Tumby Bay is located 301 km west of Adelaide via the Princes and Lincoln Highways. Tumby Bay is a typical Eyre Peninsula holiday resort. The township is dominated by the long, narrow arc of beach and the two jetties which jut out into the bay.

First explored by Matthew Flinders in 1802 and named Tumby after Tumby in Lincolnshire, England, the name was changed to Tumby Bay in 1984.