A 2026 Guide To The Best Remote Stays in Tasmania — 6 Places We Book & Love.
You are totally spoilt for choice when it comes to unique stays in Tasmania that tick the box for serenity. With more than 20% of the state world heritage listed to preserve our pristine habitats, here are our favourite remote stays, from the West Coast to the East Coast, hidden enough that not everyone has found them yet. Genuine recommendations from the heart, unpaid and unsponsored — just good old-fashioned GREAT.
For those who are eager to get booking without doing the reading, our six picks are: Sheepwash Bay on Bruny Island, Slow River in Scamander, The Reads at Freycinet, Sloop Cottage in the Bay of Fires, Merino Cottage in the Central Highlands, and Captain's Rest at Lettes Bay on the West Coast.
Last updated August 2026.
Bruny Island — Sheepwash Bay, Privacy, Solitude, Bruny Island Baker & Pristine Wilderness.
Most accommodation in Tasmania is grouped into villages or hamlets, so truly remote stays are hard to find. Bruny Island is no exception, with almost every option having neighbours a few steps away — which can be a bummer over the school holidays, with kids doing the sorts of things kids do on a beach trip. The exception is the incredible estate of Sheepwash Bay, down a gated private road, where remoteness is guaranteed. It's so far off the beaten track that it's entirely off-grid, too. There are two cabins: The Shack, with its outdoor bath, and The Hide, a little more luxurious with stunning 180-degree ocean views. And as a lovely surprise, you don't only get private beaches and forests to explore, complete with a rare white wallaby who loves to make an appearance — it's also home to the Bruny Baker, who you might know better as the iconic Bruny Bread Fridge. If he's in residence, you may find fresh sourdough delivered to your door each morning. If you're after the best tips on what to do on Bruny Island, have a look at their journal.
Your own private beach on Bruny Island — a true remote Tasmanian stay, only a day trip from Hobart. Photo by Brook James.
Scamander — Slow River, As Water Moves, Time Stands Still.
I've been hesitant about putting this one on any list, if I'm honest, because Slow River is a genuine personal favourite that I book and visit often, and I'd rather like to keep it available! You'll find me here in residence at least once or twice a year, always for a week at least, always for a proper long stay. And I mean stay — I pack to never have to leave, with the exception of a daily dip in the river.
It gets missed from most lists because it isn't on the well-known beachfronts. People hunting the east coast for something rare search the shoreline and never turn inland — where the river is still and pristine and gently moving, and… all yours. Five minutes from the beaches, and a world away from them.
So I'll be brave and share it with you, dear reader, in the hope that its owner Caitlin — just the loveliest host, and a graduate of The Hosting Masterclass — will always save me a spot when I need it most.
Slow River — a personal favourite I'm hesitant to share, in case the calendar gets too busy for me to book.
Freycinet National Park — The Reads, A River Front Tassie Shack That's Pet Friendly!
Freycinet is a National Park, so accommodation within the reserve itself is rather bustling. We love The Reads, just outside the park and handy for day trips, where you have an entire river frontage to yourself — luxury accommodation that doesn't come much better for the price of a hotel room. And the cherry on top: this lovely spot is pet and dog friendly. We highly recommend it.
The Reads — a rare waterfront stay that promises a truly unique Tasmanian trip.
Bay of Fires — Sloop Cottage, Tasmanian Shacklife at its Absolute Best.
Sloop Cottage is one of those remote stays that feels genuinely unspoiled and undiscovered. Most accommodation for exploring the pristine beaches of the Bay of Fires sits in Binalong Bay, a bustling holiday hamlet. Sloop Cottage is tucked down a dirt track (two-wheel-drive friendly) right on its own private beach, with a single sleepy shack for a neighbour. This is the true Tasmanian shack experience at its core — a remote stay so rare, please don't tell too many people about it.
Sloop Cottage — a hard-to-find Tasmanian stay, seconds from a pristine empty beach in the Bay of Fires. They don't make them like this any more.
Central Highlands — Merino Cottage, An Entire Farm To Yourself, Complete With Rivers, Lakes and Sheep.
