Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) → L'Anse aux Meadows
Deer Lake Airport (YDF) to L'Anse aux Meadows
- Drive time
- 5h 51m
- Distance
- 436.4 km
Conservative model estimate, Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) to L'Anse aux Meadows — 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. Source: OSRM driving profile, terminal door to the settlement, checked 2026-09-02.
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 →
There are long drives you break up because you must, and long drives that are the trip — this is the second kind. Route 430 is signed as the Viking Trail and it means it: the road leaves the Trans-Canada at Deer Lake’s junction, spends its first act inside Gros Morne (a UNESCO site on the way to a UNESCO site — no other drive on this site can say that), runs its long middle along the Strait of Belle Isle, and ends at the meadow where the Norse hauled up their boats a thousand years ago.
The measured claim is 436.4 km and about 5h51 of driving, and the honest advice attached to it is in the FAQ: make it an overnight. The stops on this page are chosen the way everything here is chosen — mapped, cited, mostly free of detour cost — and the one true spur, Port au Choix, buys several thousand years of human history for thirty-four minutes. The site at the end belongs to Parks Canada and its own storytellers; the road belongs to anyone with a licence, and now it is measured.
Worth stopping for
Gros Morne Visitor Information Centre
The park's own front door, less than an hour in — Route 430 runs straight through Gros Morne on its way north, so the UNESCO park is not a detour on this drive, it is the first act of it.
Stopping here adds about 2 min and 0.8 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · WazeSS Ethie wreck site
A mapped shipwreck site on the Gros Morne coast — the coastal steamer Ethie went ashore here in 1919 and the beach still shows her bones. Steps from the highway.
Stopping here adds about 1 min and 0.3 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · WazeWestern Brook Pond trailhead
The mapped trailhead for the walk in to Gros Morne's most photographed water — the landlocked fjord whose gorge is on half the province's postcards. The walk and the boat tour beyond it are Parks Canada's and the operator's to describe; the parking is right off the highway.
Stopping here adds about 1 min and 0.2 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · WazePort au ChoixDetour
The one real spur on the Viking Trail, and it earns itself: the town's national historic site holds thousands of years of layered burial and settlement archaeology — people fished this point for millennia before the Norse ever sailed. Half an hour out and back plus whatever the site deserves.
Stopping here adds about 34 min and 29 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · WazePistolet Bay Provincial ParkDetour
The ParksNL campground at the peninsula's top, off Route 437 minutes before the Norse site — the campground on this route, and the closest mapped pitch to the meadow where the sagas landed. Season and sites are ParksNL's.
Stopping here adds about 26 min and 20.4 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · WazeThrombolites at Flower's Cove
A mapped walking trail to some of the strangest things a road passes anywhere: thrombolites, mound-building microbial structures of a kind that dominated Earth billions of years ago. Effectively on the route — the trail sits a minute off the highway.
Stopping here adds about 1 min and 0.3 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · Waze
What has been recorded near here
Species reported within 50 km of L'Anse aux Meadows and shared to GBIF, the international record of species occurrences. The useful column is when — the months the reports cluster in.
- Northern gannetseabirdMorus bassanusReports cluster in July, August, June1,464 reports on record
- Humpback whalewhaleMegaptera novaeangliaeReports cluster in July, August, September364 reports on record
- Atlantic puffinseabirdFratercula arcticaReports cluster in July, August, June126 reports on record
- Fin whalewhaleBalaenoptera physalusReports cluster in July, August, September46 reports on record
- Minke whalewhaleBalaenoptera acutorostrataReports cluster in June, July, August11 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.
When you get to L'Anse aux Meadows
- Where to eat in L'Anse aux Meadows → — 1 places the open map records, alphabetically, with addresses and phone numbers.
