Tasmania is Australia’s island state — separated from the mainland by the Bass Strait and, as a result, separated from the mainstream of Australian life in ways that have made it one of the most distinctive and rewarding destinations in the country. It is the most pristine large island in the southern hemisphere: 40% of its land mass is protected in national parks or World Heritage areas, its wilderness is genuinely wild (the south-west is one of the most remote areas in Australia), and the food produced in its cool, clean climate — salmon, oysters, whisky, cheese, cool-climate wines, and stone fruit — is exceptional. It is also the home of MONA — the Museum of Old and New Art — which has transformed Hobart from a pleasant backwater into an international arts destination since its opening in 2011.
Tasmania rewards slow travel more than almost any other Australian destination. The distances are not great — the island is roughly 300 kilometres from north to south — but the experiences are dense enough to fill weeks: the Overland Track through Cradle Mountain–Lake St Clair (one of the world’s great multi-day walks), the Bay of Fires coastal walk, the colonial history of Port Arthur, the seafood of the Huon Valley, and the art and architecture of Hobart all demand time rather than rushing. This guide covers the best destinations across Tasmania for every type of visitor.
📋 TL;DR – Best Places to Visit in Tasmania
- 🎨 Don’t miss: MONA, Hobart — one of the world’s most extraordinary and unconventional art museums.
- 🌊 Most beautiful: Wineglass Bay, Freycinet — consistently rated one of the world’s top ten beaches.
- 🏔️ Best walk: Cradle Mountain — the Overland Track is one of Australia’s great multi-day hikes.
- 🔥 Wild coast: Bay of Fires — burnt-orange granite boulders, white sand, and aquamarine water.
- 🦪 Food highlight: Bruny Island — oysters, cheese, smoked meats, and wild seafood from one extraordinary island producer.
- 🏛️ History: Port Arthur — the former convict settlement is Tasmania’s most visited historic site and deeply moving.
🎨 1. Hobart and MONA
Hobart is the smallest and, many would argue, the most characterful of Australia’s capital cities. Built around Sullivan’s Cove on the Derwent River estuary, with the hulking bulk of Mount Wellington (kunanyi) rising behind it to 1,270 metres, the city has a physical setting that is genuinely dramatic and a pace of life that is genuinely relaxed. Salamanca Place — a row of Georgian sandstone warehouses from the 1830s, now converted to restaurants, galleries, and shops — is the social hub, and the Saturday morning Salamanca Market (one of Australia’s finest outdoor markets) draws visitors and locals in roughly equal numbers. Battery Point, the historic neighbourhood behind Salamanca, preserves the finest collection of colonial-era architecture in Australia outside Sydney.
MONA — the Museum of Old and New Art, housed in a labyrinthine underground sandstone complex on the Moorilla Estate 12 kilometres from the city — is a different order of experience. David Walsh, a professional gambler who made his fortune through algorithmic betting, built MONA as a private collection made public, and its deliberately provocative, death-obsessed, intellectually rigorous character has made it one of the world’s most talked-about art institutions. The approach by ferry from Hobart’s Brooke Street Pier is part of the experience. The museum is closed on Tuesdays.
👉 Book Hobart tours and MONA ferry experiences on GetYourGuide →
🌊 2. Freycinet National Park and Wineglass Bay
Wineglass Bay — a perfectly curved bay of white sand and aquamarine water on the Freycinet Peninsula on Tasmania’s east coast — is consistently ranked among the world’s most beautiful beaches, and the view from the Wineglass Bay Lookout (a 45-minute return walk from the car park) is one of Australia’s most iconic images. The walk down to the beach itself takes another 30 minutes from the lookout, and the beach rewards the effort: fine white silica sand, water so clear you can see the bottom at 4–5 metres, and (outside summer peak) very few people. The walk continues around Hazards Beach to complete the Wineglass Bay Circuit (13 kilometres, 4–5 hours) — one of Tasmania’s finest day walks.
The Freycinet Peninsula offers more than Wineglass Bay: the pink granite peaks of the Hazards provide a dramatic backdrop, the oyster farms on the estuary near Coles Bay produce some of Australia’s finest Pacific oysters (direct from growers), and the peninsula’s walking tracks range from short 20-minute circuits to multi-day coastal routes. Coles Bay is the main service town — small, well-supplied, and a pleasant base for 2–3 nights.
🏔️ 3. Cradle Mountain and the Overland Track
Cradle Mountain, rising to 1,545 metres above the Cradle Mountain–Lake St Clair National Park in Tasmania’s central highlands, is the most iconic peak in Australia’s most wild national park. The 6-kilometre Dove Lake Circuit (2 hours, wheelchair-accessible sections) gives the finest view of the mountain reflected in the glacial lake below — one of Australia’s most photographed landscapes. The Overland Track, beginning at Cradle Mountain and ending at Lake St Clair 65 kilometres south, is one of Australia’s great multi-day walks: 6–8 days through high alpine country, through heath and alpine forest, past waterfalls and glacial lakes, and over the summit of Mount Ossa (Tasmania’s highest peak, 1,617 metres).
