By Sarah Andrews — bestselling author of Principles of Style and The Poetry of Spaces, founder of The Hosting Masterclass, and creator of Captain's Rest, named Tasmania's Most Famous Airbnb by Realestate.com.au.

So where should I stay when I'm in Hobart? It’s the question that arrives in our inboxes almost daily from those who’ve stayed with us and are looking to keep the extraordinary going as they continue their trip, or from those who've figured out that if we know how to run a pretty magical stay, we'd know how to find one too.

I’ve spent years deeply immersed in every inch of Tasmania — as a local, as a host and as the founder of The Hosting Masterclass — the school whose graduates have gone on to create some of the most celebrated stays in the world. Doing a quick tally, even though I live here - I spend more nights of the year as a guest tucked into some place wonderful on this Island than I do in my own home.

So … I feel embarrassingly qualified to pen this list for you all.

Hobart is a tough city to crack for first time visitors. It’s so tiny, but it’s one that rewards the curious. Small enough to leave with five new local friends you’ve already made plans with for your next trip, secretive enough to surprise you with something so uniquely new every single time. And, my goodness, it's beautiful. Kunanyi/Mount Wellington looks out over our rooftops, and on the other side, the Derwent runs cold and wide with MONA sitting in its slipstream like a provocateur at a dinner party.

We have some of Australia's finest city stays if you know where to look. You’ll be hosted by locals who love and understand Hobart fiercely, and that genuine passion for you to have the most unforgettable stay is impossible to fake. These picks span our city — from heritage workers' cottages tucked into the quiet backstreets of North Hobart, to a glass house perched above West Hobart with wallabies at the window, to a converted 1880s bakery in Sandy Bay or, stay in the treehouse you dreamed off when you were a kid (or are travelling with one!). Pick one that’s perfect for you, or - pin this page and try them all if you fall in love with Hobart as hard as we all have, i’m sure you’ll become a repeat visitor!

So it’s with that same lust for you to unearth the delights we all enjoy daily in this extraordinary place, I’ve put together the 7 stays that I actually book when I’m in Hobart, and, living an hour south — that’s often.

As a local, and one who knows these owners personally and their Hobartian passion for hosting you, I just can’t bring myself to list any of the same five big hotels you’ll see on every other list. In all honesty? None of them stack up against some of the greats in the world you’ll enjoy in Paris or NYC where the hotel experience is done so well it’s a city adventure in itself. Those on offer here are lackluster in comparison. And, dollar for dollar? I promise here you’ll find checking in to any listed here worth it.

Okay! If you trust me and just want my hit list to see who's available over your dates, here's the summary.

Best Accommodation in Hobart at a Glance

For Couples & Small Families - Little Arthur & Little Elizabeth
For Food Lovers - Ogee Guesthouse
Families & Friend Groups - Seaview on Glebe
Architecture Lovers - Esmond
Luxury Heritage Fans - Braithwaite Hobart
For A Nature Experience - Glass Holme
For Romantics & Creatives - Del Sol Treehouse

And, those who want to explore the full picture, here is where I send everyone I care about.

My Go To — Little Cottages, North Hobart.

Best for: Anyone who wants to feel genuinely at home.

Little Cottages are actually two, very darling, very private, turn-of-the-century workers' cottages in North Hobart, aptly called by their street names, Little Arthur and Little Elizabeth.

I have, on more than one occasion, asked Little Cottage's host and owner Laura if I can buy Little Arthur from her one day. It sits snugly on the corner of two roads, exactly my dad's first and last name and I'm sentimental like that. Of course the answer is always no — and when you check in, you will understand completely why she will never let it go.

Both Little Arthur and its twin, Little Elizabeth are heritage stone cottages tucked behind buzzing North Hobart, a neighbourhood of excellent restaurants (Ogee, Trophy Room, Room For A Pony), independent bookshops, the State Cinema and the kind of ever-present unhurried Saturday morning energy. You are a short, pretty walk to everything — the Hobart CBD, Salamanca, the waterfront — but far enough from the main drag to feel genuinely removed from its bustle.

Rarer than it should be down here, both cottages have constant and plentiful heat — and most importantly, secure off-street parking means you can use your Little Cottage as your base for Hobart day trips without the anxiety of paid parking. Each cottage is perfectly appointed in every way that matters — the proportions, the curation, the warmth of it. And the beds. Particularly the beds.

