Getaway Guide: The Best Destination Dupes in Tasmania

Tasmania is small enough to cross in a day and varied enough to make that feel all kinds of ridiculous. A few hours on the road can take you from white sand and orange-lichen granite to alpine lakes, cool-climate vineyards, wet rainforest and mountain country carved by ice. The island keeps changing the light on you too: dry and gold on the east coast, darker and greener out west, then suddenly all pale water and granite again around Freycinet.

That is the trick of travelling here. One bay can look almost Aegean, another could pass for the Seychelles; inland, Georgian villages and wine country give way to rainforest rivers and high country with a touch of the Canadian Rockies about it. None of it feels staged for comparison. Tasmania simply packs an improbable number of landscapes into one small island.

So yes, the destination dupes are there. But the more interesting part is how often Tasmania manages to conjure somewhere far away without ever losing its own identity. From Greek-island blues and Seychelles-like granite to Rockies-scale peaks and fjord-like waterways, these are the Tasmanian places that make the world feel unexpectedly close.

Table Cape Tulip Farm: Holland Dupe

There is a brief window each spring when Tasmania’s north-west coast goes full Netherlands. At Table Cape Tulip Farm, hectares of tulips run in regimented stripes across the top of an extinct volcanic headland, with Bass Strait and the lighthouse sitting just beyond the flowers. The Roberts-Thomson family imported their first bulbs from Holland in 1984, so the Dutch connection is not exactly accidental.

The best part is the setting. Holland gives you endless flower fields; Table Cape adds sea cliffs, farmland and a blue-water backdrop.

Sitchu Tip: Tulip season runs from late September into October, with early to mid-October usually the sweet spot for viewing.

Wineglass Bay, Freycinet: Greek Isles Dupe

Wineglass Bay does not need much help looking expensive. From the lookout, its white crescent cuts through turquoise water beneath the pink-grey granite of the Hazards, a composition that feels surprisingly Aegean. The closest Greek parallel is less one famous beach than the quieter coves of Paros, where clear water, pale sand and sculpted granite sit in similarly clean lines.

The resemblance sharpens once you walk down. There are no beach clubs, whitewashed villages or rows of umbrellas here, just cold-clear water, bright sand and the mountain wall rising behind it. That difference matters. Wineglass Bay has the colour palette of a Greek island, but the scale and emptiness are pure Freycinet.

Bay of Fires & Binalong Bay: Seychelles Dupe

This one barely needs selling. Binalong Bay has the white sand, clear aqua water and giant granite forms that make La Digue’s beaches so instantly recognisable. The resemblance is strongest around Anse Source d’Argent, where pale sand and sculpted boulders sit in shallow turquoise water much like the coves along Tasmania’s north-east coast.

Tasmania adds its own signature in orange. The granite here is streaked and splashed with lichen, turning the shoreline into something even more vivid against the blue. Wander between the headlands and smaller coves around Binalong Bay and the visual shorthand is almost absurdly good: Seychelles bones, Tasmanian colour.

Bridestowe Lavender Estate: Provence Dupe

For a few weeks each summer, northern Tasmania turns very south of France. At Bridestowe Lavender Estate, rows of purple run across the hills beneath big blue sky, with the whole landscape humming in that dry, scented way people fly to Provence for.

The comparison is more than visual. Bridestowe’s founder, CK Denny, specifically chose northern Tasmania after noticing that Provence and this part of the island sit on corresponding 40th parallels and share the kind of light and climate lavender loves. A century later, the fields are still doing a remarkably good impression of southern France.

Sitchu Tip: The best time to visit is in summer, when the lavender is in flower.

Cradle Mountain & Dove Lake: Canadian Rockies Dupe

The first thing Dove Lake does is make the mountain look even bigger. Cradle rises hard and jagged from the water, its dolerite ridgeline reflected back on still days, with rainforest, buttongrass and alpine scrub crowding the shore. It is easy to see why the scene might garner comparisons to Banff and Jasper.

The resemblance is strongest in the bones of the landscape. Both were shaped by ice; both pair steep mountain walls with glacial lakes and vegetation that shifts quickly with elevation. In the Canadian Rockies, that means turquoise lakes beneath snow-streaked peaks and conifer forests. Here, the palette is moodier: darker water, ancient Gondwanan plants, fagus, pencil pine and weather that can pull cloud across the summit in minutes.

Cradle does not have Banff’s scale, and it is better for not pretending otherwise. What it has is the same big-mountain drama compressed into a wilder, stranger Tasmanian frame.

Gordon River & Macquarie Harbour: Norwegian Fjords Dupe

The resemblance starts once Strahan disappears behind you: Macquarie Harbour opens broad and dark, then the Gordon draws the journey inward, its tannin-stained water holding near-perfect reflections of rainforest that runs right to the river’s edge. On a still morning, with mist caught low over the canopy and steep green banks tightening around the boat, the whole thing takes on the hushed, enclosed feeling of a Norwegian fjord cruise.

The landscapes are not geological twins. Norway’s fjords were carved by glaciers and flooded by the sea, with mountains rising hard from narrow inlets. The Gordon is something softer, older-looking and far more Tasmanian: Huon pine, myrtle, sassafras, tannin-dark water and rainforest stacked densely along the banks.

But from the deck, when the water goes glassy and the river closes in, the comparison just makes sense.

Richmond & the Coal River Valley: English Countryside Dupe

Richmond is the one that makes you slow the car down. Georgian cottages line the streets, the Coal River slides beneath a sandstone bridge, church spires rise above old gardens and more than 50 colonial-era buildings still shape the village today. It is easy to see the Cotswolds comparison, especially once you leave the main street and Richmond starts opening into paddocks, stone walls and low hills.

Then the Coal River Valley takes over. Vineyards roll through the countryside just beyond town, cellar doors sit between farms and the whole landscape has that cultivated, gently rolling quality people cross England for. The architecture is Georgian rather than honey-stone Cotswolds, and the wine is Tasmanian rather than English, but the visual shorthand lands immediately.

Where to Stay: If you’re going to commit to the English-country fantasy, do it properly. Prospect Country House sits in an 1830s Georgian estate at the gateway to Richmond, with 11 rooms, a restaurant, gardens and vineyard country all around it. Downton energy, Tasmanian postcode.

Tasmania carries the feeling of faraway travel through landscapes shaped by its own untamed beauty. Follow the colours, sink into the stillness, savour each shift in terrain and pick the dupe that speaks to you. The world feels vast here yet remarkably accessible. For more wanderlust, explore our guide to Strahan and its surrounds, along with our curated list of Tasmania’s most spectacular national parks.