The Overland Track requires bookings through Parks Tasmania (a booking system and hut fee apply from October to May), appropriate cold-weather gear regardless of the time of year, and a reasonable level of fitness. Day visitors to Cradle Mountain can access the Dove Lake Circuit, the Enchanted Walk (a short rainforest loop), and the visitor centre without a booking. The wombats that graze around the Cradle Mountain visitor facilities are completely habituated to visitors and are reliably and memorably encountered at dusk.
🔥 4. Bay of Fires
The Bay of Fires is a 29-kilometre stretch of Tasmania’s north-east coast characterised by the combination of burnt-orange lichen-covered granite boulders, white silica sand beaches, and water of an extraordinary turquoise that seems too vivid to be real. The name — given by Captain Tobias Furneaux in 1773 — refers not to the colour of the rocks but to the fires he observed Aboriginal Tasmanians burning along the coast. The colours today are exactly as Furneaux saw them: the orange of the endolithic lichens on the granite contrasting with the sand and sea to produce a combination that is almost impossibly photogenic.
The Bay of Fires Walk — a 4-day guided walk operated by a single licensed operator — is one of Australia’s most celebrated guided experiences, combining the extraordinary coastal scenery with excellent food, wine, and a luxurious purpose-built lodge at the northern end. It’s expensive and books out well in advance, but the combination of wilderness and comfort it delivers is extraordinary. Independent walkers can explore the southern sections of the bay from the town of Bicheno, or drive the coast road north from St Helens.
🏛️ 5. Port Arthur
Port Arthur, on the Tasman Peninsula 90 kilometres south-east of Hobart, is Tasmania’s most visited historic site and one of Australia’s most significant — and most haunting — historical landscapes. The former convict settlement (1830–1877) transported over 12,000 male convicts from Britain and Ireland during the colonial period, and the ruins of its penitentiary, church, hospital, and punishment cells are preserved in extraordinary condition within a World Heritage Area. The site’s guided tours are among the best in Australia: the history is presented without sanitisation, and the sheer scale of the surviving buildings makes the historical reality visceral in a way that museum exhibits never quite achieve.
The Port Arthur Historic Site also operates one of Australia’s most respected ghost tours — nightly lantern-lit walks through the ruins — which sell out during peak season and have been running since the 1990s. The surrounding Tasman Peninsula landscape is extraordinary: the Tasman Arch, Blowhole, and Devil’s Kitchen are within 15 minutes of the historic site, and the Cape Hauy walk (4 hours return from Fortescue Bay) delivers the finest coastal scenery on the entire peninsula.
🦪 6. Bruny Island
Bruny Island, accessed by ferry from Kettering 35 kilometres south of Hobart, produces some of the finest food in Australia from a single island. The Get Shucked oyster shed serves fresh Pacific oysters grown in the island’s clean waters with a squeeze of lemon and nothing else — the standard against which other Australian oysters are measured. The Bruny Island Cheese Company produces hand-made sheep’s and cow’s milk cheeses. The smokehouse produces cold-smoked salmon and trout. Bruny Island Premium Wines makes small-batch Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from vines perched above the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. A half-day food circuit of the island constitutes one of the finest eating experiences in Australia.
Beyond food, Bruny Island offers excellent penguin watching at dusk at the Cape Bruny Lighthouse, abundant wildlife (white wallabies, sea eagles, echidnas), and the extraordinary Bruny Island cruise — a high-speed boat tour through the sea caves and dramatic coastal geology of the island’s southern cliffs, with regular sightings of dolphins, fur seals, and albatrosses. The cruise is one of Tasmania’s most exhilarating experiences.
💡 Tasmania travel tips
- Best time to visit. December–March (summer) for walking and beaches; January for MONA FOMA festival. April–May for autumn colour. June–August is cold and wet — some tracks are snowbound — but perfect for MONA, Hobart restaurants, and the dramatic winter landscape.
- Getting there. Fly into Hobart or Launceston (both have direct flights from Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane), or take the Spirit of Tasmania ferry from Melbourne to Devonport (overnight crossing) if you want to bring a car.
- Hire car essential. A hire car is necessary for most Tasmanian experiences outside Hobart. The state is compact but public transport between regional destinations is limited.
- Overland Track booking. The Overland Track requires a booking and a hut fee from October to May — reserve through Parks Tasmania at least 6–8 weeks ahead for peak season dates.
- MONA closed Tuesdays. MONA is closed on Tuesdays — check opening hours before planning your visit. The museum’s own ferry (the MR-1) departs from Brooke Street Pier and is part of the experience.
Exploring more of Tasmania, read our guides to best restaurants in Hobart, best day trips from Hobart, the best beaches in Tasmania, how many days in Tasmania, luxury lodges Tasmania, best places Australia in june, and best places Australia in march.