Doing it electric
- Fast chargers on this drive
- Deer Lake km 4, Rocky Harbour km 71, Cow Head km 116, Flowers Cove km 316
- Longest stretch without one
- 200 km
- Cow Head → Flowers Cove, of 436 km driven
- Nearest fast charger to L'Anse aux Meadows
- 39.7 km
- 37 min by road, at St. Anthony
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
- 57%
- 245.5 km of 436.4 km driven
- No surface tag on the map
- 43%
- 182.8 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
24 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 207.9 km — after Pizza Delight, until Dark Tickle Shop - Cafe Nymphe. That is the figure worth planning around.
- Tim Hortonscafékm 4.1 · 1623 m off the road
- Mary Brown'sfast foodkm 4.1 · 508 m off the road
- Pizza Delightrestaurantkm 4.1 · 1584 m off the road
- Big Stop Restaurantrestaurantkm 4.1 · 349 m off the road
- Subwayfast foodkm 4.1 · 1839 m off the road
- A&Wfast foodkm 4.1 · 1744 m off the road
- Tim Hortonfast foodkm 4.1 · 393 m off the road
- Wingn' itrestaurantkm 4.2 · 1148 m off the road
- Funland Resortrestaurantkm 11.1 · 948 m off the road
- Fisherman's Landingrestaurantkm 70.7 · 577 m off the road
- Earle‘srestaurantkm 70.7 · 1940 m off the road
- SunSet Cafécafékm 70.7 · 635 m off the road
- Jackie‘sfast foodkm 70.7 · 1648 m off the road
- Anchor Pubpubkm 70.7 · 566 m off the road
- Oceansrestaurantkm 70.7 · 554 m off the road
- Buoy & Arrowrestaurantkm 70.7 · 348 m off the road
- Treasure Box Crafts & Cafecafékm 70.7 · 713 m off the road
- Whale‘s Back Grub Hubrestaurantkm 89.9
- C&P Take-Outfast foodkm 212
- Pizza Delightrestaurantkm 212.2
- Dark Tickle Shop - Cafe Nymphecafékm 420.1
- The Daily Catchrestaurantkm 422.3
- Skipper Hot's Loungerestaurantkm 431.2
- The Norsemanrestaurantkm 434.5 · 205 m off the road
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.
Site seasonParks Canada operates the site seasonally — dates are theirs
L'Anse aux Meadows is a Parks Canada national historic site and UNESCO World Heritage site; opening dates, hours and fees live on the operator's page and nowhere on this one. Check before building two days of driving around it.
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 this page's honest advice is that 436 km makes dusk hard to avoid without planning. Break the drive.
Check it now →Road conditionsYear round, matters most November–April
Route 430 runs the length of the Northern Peninsula between the Long Range and the Strait — weather changes several times in 400 km. Check the cameras at the far end, not just the near one.
Check it now →
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 L'Anse aux Meadows?＋
Deer Lake, by hours: 5h51 against well over eight from Gander. The Viking Trail begins essentially at the YDF junction.
Can I do this as a day trip?＋
The arithmetic says barely and this page says don't: nearly twelve hours of driving wrapped around a site that deserves half a day, with dusk moose risk on the return. It is an overnight route — where you break it is your call, and the drive through Gros Morne gives you reasons.
What actually is L'Anse aux Meadows?＋
The only authenticated Norse site in North America — the place the sagas' Vinland voyages touched ground a thousand years ago — and a UNESCO World Heritage site run by Parks Canada. The specifics are the site's own story to tell; this page's job was getting you to it.
What is the drive actually like?＋
Three acts: Gros Morne's mountains and coast for the first hour and a half, then the long middle where Route 430 runs the shore of the Strait of Belle Isle with Labrador visible across the water on clear days, then the turn onto 436 through the little capes to the meadow at the end of everything.
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-lanse-aux-meadows"
width="100%" height="420" style="border:0" loading="lazy"
title="Driving route: Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) to L'Anse aux Meadows"></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 2, 2026. Origin: OpenStreetMap way/180061286. Destination: OpenStreetMap node/1529040271 — L'Anse aux Meadows place node.