Guide
Landing at Gander or Deer Lake
Central Newfoundland has two front doors, and they are nearly four hours of driving apart. Almost everything that goes wrong with a trip here starts with flying into the wrong one — Gros Morne is under an hour from Deer Lake and most of a day from Gander, and the mistake is not recoverable once you have landed.
So this page is mostly one question answered with numbers. The operational detail — who rents cars this season, which taxis meet which flights — belongs to the airports themselves, and we link them rather than copying facts that change without telling anyone.
Where to go, and how to get there
Gander International Airport (YQX)
The eastern door, and the right one for Notre Dame Bay: Twillingate, the Fogo ferry and Lewisporte are all within two hours. Its own site covers parking, car rental and ground transport.
- Lewisporte — 53 min, 63 km
- Farewell ferry, for Fogo Island — 1h 21m, 86.3 km, then a ferry
- Twillingate — 1h 48m, 113.8 km
- Rocky Harbour and Gros Morne — 4h 43m, 375.3 km
Deer Lake Airport (YDF)
The western door, and the right one for Gros Morne and the Northern Peninsula. It publishes separate pages for rental cars and ground transportation, and — unlike Gander — a tourism information page.
- Rocky Harbour and Gros Morne — 55 min, 72 km
- La Scie — 3h 1m, 208.3 km
- Gander airport (YQX) — 3h 56m, 308.4 km
Before you go
These change. We link the people who keep them current rather than copying numbers that go stale here.
These are small airportsMatters most on late arrivals
Neither terminal is staffed around the clock, and neither is a place to improvise at eleven at night. Book the car before you fly, know which counter you are going to, and assume nothing is open when you land late.
Check it now →Renting a carBook ahead in summer
Both airports have on-site car rental and both publish their own current list of what operates there. We do not reproduce it here — desks, brands and hours change, and being wrong about a rental counter at 11pm is worse than saying nothing.
Check it now →Deer Lake ground transportCheck before you fly
Deer Lake keeps rental cars and ground transportation on separate pages. This link is the ground transportation one — taxis, shuttles and charters; car rental is listed separately at deerlakeairport.com/rental-cars.
Check it now →Accessible ground transport differs between the twoArrange in advance at either
This is one of the few places where the airports genuinely differ, and it is on their own pages rather than ours. Gander states plainly that there is no accessible ground transportation at the airport for larger mobility aids such as power wheelchairs or scooters — folding chairs and walkers go in a taxi trunk — and its accessible rental vehicles need about 48 hours' notice. Deer Lake names a local operator providing wheelchair-accessible vans, and publishes a separate accessibility page. If a power chair or scooter is part of the trip, that difference may decide which airport you book.
Check it now →Getting here without a carDaily, year round
There is one scheduled intercity coach on the island, run by DRL. Naming it is a fact rather than a recommendation — it has no competitor. What matters is where it does and does not go: it calls at Gander Airport itself, but in Deer Lake it stops in town rather than at the terminal, and it reaches no island, no ferry terminal and no national park. It is a way to cross Newfoundland, not a way to reach anything on this site.
Check it now →MooseYear round, worst between dusk and dawn
Whichever airport you land at, the drive out is unlit two-lane highway within a few minutes. The province states that the likelihood of injury in a moose collision is twice as high between dusk and dawn as in daytime. If you are landing on an evening flight, this is the single most useful thing on this page.
Check it now →Road conditionsYear round, matters most November–April
Check before you leave the terminal, not once you are an hour out.
Check it now →
Questions people actually ask
Should I fly into Gander or Deer Lake?＋
It depends entirely on where you are going, and the gap is usually decisive rather than marginal. For Gros Morne, Deer Lake is 55 minutes and Gander is 4 hours 43. For Twillingate, Gander is 1 hour 48. For the Fogo Island ferry, Gander is 1 hour 21. For La Scie, out on the Baie Verte Peninsula, Deer Lake is about 3 hours against Gander's 4h28. Pick the airport from the destination, not from the fare.
How far apart are the two airports?＋
308.4 km, about 3 hours 56 minutes of driving. That is worth knowing before you book a one-way rental or assume you can combine both sides of the region in a short trip — the island is bigger than it looks on a map.
Do I need to rent a car?＋
For almost any trip in this region, yes — and it is worth being precise about why rather than saying transport is sparse. There is a daily scheduled coach across the island, and it calls at Gander Airport. But it stops in Deer Lake town rather than at that terminal, and it reaches no island, no ferry terminal and no park. Every destination on this site is somewhere it does not go. Both airports have on-site car rental and publish current details themselves; book ahead in summer.
Where do I find current car rental and taxi information?＋
From the airports themselves. Gander covers parking, car rental and taxis on one parking and transport page; Deer Lake splits rental cars and ground transportation across two, and we link both. We point at them rather than copying them, because those are exactly the details that go stale without warning.
Does accessibility differ between the two airports?＋
Yes, and materially. Gander's own site states there is no accessible ground transportation at the airport for larger mobility aids such as power wheelchairs or scooters, though folding wheelchairs and walkers travel in any taxi; accessible rental vehicles need roughly 48 hours' notice. Deer Lake names an operator running wheelchair-accessible vans, asks for 24 to 48 hours' notice, and publishes a dedicated accessibility page. Both airports state their own arrangements and both should be contacted directly — but if a power chair is involved, this is a reason to look at the Deer Lake side even for a destination Gander is nearer to.
What is actually at the terminals?＋
Both airports publish what is there, and those pages are the ones to read — Gander lists on-site car rental and taxi service, Deer Lake lists rental cars and a set of taxi, shuttle and charter operators. What neither publishes reliably is late-evening opening, so treat both as small regional airports: sort your car before you fly, and do not count on eating at the airport after a late arrival.
Every coordinate and drive time on this page was checked against its source on August 28, 2026.