Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) → Burgeo
Deer Lake Airport (YDF) to Burgeo and the Sandbanks
- Drive time
- 3h 48m
- Distance
- 265.7 km
Conservative model estimate, Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) to Burgeo — no stops, dry roads. Many of Newfoundland's provincial routes carry no speed limit in the open map data, so the router assumes a slow default: a driver who knows the road will beat this. The ferry after it is not included. Source: OSRM driving profile, terminal door to town, checked 2026-09-03.
⛴ Then the ferry to Ramea — sailings & schedule →
Drive it with your own nav:Organic Maps →OsmAnd →Apple →Google →Waze →The first two run on OpenStreetMap and don't track you — the same map this site is built from.
Or take the whole route with you: Download the GPX → — the measured drive plus every stop as a waypoint, for Organic Maps, OsmAnd or any Garmin, no account and no signal needed once it's on the device.
No one has sent a recording of this drive yet.Be the first — send the track →
The terminal side — parking, arrivals, ground transport — is the airport's own information: Deer Lake Regional Airport →
Route 480 is a decision more than a road: about 150 km of nothing between the Trans-Canada and the sea, driven because of what waits at the end. Burgeo is the south coast’s road-connected outpost — beyond it the coastline continues by ferry only — and at its edge lie the Sandbanks, dune-backed beaches with a mapped walking loop threading them, long enough and pale enough that photographs of them get accused of being somewhere else.
The honest numbers: 265.7 km, about 3h48, one mapped viewpoint on the way and one long commitment after the junction. The seasons block carries the advice that matters more here than anywhere else on this site — fuel, daylight, and the moose arithmetic of an empty road. The beach at the end keeps no hours and needs no operator; it is the rare destination this site can hand over completely, sand cited straight from the map.
Then a ferry to Ramea
Burgeo is also the south coast's ferry gate: the Ramea crossing is mapped in both directions (relations 13094354/13094355), and a second service threads Grey River and François — roadless outports whose only street is the boat. Sailings and fares are the provincial schedule's to state, never this page's.
Operated by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Current schedule →Worth stopping for
Gorge Viewpoint
A mapped viewpoint on the way through the Humber country, at no detour cost — the last easy scenery before the road commits south.
Stopping here adds about 0 min and 0 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · WazeSandbanks Beaches Loop trailheadDetour
The mapped walking loop through the Sandbanks at Burgeo's edge — kilometres of dune-backed sand on the province's south coast, reached by a short spur just before town. This is what the whole drive is for.
Stopping here adds about 20 min and 6.2 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · Waze
What has been recorded near here
Species reported within 50 km of Burgeo and shared to GBIF, the international record of species occurrences. The useful column is when — the months the reports cluster in.
- Humpback whalewhaleMegaptera novaeangliaeReports cluster in July, August202 reports on record
- Atlantic puffinseabirdFratercula arcticaReports cluster in January, July, June15 reports on record
- Northern gannetseabirdMorus bassanusReports cluster in July, June, September12 reports on record
- Minke whalewhaleBalaenoptera acutorostrataReports cluster in July1 reports on record
- Fin whalewhaleBalaenoptera physalusReports cluster in January1 reports on record
What this is not
- Not how many there are. A report means somebody looked, saw and wrote it down. A busy harbour with tour boats reports more than an empty coast with the same animals in it.
- Not a sighting you are promised. Nothing here says you will see one.
- Not complete. Only species we ask GBIF about appear, and only where somebody reported them.
From GBIF, queried 2026-09-14 — their record, not a copy of it.
Doing it electric
- Fast chargers on this drive
- Deer Lake km 4, Corner Brook km 55
- Longest stretch without one
- 210 km
- Corner Brook → Burgeo, of 265 km driven
- Nearest fast charger to Burgeo
- 182.1 km
- 2h 49m by road, at Stephenville
NL Hydro lists an ultra-fast site coming in 2026 at Deer Lake (km 0) — not counted above until it opens.
Source: NL Hydro's published fast-charging network map, exported 2026-09-13 — sites within 3 km of this route's measured line, the km read along it, the drive to the nearest site priced by OSRM. NL Hydro lists these as 62.5 kW DC with CCS and CHAdeMO plugs on a ChargePoint account; whether one is free or working right now is the app's to say. Level 2 chargers in towns are not counted.
Paved or not, per the map
- Mapped as unpaved
- none
- Mapped as paved
- 65%
- 158.6 km of 265.7 km driven
- No surface tag on the map
- 35%
- 84.9 km the map does not describe either way
Why it matters: Hertz Canada’s published rental terms — the one set of Canadian rental terms we could read in full, quoted not recommended — list “use off paved roads or on roads which are not regularly maintained” as misconduct that voids the damage waiver. Read the agreement you sign before leaving the lot. The terms themselves. Source for these figures: OSRM driving profile, stored route query, with node annotations; OpenStreetMap surface tags via Overpass, checked 2026-09-06. A road with no tag is unknown, not paved; what any road is like today is on 511.
Eating on the way — measured, not recommended
26 places to eat that the open map data records within 2 km of this drive, in the order you would pass them. No stars, no prices, no opinions, and no opening hours — distance along the road is the one thing measured here that a directory cannot give you.
The longest stretch with nothing mapped on it is 192.3 km — after Pinchgut Restaurant & Convenience, to Burgeo. That is the figure worth planning around.
