Port Arthur Tour

A Port Arthur tour is a day from Hobart to the Port Arthur Historic Site, the former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula, 95 km by road and about 90 minutes each way. The tours include the site entry, which itself includes a 20-minute harbour cruise, and leave you three or four hours to walk the ruins and buildings, with stops at Eaglehawk Neck on the way. The one this page follows is Tassie Tours Tasmania’s Port Arthur, Tasman Sights and Harbour Cruise, from US$109 a person (checked November 2026), with 493 reviews.

The short answer

Without a car, book a day tour: the bus is the hard part of a visit, and every tour here includes the entry. Tassie Tours Tasmania’s day leaves central Hobart at 9:30 am, reaches the site around midday, gives you three or four hours there, and is back about 5:30 pm. With a car, you do not need a tour: buy the entry from the Historic Site (A$55 an adult, November 2026, valid for two consecutive days) and drive the Arthur Highway yourself. Tickets and what the entry includes sets out both.

Check dates for the Port Arthur day

Three ways to do the day: pick yours

Prices, ratings and review counts from the listings (GetYourGuide checked November 2026; Viator checked November 2026). Operators price by date and season, so treat the figures as the shape of the market, not a quote.

Where everything is

The Port Arthur Historic Site is at 6973 Arthur Highway, Port Arthur, on a harbour near the southern end of the Tasman Peninsula, with free parking at the Visitor Centre. From Hobart the road crosses the Tasman Bridge, runs through Sorell and Dunalley, and crosses Eaglehawk Neck, the narrow isthmus where the convict-era Dog Line guarded the only way off the peninsula by land. The Historic Site says the drive takes 90 minutes; by road it is 95 km from Hobart’s waterfront to the Visitor Centre. It is one of the 11 places that make up the Australian Convict Sites World Heritage Property.

The day, step by step

The Tassie Tours Tasmania bus collects from pickup points around central Hobart and leaves at 9:30 am. It runs as a shuttle on a strict timetable, and there is no refund if you are late and miss it. On the way it stops at the Pirates Bay lookout and at the Dog Line at Eaglehawk Neck, then at a chocolate foundry, and gives you the choice of a 30- or 60-minute visit to the lavender farm.

It reaches the Historic Site between about 11:40 am and midday. The entry and the harbour cruise are included, and you choose how to spend the afternoon: four hours at the site, or three hours and then a run to Remarkable Cave, about a 50-minute round trip, where the national parks pass is paid on the bus. The bus leaves Port Arthur between about 3:40 and 4 pm, stops for oysters at Dunalley, and is back in Hobart about 5:30 pm. Bought from Tassie Tours Tasmania itself, the day is from A$160 an adult and A$140 for anyone 17 or under (November 2026). Food and drinks are not included, and the tour is not suitable for wheelchair users.

What the entry includes, and what the tour price buys

Bought on its own, the Historic Site’s general admission is A$55 an adult, A$27.50 a child and A$44 concession (November 2026). It includes a complimentary 20-minute harbour cruise, which is not compulsory, free 10- to 15-minute talks by the site’s guides through the day, and access to more than 30 historic buildings, ruins, restored houses and gardens. The ticket is valid for two consecutive days. It does not include a guided walking tour: the site sells those separately, with the entry, from A$65 for the 45-minute Essentials Tour (November 2026). The site is open daily from 9 am to 5 pm and closes only on Christmas Day.

The tour is from US$109 a person on GetYourGuide (checked November 2026), so most of the price is the entry plus the transport and the commentary: the drive itself is 95 km each way. Cancellation is free up to 24 hours before on GetYourGuide. How long to allow at Port Arthur compares the time each tour leaves you at the site.

See dates and the live price

What you see at the site

The settlement grew around Mason Cove. The Penitentiary, the long sandstone ruin on the waterfront, is the building most people know from photographs; the Separate Prison, the church and the Commandant’s House are a short walk away. The harbour cruise passes the Isle of the Dead, the settlement’s burial ground, where the Historic Site says more than 1,000 people who lived and laboured there are buried, and Point Puer, which it describes as the first purpose-built juvenile prison in the British Empire. Landing on the island needs a guided tour: the site’s own 65-minute Isle of the Dead tour is A$85 an adult with the entry included (November 2026); the Isle of the Dead and Point Puer covers it and the day tour that includes it.

Port Arthur is also where 35 people were killed on 28 April 1996. The Historic Site asks visitors not to question its guides about that day, because many of its staff lost friends, colleagues and family; it points instead to a brochure, the information in its Gallery, and a plaque at the Memorial Garden. The Memorial Garden, dedicated on 28 April 2000, takes in the shell of the Broad Arrow Cafe; its plaque asks visitors to cherish life for the sake of those who died. Walk through it as you would any memorial.

How the day tours differ

Every day tour carded on this site includes the entry and the harbour cruise; what changes is the time at the site and what else fills the day. Gray Line Tasmania’s day spends about four hours at the site and stops at the convict-built bridge at Richmond on the way; its Isle of the Dead day adds a cruise on Carnarvon Bay and a 1-hour guided walk on the island. Tours Tasmania’s days start earlier, at 7:25 am, and add the Waterfall Bay clifftop walk, Tasmans Arch and Devils Kitchen, with a devil feeding on one of them, so they leave less time at Port Arthur (about 2 hours 15 minutes on the devils day), with a minimum age of 8. iWander Tasmania’s day is led by a guide descended from 17 convicts and is built around the convict story.

The Tasman Island cruise is a different trip: a 3-hour boat trip under the sea cliffs between Port Arthur and Eaglehawk Neck, run by Pennicott Wilderness Journeys from its booking centre 100 m before the Historic Site entrance. Pennicott’s full day from Hobart puts the cruise and an afternoon at the site into one day: the cruise and Port Arthur day on Viator, from US$246 (checked November 2026). tasmanislandcruise.com covers the cruise in depth.

The ghost tour and the evening

The Historic Site runs its own 90-minute, lantern-lit Ghost Tour after dark, Wednesday to Sunday: from 7 pm from October to March and from 6 pm from April to September, A$35 an adult (November 2026). No day tour from Hobart includes it, because they all leave Port Arthur in the afternoon. To join it you need a car, or a night on the peninsula. The Port Arthur ghost tour has the times and how to get there.

Longer tours that include Port Arthur

Several multi-day tours of Tasmania start in Hobart, and not all of them go to Port Arthur. Under Down Under Tours’ 7-day circuit ends with a day on the Tasman Peninsula, with the site entry and harbour cruise included; Tassie Tours Tasmania’s 2-day package pairs its Port Arthur day with Bruny Island. Under Down Under’s 5-day circuit and Wild Tasmania Tours’ 4-day lap leave Port Arthur out. Multi-day Tasmania tours compared goes through each one day by day.

What was going on when this page was checked

When this page was checked on 3 November 2026, nothing was closed at the Historic Site, Remarkable Cave, the Tessellated Pavement or Eaglehawk Neck. Tasmans Arch and Devils Kitchen, shut from 15 April for upgraded walking tracks and a new tiered viewing platform, had reopened: the Parks and Wildlife Service announced it on 19 October 2026. Seasonal campfire bans on reserved land, including Tasman National Park, began on 26 October 2026. Targa Tasmania runs from 18 to 22 November 2026 and closes public roads around the state on its stages; the notice does not say which, so check before driving that week.