Until Laura finally gives in and says yes (doubtful), I'll keep checking in here — and I suggest you do too.

Book Little Arthur & Little Elizabeth.

A Secret Sliver of the City. Hobart CBD - Seaview on Glebe

Best for: Groups of up to six, families, and those wanting to walk to everything.

There is a suburb in the heart of Hobart's CBD called Glebe that most visitors drive straight through without realising it exists. It is a tiny, much-sought-after hamlet of Edwardian architectural gems, has a recorded population of just 500 people and the quiet confidence of somewhere that has never needed to announce itself. Seaview sits at the heart of it.

In 2019, Georgina (your host) inherited this special slice of the city and came to study with me at the Hosting Masterclass. What followed was two years of careful, considered renovation that did something genuinely difficult: it honoured the original Edwardian bones while seamlessly integrating a Japanese-inspired architectural extension, and made the whole thing feel not like a renovation at all, but like a house that had always known what it wanted to be.

From the wrap-around deck, you have views of kunanyi/Mount Wellington, the city, and the Derwent River that will stop your first cup of coffee in its tracks. Inside there is a fireplace, a moody whiskey room that, let me just say - has seen some things, and interiors that move between the warmth of the original house and the stillness of the Japanese extension with an ease that takes genuine skill and patience to achieve.

You are immediately adjacent to the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens — free, and one of the finest in the country. The CBD is a short flat walk. Salamanca is close. And Seaview sleeps six at approximately the same rate as a standard CBD hotel room, which makes it not just the most characterful option for groups in Hobart, but the most economical one too.

This is my pick for the best Hobart CBD accommodation. Full stop.

Book Seaview on Glebe

Japanese-inspired architectural extension with timber wrap-around deck overlooking Hobart city lights at dusk, Seaview Glebe Tasmania — *The Japanese extension to the original home that Georgina built. Glebe, after dark.*

Open plan living room with floor-to-ceiling timber-framed windows overlooking Hobart city and kunanyi Mount Wellington, Japanese-inspired extension Seaview Glebe Tasmania — *Timber, glass, and the whole of the city laid out before you. This is the reason Glebe is inner Hobart’s best kept secret.*

Modernist Hobart History. Sandy Bay, Esmond

Best for: Design lovers, larger groups and families, architecture enthusiasts or anyone who wants to sleep inside a piece of Tasmanian history.

Esmond is not just good accommodation. It is a piece of Tasmanian architectural history that you happen to be allowed to sleep in.

Designed by architect Esmond Dorney — whose name the property now carries — this mid-century modern masterpiece sits above the River Derwent with views that will stop you mid-sentence. Dorney was a singular figure in Tasmanian architecture: expelled from Melbourne University for racing his Delage around the campus, he dismissed his studies as "a meaningless pursuit of Classical Revival," walked straight into the office of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony — the architects who designed Canberra — and spent the rest of his career bringing Modernism to an island that had never seen it. This is the house he built.

Tasmania really does have a way of pulling remarkable renegades to its shores.

Esmond is one of his finest arguments for why that mattered — clean lines, considered proportions, original timber panelling throughout, and the integration of inside and outside in a way that feels inevitable rather than designed. The Design Files called it a Sandy Bay stunner. They got it right.

I checked in for a week-long staycation and found myself refusing to leave. Not in the way people say that about places that are merely pleasant — actually. I didn't leave the property for 7 entire nights. It was a pretty special, blissful rest. Tess — host, and one of mine from the Hosting Masterclass has, of course, curated every detail with the same attention the building itself deserves.

Esmond sleeps up to six guests, which makes it as perfect for a couple wanting space to spread out as it is for a small group. In a perfect private spot with parking - ready for exploring everything Hobart has to offer, if you can bear to leave.