- Big Stop Restaurantrestaurantkm 4.1
- Tim Hortonfast foodkm 4.1 · 222 m off the road
- Mary Brown'sfast foodkm 4.6 · 192 m off the road
- Wingn' itrestaurantkm 5.1
- Pizza Delightrestaurantkm 5.7 · 235 m off the road
- Tim Hortonscafékm 5.8 · 225 m off the road
- A&Wfast foodkm 5.8 · 178 m off the road
- Subwayfast foodkm 5.9 · 177 m off the road
- KFCfast foodkm 6
- Burger Kingfast foodkm 6.1
- Peter's Pizzafast foodkm 6.1
- Langerspubkm 6.2 · 550 m off the road
- Oasis Grill Houserestaurantkm 27.7 · 244 m off the road
- Cafe 59restaurantkm 27.7 · 863 m off the road
- Tim Hortonscafékm 46
- Pizza Delightrestaurantkm 53.4 · 881 m off the road
- Tim Hortonscafékm 53.5 · 923 m off the road
- Mary Brown'sfast foodkm 53.5 · 912 m off the road
- Samuel's Sammiches and Sweetsrestaurantkm 53.6 · 1496 m off the road
- King Henry's Pubpubkm 53.8 · 1919 m off the road
- KFCfast foodkm 53.8 · 1991 m off the road
- Tim Hortonscafékm 53.8 · 1848 m off the road
- McDonald'sfast foodkm 54.4 · 310 m off the road
- Jungle Jim'srestaurantkm 54.8 · 197 m off the road
- Wendy'sfast foodkm 55
- Pinchgut Restaurant & Conveniencerestaurantkm 72.3
What this list is not
- Not a recommendation. Nothing here is endorsed, reviewed or rated. It is in the order you drive past it.
- Not complete. Somewhere unmapped does not appear. This is never "all of them".
- Not open hours. We publish none, because the open data holds none. Never assume a kitchen is serving.
- Not necessarily still trading. A place that closed stays in the data until somebody removes it.
- Not for sale. No one can pay to appear here, to rank higher, or to have a rival removed.
Open map data is incomplete — somewhere unmapped does not appear here, and this is never "all of them" or "the good ones". A place that closed is also still on the map until somebody removes it, which is why no hours are shown and nothing here says a kitchen is open. From OpenStreetMap and Overture Maps (which includes data from Meta, Foursquare and AllThePlaces); swept 2026-09-12. Map the one that is missing → and every site built on the open map gains it, this one included.
Before you go
These change. We link the people who keep them current rather than copying numbers that go stale here.
Fuel and servicesYear round — plan at the junction
Route 480 runs about 150 km with no communities between the Trans-Canada and Burgeo. Leave the highway with the tank and the daylight you would want to arrive with; nothing on this page mirrors which services exist en route because effectively none do.
Check it now →MooseYear round, worst between dusk and dawn
The province states that the likelihood of injury in a moose collision is twice as high between dusk and dawn as in daytime — and 480 is exactly the long, empty, wooded road that sentence was written about.
Check it now →Road conditionsYear round, matters most November–April
One road in, the same road out. Check it in both directions before committing an afternoon to it.
Check it now →
The trails
Arriving without a car
Every distance and time on this page is a drive. If you are not renting, here is what Deer Lake Regional Airport lists at this door — operators and numbers, not fares: a tariff is theirs to change, so it is linked and not copied.
No rideshare here.
No rideshare service is named anywhere on the airport's ground-transportation page, which instead lists three taxi firms, a shuttle and seven charter operators. Read off the page on 2026-09-15.
Taxi
Star Taxi, which the airport calls its primary ground transportation provider, serving the whole region with wheelchair-accessible vans and accommodating service dogs. The airport advises contacting them 24 to 48 hours before you arrive, which is the single most useful sentence on that page.
Taxi
Deer Lake Taxi, listed as operating around the clock across the province with no pre-booking required.
Shuttle
Star Taxi runs a shuttle between Corner Brook and the airport, serving named hotels, with a private-car option. It must be booked ahead. The per-person and private fares are the airport's to publish.
Deer Lake Regional Airport, read 2026-09-15 — the authority on what operates at this kerb, and the only place a current fare or timetable should come from.
Questions people actually ask
Should I fly into Deer Lake or Gander for Burgeo?＋
Deer Lake: 3h48 against well over six hours from Gander. The 480 junction sits on YDF's side of the island.
Is the drive worth it?＋
That depends on what empty buys you. Route 480 is one of the island's loneliest paved roads — two and a half hours where the scenery is scale itself — and it ends at sand that would be famous anywhere with more people. This page prices it honestly and lets you decide.
What are the Sandbanks?＋
Dune-backed beaches stretching along Burgeo's western edge, with a mapped walking loop through them cited above. Sandbanks Provincial Park is the campground on this route — ParksNL runs its seasons and facilities — that is ParksNL's story, linked from their own pages, not mirrored here.
Can I do this as a day trip?＋
The arithmetic says 7 hours 36 minutes of driving around whatever beach time you came for. Possible in summer daylight; better as an overnight, and the moose window in the seasons block is the reason.
Put this map on your site
If you run a place to stay, a tour, or a town page along this drive, this map answers the question your guests already email you: how far are you from the airport? Free, no account, and the measured figures stay current because they are ours to maintain.
<iframe src="https://fromtheairport.xyz/embed/ydf-burgeo"
width="100%" height="420" style="border:0" loading="lazy"
title="Driving route: Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) to Burgeo"></iframe>?lat=&lon=&label= to the URL to pin your own property on the map.Every distance, drive time and coordinate on this page was checked against its source on September 3, 2026. Origin: OpenStreetMap way/180061286. Destination: OpenStreetMap node/4314598365 — Burgeo place node.