Dong Ha, the provincial capital, is the practical base. It sits on the main Hanoi–Ho Chi Minh railway line and on National Highway 1A, around 74 kilometres north of Hue. The Reunification Express stops several times a day, and frequent buses make the run from Hue in under two hours.
Highway 9 runs west from Dong Ha through Khe Sanh to the Lao Bao border crossing into Laos, making Quang Tri a natural overland stop on a Vietnam-to-Laos route.