s Apple Shed at Grove is the best single stop: a beautifully restored apple packing shed that now houses an excellent restaurant (the apple pie is mandatory), a cider tasting room, and a museum of heritage apple variety. The Huon River Jet Boat Experience at Huonville is excellent for children — a fast, exciting tour through the Huon River gorge. Further south, the Tahune AirWalk — a walkway suspended 48 metres above the Huon River through ancient swamp gum forest — gives extraordinary views into the forest canopy. Combine these stops and you have a full, excellent day out from Hobart.
🦦 5. Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary — get close to Tasmanian wildlife
Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, about 25 minutes north of Hobart near Brighton, is the best place in southern Tasmania to experience native wildlife close up. The sanctuary cares for injured and orphaned animals and has resident populations of Tasmanian devils, wombats, wallabies, echidnas, bandicoots, quolls and many others. Unlike the sometimes sterile experience of zoo-style wildlife parks, Bonorong feels genuinely engaged with conservation and the welfare of its animals.
The Tasmanian devil feeding sessions (at 11:30am and 2pm daily) are extraordinary: watching these small, compact, extraordinarily powerful animals tear into their food with an enthusiasm and noise that belies their size is one of those wildlife experiences that genuinely surprises you. Free-roaming wallabies and kangaroos come to be fed from your hands throughout the grounds. The nocturnal tour (after dark) gives you the best chance of seeing the more reclusive species like quolls and possums. This is an excellent half-day trip that combines well with a visit to the Coal River Valley wineries.
🍷 6. Coal River Valley — Hobart’s wine backyard
The Coal River Valley, 25 minutes northeast of Hobart, is Tasmania’s most accessible wine region and one of the most underrated in Australia. The cool climate here produces exceptional cool-climate varieties — Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling and some of Australia’s best sparkling wine — from some of the country’s most dedicated small producers. Cellar doors include Pooley Wines (in a beautiful heritage barn with excellent Pinot), Domaine A (producing some of the best Cabernet in Australia, against all climatic expectations), and Frogmore Creek (which has one of the region’s best restaurants).
The valley is also home to Coal Valley Vineyard, Richmond (Tasmania’s best-preserved Georgian village, with Australia’s oldest intact bridge and a genuinely lovely bakery), and the Zoodoo Wildlife Park. The combination of wine, heritage architecture and wildlife makes the Coal River Valley one of the most rewarding half-day excursions in Tasmania, particularly for those who appreciate a glass of wine at the end of it.
🌊 7. Tasman Peninsula — cliffs, kayaking and dramatic coast
The Tasman Peninsula, while mostly associated with Port Arthur, is also home to some of the most dramatic coastal scenery in Australia. The sea cliffs on the southern Tasman Peninsula — in particular around Cape Hauy and Cape Pillar — are among the tallest in the southern hemisphere, with dolerite columns rising 300 metres from the sea. The Tasman Coastal Trail, which takes three to four days to walk in full, can be experienced in day sections: the walk from Fortescue Bay to Cape Hauy is an excellent six-hour return walk with extraordinary views.
Sea kayaking in the Tasman National Park is another exceptional experience: paddle through sea caves, around sea stacks, past fur seal colonies and beneath the dramatic cliff faces. Roaring 40s Ocean Kayaking runs guided tours of varying lengths, including full-day paddles along the cliff coast. The combination of Port Arthur and a half-day on the coast makes for one of the most complete day trips available from Hobart.
🍎 8. The Derwent Valley and Mount Field National Park
Mount Field National Park, about 75 minutes northwest of Hobart, is one of Tasmania’s oldest and most beautiful national parks. The park covers an extraordinary range of habitats, from the tall eucalypt forest and giant tree ferns of the lower valley to the alpine meadows and ski fields of the plateau. Lake Dobson, reached by a winding road inside the park, is the starting point for excellent walks including the Pandani Grove nature walk (ancient pandani — the world’s tallest heath plant — surrounding an alpine lake) and the more ambitious Tarn Shelf walk.
The Russell Falls, a three-tier curtain of water dropping through tree fern forest near the park entrance, are one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Tasmania and just a 15-minute walk from the car park. In winter, the plateau gets enough snow for skiing and snowboarding at Mount Mawson — a small, community-run ski field that is old-fashioned, affordable and charming. Combined with a stop at the Agrarian Kitchen Eatery in New Norfolk (one of the best restaurants in Tasmania, using produce from its own biodynamic farm), this makes an outstanding day from Hobart.
👉 Book Hobart area tours and experiences on GetYourGuide →
🗺️ Planning your Hobart day trips
A hire car is strongly recommended for most Hobart day trips — Bruny Island, Port Arthur, Mount Field and the Huon Valley are all easiest with your own vehicle. Hire cars are available from Hobart Airport and the CBD from all major companies. Fuel is slightly more expensive than the mainland but not dramatically so. Roads throughout the Hobart region are well-maintained and generally easy to drive.
For Bruny Island, the ferry from Kettering runs regularly throughout the day and does not require pre-booking (though in summer peak times there can be queues). The Bruny Island Cruise does require booking — and books out well ahead during December and January. Port Arthur requires an entry ticket ($50 per adult at time of writing) and the Ghost Tour books out extremely quickly — book online weeks in advance. Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary and most wineries require no booking for casual visits, though restaurant meals in the Coal River Valley are worth booking ahead on weekends. Hobart rewards the visitor who digs beyond the obvious, and a week in the city with day trips radiating in different directions is one of the best ways to experience the remarkable diversity of this small, extraordinary island.
Exploring more of Tasmania, read our guides to things to do in Hobart, cost of great barrier reef day trip, day trips from Brisbane, day trips from Sydney, aboriginal art galleries Alice Springs, aboriginal museums Canberra, and aboriginal cultural museums Melbourne.