Book Esmond

Mid-century modern dining room with original timber wall panelling and period olive velvet chairs viewed through glass door, Esmond house Sandy Bay Hobart Tasmania — *Esmond Dorney's original timber panelling, 1959. Still holding the room together sixty-five years later.*

Mid-century modern living room with curved ceiling, original timber wall panelling, stone fireplace and floor-to-ceiling glass, Esmond house Sandy Bay Hobart Tasmania — *1959. Esmond Dorney — expelled, dismissed, and then he built this. After seven nights checked in here alone, I understood why he never wanted to leave Tasmania either.*

Airbnb's Host of the Year — Sandy Bay, Braithwaite Hobart

Best for: Couples, design lovers, anyone who wants a host who has literally won Australia's most prestigious hosting award and, as a bonus, does restaurant reviews for a living.

Built in the late 1880s as a bakery by one Charles Braithwaite — hence the name — Braithwaite Hobart is one of the most curated Tasmanian experiential stays. It has that particular quality of real heritage: you can feel the many lives the building has already lived, and it makes your own stay feel richer for it.

I'll confess a bias upfront: Alix is a graduate of the Hosting Masterclass, and watching what she and John have built here has been one of the genuine joys of my teaching career. In 2025, Airbnb agreed — awarding them Host of the Year at the Australian Host Awards, the most coveted of the night's six categories. The judging panel described their hosting as "hyper-personalised, emotionally resonant — they don't just provide a stay, they create a moment in time that's deeply meaningful."

What sets it apart beyond the building itself is the stay that comes with it. When Alix sends you away with a personalised list of Hobart recommendations, she is not pulling from a generic guest guide. She knows every table, kitchen and chef in this city. In a food scene as serious as Hobart's, it’s a pretty extraordinary thing to have access to.

The property itself is a self-contained triumph: a private courtyard with outdoor bathtub, red brick walls, timber floors, and the architectural rigour of local design powerhouse, JAWS Architects — sophisticated in the way that only comes from genuine taste.

Book Braithwaite Hobart

The Night Out That Never Ends — North Hobart, Ogee Guesthouse

Best for: Couples, food lovers, anyone who has ever sat in a restaurant as the candles burned low and felt like the party has just started

You know the feeling. The night, the food, the wine, absolutely everything has been extraordinary and a single sitting of that magic just isn't enough. Matt and Monique Breen run Ogee — North Hobart's 28-seat restaurant, my personal favourite in the city, and one of the most quietly essential dining rooms in Tasmania. They know this feeling better than anyone. So they built a guesthouse next door.

The Ogee Guesthouse sits literally adjacent to the restaurant, in a 120-year-old Victorian terrace that Matt and Monique have renovated with the same instincts that make Ogee itself so good. The bones are heritage — high ceilings, warm timber, the particular stillness of an old North Hobart building that has absorbed a great many good evenings — and everything layered inside them has been chosen with the same care Matt brings to a menu. A listening lounge with Pitt & Giblin speakers and fifty records from his personal collection. Two beautiful bedrooms. And a kitchen that is, unambiguously, built for someone who actually cooks — because of course it is, because Matt built it.

The pantry arrives stocked with a curated selection of Tasmanian products made exclusively for Ogee guests. I'll leave that one as a surprise to delight you on arrival.

When Ogee is fully booked — which it usually is — the kitchen will send dishes next door. The dinner party, in other words, simply relocates. That is a very specific kind of Hobart magic that only Ogee Guesthouse has to offer.

Book The Ogee Guesthouse

Two glasses of red wine and bottle on wooden table with red stools, intimate brick-walled interior of Ogee restaurant North Hobart Tasmania — *Your new neighbour, Ogee Hobart.*

Wall to Wall Wallabies Plus More — West Hobart, Glass Holme

Best for: Solo Travellers, couples & nature lovers.

Every listing here deserves the top spot, but with a nature reserve on both sides, complete with nature that hops, skips and flies (wallabies, echidnas, bandicoots & so many birds), this one is personally close to my heart. It’s an architecturally designed masterpiece (I did say we were spoiled for choice here!). Its floor-to-ceiling, two-storey-high windows are quite literally moving poetry, framing Hobart while boats gently come and go on the Derwent River — particularly gorgeous at night.

Though it might seem a little removed from the CBD compared to some of my other choices here, Hobart is so tiny that you’re only minutes away by car from everything on offer. If you're a fellow lover of wildlife like me, you’ve got months of trails to explore while you stay here. At the end of the street, the South Hobart Rivulet Track will take you into Hobart in thirty minutes through some of the prettiest urban bushland in Australia. If you're patient, quiet and a little lucky on your meander, you might just meet a resident platypus. Behind you, Knocklofty Reserve is littered with walking trails that weave all over the mountains hugging the city.

