By road, Milford Sound is 307 km from Queens town and 279 km from Invercargill (about four hours' drive), with most of the tour buses to the sound departing from Queens town. Some tourists also arrive from the smaller tourism centre of Te Anau, 121 km away. There are also scenic flights by light aircraft and helicopter tours to and from Milford Sound Airport. The drive to Milford Sound itself passes through unspoiled mountain landscapes before entering the 1.2 km Homer Tunnel which emerges into rain-forest-carpeted canyons that descend to the sound. The winding mountain road, while of high standards, is very prone to avalanches and closures during the winter half of the year.
The long distance to the sound means that tourist operators from Queens town all depart very early in the day, arriving back only late in the evening. This ensures that most tourists visit Milford Sound within a few hours around midday, leading to some congestion on the roads and at the tourist facilities during the main season. The peak-time demand is also the reason for the large number of tour boats active in the sound at much the same time.
Over the years, various options of shortening the distance to Milford Sound from Queens town have been mooted, including a gondola route, a new tunnel from Queens town, or a monorail from near Lake Wakatipu to Te Anau Downs. All would reduce the current round-trip duration (which has to travel via Te Anau), thus allowing tourism to be spread out over more of the day. While a gondola is considered to be out of the running after the DOC declined approval for environmental reasons, the tunnel and the monorail proposals have applied to the Department of Conservation for concessions for land access
