Arrival door · by sea
Driving from Argentia ferry terminal
You come off the boat with your own car, so the drive starts the moment the ramp goes down. (Yes, the site is called From the Airport. The boat counts.) Of the 69 places on this site, 8 are nearer Argentia than any airport or other ferry. The table below says where the rest are nearer from.
Heading to L'Anse aux Meadows? The Port aux Basques ferry lands 326 km closer. See Port aux Basques → or compare them all
On foot off the boat? We have not mapped buses or taxis from this terminal yet: every time on this page is a drive.
When to come? Best months for icebergs, whales, puffins and warm weather →
Getting here is the long part
- The crossing
- 16.5 hours
- North Sydney, Nova Scotia, 518 km of water
- When it runs
- Mid-June to late September, up to three times per week
- The other door
- Port aux Basques is 7 hours — Year-round, daily service
That is 9.5 hours more at sea than the other crossing. The drives from here are shorter, but not by that much.
Marine Atlantic's own published route figures, read 2026-10-02. No departure time or fare is copied here — those are theirs and they change. Their route page →
Sailings, fares and the season are Marine Atlantic's to state and change. Marine Atlantic →
Plan the whole trip from the ramp
The planner treats Argentia like any airport: arrive here, leave from any other door, with your days laid out on the road between.
- Off this boat, home on the other: Argentia in, Port aux Basques out → 862 km of driving end to end before any stops, and your own car comes home with you.
- Arrive here, choose where you leave from →
- Not sure which crossing? Compare both →
- Coming and going through Argentia? Every drive on this page is out and back from the terminal already.
Measured drives from this door
- Argentia → Cape St. Mary's
Off the boat at Argentia, Cape St. Mary's is 71 km straight down Route 100 — less than half the drive from the nearest airport.
71 km
- Argentia → Clarke's Beach
Clarke's Beach is 77.9 km from the Argentia ferry by road, on Routes 1, 71 and 70. The closer of the two ferries.
78 km
- Argentia → Brigus
Argentia to Brigus is 78 km on Routes 1, 71, 70 and 60 — to the Conception Bay town where Bob Bartlett's family home still stands.
78 km
- Argentia → Harbour Grace
Argentia to Harbour Grace is 96.2 km on Routes 1, 71, 75 and 70, nearer than the drive from the St. John's airport.
96 km
- Argentia → Heart's Content
Argentia to Heart's Content is 106.5 km on Routes 1, 81 and 80 — to the shore where the first lasting transatlantic cable came in.
107 km
- Argentia → St. John's
St. John's is 132.8 km from the Argentia ferry by road, on Routes 1 and 2. The closer of the two ferries.
133 km
- Argentia → Gander
Gander is 292 km from the Argentia ferry by road, on Routes 1 and 330. The closer of the two ferries.
292 km
- Argentia → Lewisporte
Off the seasonal Argentia ferry, Lewisporte is 350.2 km: the Trans-Canada west through Gander, then Routes 340 and 341 north.
350 km
- Argentia → Comfort Cove-Newstead
Off the seasonal Argentia ferry, Comfort Cove-Newstead is 377.8 km: the Trans-Canada west through Gander, then Routes 340 and 343.
378 km
- Argentia → Twillingate
Off the seasonal Argentia ferry, Twillingate is 402.2 km: the Trans-Canada to Gander, then Routes 330, 331 and 340 north.
402 km
- Argentia → Corner Brook
Corner Brook is 647.3 km from the Argentia ferry by road, on Routes 1 and 450A. Port aux Basques ferry is closer.
647 km
11 of them. Every other place this door reaches is in the tables below, with the figure, whether or not it has a page of its own yet.
What Argentia is closest to
Measured door to door, the same way as every drive on this site, on 2026-10-10.
- Placentia7 km
- Whitbourne51 km
- Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve71 km
- Brigus78 km
- Harbour Grace96 km
- Heart's Content107 km
- Clarenville147 km
- Clarenville147 km
And where another door is closer
Places another door is closer to. The right-hand column is the distance that matters.
- Salmonier Nature Park90 km from Argentia · 68 km from St. John's
- Bay Bulls114 km from Argentia · 40 km from St. John's
- Witless Bay114 km from Argentia · 46 km from St. John's
- Downtown St. John's133 km from Argentia · 8 km from St. John's
- Portugal Cove ferry terminal136 km from Argentia · 11 km from St. John's
- Cape Spear144 km from Argentia · 23 km from St. John's
- Trepassey148 km from Argentia · 156 km from St. John's
- White Hills Resort154 km from Argentia · 148 km from Gander
Eating before you drive: 1 places the open map records in Argentia →
Compare every destination from every airport and ferry · every measured drive
Why this door is worth its own page: it is nearer than any airport or other ferry to eight measured places, including Cape St. Mary's, where it beats St. John's by over 100 km. Landing here puts you on the Avalon already past the city, which is the opposite of how most arrivals work.What it is not is a shortcut. Sixteen and a half hours at sea buys anywhere from 7 to 147 km of driving, so this door earns its place when the crossing is part of the trip — a car you did not want to fly without, a seasonal plan built around the Avalon — and not when the point is to arrive quickly. The comparison table matters because the answer here is genuinely often Argentia. The box above it matters because the answer is never “and it is faster”.