Would you fancy an entire pristine Merino farm? All 2,000 hectares of rolling hills, for miles in every direction, all to yourself? Spring lambs bouncing past your doorstep, private rivers and lakes just for you, a cabin perched right on the water? This is one of the most incredible offerings to hit Tasmania, and in all honesty it's a money-can't-buy experience. The farmstay is multi-generational, hosted by the lovely Pip — farmer, mother, grandmother and jack of all trades. A truly unique Tasmanian stay, and anyone lucky enough to visit will treasure the memories for a lifetime.
Merino Cottage — step into a postcard, a world that is all yours. Photo by Melinda Tonzing.
And then there's mine —
Which I'll admit to with both hands up, because I'm hopelessly biased and I'm putting it on the list anyway.
Captain's Rest is the place I retreated to ten years ago, after sinking my boat Gabrielle in the Pacific. It was a brutal chapter of my life. I'd been free floating aboard my own ship of dreams — days spent dreaming, painting, reading, taking in every bit of wonder the world had to offer — and then, all at once, and as though it were a cruel joke played on a woman who had worked so hard to escape it, I was jolted straight back into the humdrum of Melbourne. To say I didn't cope well with the sinking and the extreme life change would be an understatement.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, I came across an article about the west coast of Tasmania that called it one of the most remote and inhospitable places on earth — which sounded like exactly what I was craving. Tucked into the page was a tiny inset photograph of a run-down shack on the water. A few Google searches later I discovered she was for sale, so I applied for a credit card I couldn't afford for the deposit, bought her sight unseen, packed up everything I owned and started driving in her direction out of desperation to get away from it all, come what may.
She was my place of retreat, of healing, of learning what was next and true for me in this life. And ten years on, that's exactly what she's become for so many other people.
Guests ask me all the time where else in Tasmania they might stay that feels this otherworldly, and my honest answer is: there's no place like this place. There's no accommodation in the state closer to the water. Three metres, measured out in my own footsteps, from the still surface of Macquarie Harbour, looking over the vast World Heritage wilderness of the west coast.
In the mornings the ducks and the little birds arrive first — tapping at the door, cheeping from the tin roof for their breakfast, ten years on, still quite certain someone is in residence to feed them. Most mornings the dolphins come rolling through the harbour, playing about under a rainbow left behind by the ever-moving weather. Being here feels like being inside a living poem.
A few minutes' drive along the water sits the little hamlet of Strahan, one of the last outposts in the world — you could be standing fifty, a hundred, two hundred years back and hardly know it. And Lettes Bay itself is Tasmania's only heritage-listed shack village, a bay that has always been full of holiday lets. Lettes. You get it.
It's still exactly that. A place of peace and retreat and rest — for captains, for co-captains, and for anyone who just needs to be afloat in the world a little while. Book Now.
Here’s a hit list of answers to questions we often get from travellers looking to stray from the well worn Tasmanian paths to some place entirely new.
What is the most remote place to stay in Tasmania?
Tasmania's west coast is the least-travelled part of the island, and Lettes Bay near Strahan is about as far as accommodation goes — 300 kilometres and four and a half hours from Hobart, with the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area beginning at the roadside. Bruny Island's Sheepwash Bay is the other genuine contender: entirely off-grid, down a gated private road, and still only a day trip from Hobart.
What is the closest accommodation to the water in Tasmania?
Captain's Rest at Lettes Bay sits three metres from Macquarie Harbour, measured out in footsteps. We have not found anywhere in the state that sits closer.
How far is Strahan from Hobart?
Three hundred kilometres, and Tourism Tasmania allows four and a half hours for the drive. Five is more realistic once you stop at Nelson Falls, and the road is sealed the whole way but narrow and winding through the mountains.
When is the best time to visit Tasmania's west coast?
February is the driest month and January and February are the warmest, averaging 21°C. March to May brings the autumn light and far fewer people, while winter is the wettest and darkest but also the stillest — a clear cold morning on Macquarie Harbour is the best the place gets.
I write local guides to the best of Tasmania & updates on my own adventures a few times a year. If you'd like these to land directly in your inbox pop your name on my mailing list—I'd love to stay in touch with you. No schedule, no selling - just when something deserves to be sent.
All recommendations here at Captain’s Rest are genuine, personal, and entirely unpaid. These are the places we stay ourselves, with hosts we know and love, and send our closest friends to without hesitation.