Your host, Abigail, is working constantly to provide the best experience possible for you as her guest — I know this because I teach her! If you’ve not already clicked straight on the booking link below, I'll continue to twist your arm by mentioning that you’ll get a wood-burning fireplace and a bath with endless views, two stay essentials here in Tasmania.

The big one, really, is that Abigail has installed a small watering hole for the wildlife at the front of the property for guests to top up for all the animals that hop up, entirely unconcerned by your presence.

Book Glass Holme

Wallabies grazing near Glass Holme accommodation in Hobart, Tasmania. — *Your new native neighbours, giving you a pretty unique Tasmanian experience right in the middle of Hobart. Photo:* *Melinda Tonzing.*

Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Hobart from the living room at Glass Holme. — *With floor-to-ceiling double story glass framing the ever changing views over Hobart and the River Derwent, you might find your plans for the day cancelled so you can just sit right here. Photo:* *Melinda Tonzing*

Sleep In A Storybook — Rosny, Del Sol Treehouse.

Best for: The romantics and creatives, couples and friend groups travelling together.

Del Sol sits quite literally in, around and surrounded by trees with two self-contained unique suites over two storeys. It's a house with quite a history — actually, it seems most things down here in Tasmania do. Handbuilt by its loving owners over the years using giant tree trunk timbers, it's surrounded by the most incredible rambling botanical garden — sleeping here is sleeping in a treehouse of your very own. Nestled in the quiet eastern shore suburb of Rosny, Del Sol has incredible water views over the inky Derwent River back to old Hobart Town.

And both little tree cabins (or, book them both for your whole party!) are so different — impossible to pick from. Upstairs is the Canopy, with a wraparound verandah, full kitchen and a queen bed looking out over the river. Downstairs you have the Seahorse Studio — a garden-level hideaway with its own private entrance and an oversized tub for two — or — like me, an hours-long bathing enthusiast for one.

There's so much I adore about Del Sol. I've been on its journey from the start with your host Jizelle as she finished the handbuilding that its previous owner started, so it's another stay with hosts close to my heart. But it's such a good pick because it holds its weight on this list with its beauty and charm and whimsy and its uniqueness in the landscape of stay options in Hobart. I love that it sleeps 1, 2 or 3 or 4 — making it top of my list to check availability for most Hobart occasions.

I can't promise it, but if you get lucky you'll see the Southern Lights when they choose to make an appearance. Black cockatoos, dolphins and seals are more regular visitors. And, for those who love an adventure as much as spotting the treasure above, you can take the ferry that leaves just below you, from Bellerive to Salamanca for $1.70 one way.

Del Sol is getting harder and harder to find a spot these days. Featured in Bed Threads, Homes to Love, Urban List, and Discover Tasmania — Del Sol has stopped being my little secret, but I'm happy it's now become all of yours.

Book Del Sol Treehouse.

Timber window seat with cushions and rocking chair overlooking Derwent River and Hobart hills, Del Sol Treehouse Rosny Tasmania — Your own treehouse to watch our beloved Hobart gently moving by. Photo: Jessica Bellef

Still Looking?

If none of these quite fit, or more likely, booked out! You can find the complete guide to all those who have studied with me over the years at our Hosting Masterclass Directory around Tasmania and the rest of the world. A page worth bookmarking for all your future adventures.

Explore the Full Directory

Planning Your Full Tasmanian Lap?

Hobart is a pretty incredible start, but Tasmania is an island everyone needs to lap once in their lifetime. Each of our regions couldn’t differ more, as you traverse each one you’ll feel like you've entered a different country. The West Coast—wild, remote and of course my very favourite part of Tasmania—is where Captain's Rest sits waterside ready for you to cozy up.

Hobart to Strahan is a four-hour drive adventure through one of the most untouched, gasp-at-the-beauty-at-every-turn, landscapes in Australia. Don’t miss it.

Book Captain's Rest, explore my favourite remote stays recommendations or read about when is the best time to visit Tasmania.

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.

The Very Best Accommodation in Hobart, Tasmania — 7 Stays We Actually Sleep In