Tassie Transportation
Although Hobart isn’t as big as Boston, it is still bustling during the day. After we had gotten to our hostel on the first night, we realized that downtown wasn’t exactly within walking distance. We got some information from the high schoolers that were staying at the hostel about how the public transportation system was. There were three main modes of transport around Hobart: Metro bus, Uber/Taxi, and walking.
Throughout the six weeks I was there, I managed to use all three of those methods. The one I used the most was the metro. The first time we went downtown, we were able to purchase the cards and put an initial balance on them at the public metro office. Each ride for students (including university) was about 1.80 AUSD (much cheaper than the MBTA). We had no idea that we’d be using this bus card so much for the rest of our trip. The stop that was closest to us at the hostel was approximately a 10-minute walk away, which wasn’t too bad. At each stop they had time schedules posted as to when the bus would be arriving. The bus went in and out of the city, as well as having transfers to get around the island as a whole. It was a really easy and inexpensive way to explore!
As much as we loved using the bus, there were drawbacks such as time. Some nights we would stay out a little late, and the busses stopped running around 11:30 PM. In this case, we began to venture out and use Uber. Tasmania only started implementing Ubers around December of 2016. There was on incident where the Uber driver I had on the way to a destination was the same one I had on the way back, just because there are that little of them in the area. We tried not to rely on Uber too much because of this: not knowing whether there would be any available at restricted times. However, most Uber drivers were incredibly nice and understanding.
The last and most underrated mode of transport in Tassie would be simply walking. Right outside of the hostel was a long biking path that ran from downtown up and towards all the suburbs of Hobart. Using this, it would take approximately 45 minutes to get to downtown Hobart, which wasn’t too shabby on a nice, sunny day! Additionally, walking was the preferred method of transport while being downtown. Everything was so close together that it was in walking distance. There was another town near our hostel named Moonah, which was a 20-minute walk on the bike path in the opposite direction of Hobart. This was a beautiful walk, going across a small river and leading to a cute, bustling street full of restaurants, shops, and cafes. Lastly, walking was the best way to go out and explore on your own in Tasmania, and it was something that we all took part in, happily.
A picture of a group of us waiting for the bus at the bus stop near our hostel.
