From the flooded forests of Florida’s Everglades to the fjords of coastal British Columbia, North America’s water-based national parks are some of the prettiest and most unique on the continent. These are places with no roads, no cars, and no visitor centers selling maps and magnets. Some can be accessed via national park cruises on major carriers like Norwegian or Lindblad Expeditions, while others require a ferry ride, houseboat rental, or kayak tour.
These eight North American national parks are best viewed by water — especially if you’re keen to see calving glaciers, endangered whales, and some of the prettiest ocean-filled landscapes outside of the Nordic fjords.
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Glacier Bay is a park of superlatives, with more than 3 million acres of tidewater glaciers, deep fjords, and mountains rising straight from the sea. But 99 percent of people who visit never set foot on land. That’s because the park has no roads to its interior, meaning the only practical way to see it is by boat.
Cruise ships, particularly those permitted by the National Park Service, can sail into Glacier Bay, letting guests see actively calving glaciers (like Margerie and Lamplugh), as well as wildlife like humpback whales, sea otters, harbor seals, and the occasional brown bear combing the shoreline. With many cruises, like those aboard the Norwegian Joy or Norwegian Encore, park rangers will board the ships for a day near Bartlett Cove to answer questions, deliver commentary, and help guests spot wildlife and notable geologic features.
While large ships, like those from Princess Cruises or Holland America, are able to enter the park, only smaller vessels with fewer than 100 passengers are allowed to do off-ship excursions. So if you want to kayak, make a landing, or do a Zodiac boat tour, you’ll need to see Glacier Bay with a small-ship cruise company, such as UnCruise, Alaska Wildland Adventures, or Alaskan Dream Cruises. But regardless of which tour you pick, at least you won’t see too many people: the park limits the number of boats allowed to two cruise ships per day.
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Dry Tortugas feels quite Caribbean, sitting 70 miles off the coast of Key West. It’s made up of seven coral-and-sand islands surrounded by sparkling turquoise water, with no roads and no airport. That leaves one reliable access method: boats.
Most visitors arrive via the Yankee Freedom III, a National Park Service-approved high-speed catamaran that makes daily runs to the park’s Garden Key, home of the Civil War–era Fort Jefferson. The trip takes about 2.5 hours and passes through the Gulf’s marine sanctuary zone, where they could spot sea turtles, flying fish, or dolphins. On the island, visitors can snorkel on coral gardens directly from shore (one of the few national parks where that’s possible without a guide) or tour Fort Jefferson with or without a guide. (Download the self-guided tour in advance if that’s your pick).
Longer trips to the park are also possible. To stay overnight, you can camp near Fort Jefferson at the park’s first-come, first-served campground, and several operators offer multi-day fishing trips around the park’s borders.
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Though it’s only an hour by boat from Ventura, Channel Islands National Park’s offshore location makes it feel like the California of 200 years ago: undeveloped, isolated, and wild. The park is comprised of five rugged islands with no hotels, stores, or way to get there except by boat or private aircraft. It’s the primary reason why it’s the least-visited park in California.
Most visitors arrive via Island Packers Cruises, running ferries every day from Ventura Harbor to Santa Cruz, Anacapa, and Santa Rosa islands. While crossing, it’s possible to see pods of dolphins, blue whales (summer), and even breaching humpbacks (spring). On land, there are a few hiking trails and a primitive campground, but the real highlight is what’s just offshore. Kayaking trips go to the Santa Cruz Island sea caves, some of the largest in the world. Channel Islands Adventure Company is the only kayak outfitter in Scorpion Anchorage (the ferry landing point), and tours include gear, wetsuits, and drybags. Tour groups launch directly from the beach near the ferry drop-off and return in time for same-day departures.
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Kenai Fjords is Dramatic, with a capital D. Expect to see towering cliffs covered with seabirds, narrow fjords lined by ancient glaciers, and water filled with orcas and Steller sea lions. The Exit Glacier area near Seward is accessible by car, making it the most crowded section of the park. But more than half of the park is glacier-filled wilderness reachable only by boat. Most travelers see it on a half- or full-day cruise from Seward into Resurrection Bay or Aialik Bay, on smaller boats able to navigate closer to glaciers and shoreline. From the boats, passengers can often see enormous icefalls calving off glaciers and falling into the sea with an enormous impact — something impossible to witness from shore.
Wildlife sightings are unpredictable but frequent, with Dall’s porpoises, groups of puffins, and black bears fishing at the waterline all seen regularly.
Operators like Major Marine Tours and Kenai Fjords Tours run small-group vessels with naturalists on board, and some outfitters run kayak-supported overnight camping expeditions. The town of Seward is the only departure point for park-approved cruises, with daily tours from May to early September. Because the park is one of the closest to Anchorage, at about a two-hour drive, making reservations in advance for all tours is highly recommended. You can technically do a paddle trip on your own, but you’ll need to arrange some logistics in advance and should be an experienced, confident paddler.
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Gwaii Haanas, meaning “Islands of Beauty” in Haida, is one of the most remote protected areas in North America. It’s in southern half of Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands), and accessible by boat or floatplane, with no roads or visitor centers. It’s a place that celebrates Indigenous heritage and wilderness in equal parts, with ancient Haida village sites like SGang Gwaay (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), reachable only by water.
Small-ship cruises and kayak-supported expeditions are the only way to access these cultural sites, also offering the chance to spot wildlife like coastal wolves, humpback whales, and tufted puffins in habitats untouched by industrial development. Tour operators have to get a license from both Parks Canada and the Council of the Haida Nation, with strict quotas that control both the maximum number of visitors, and the maximum size of boats. Most trips depart from Sandspit or Queen Charlotte City and are five to 10 days long, with flexible itineraries based on tides, wildlife activity, and weather. Small-ship operators who run trips in the area include Maple Leaf Adventures, and Adventures Canada, while larger (50-100 person) ships from luxury companies like Lindblad/Nat Geo Expeditions go to the northern part of Haida Gwaii, but can’t visit the reserve itself.
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Despite the often-shared photos of alligators on land, Everglades National Park is a water-based wilderness, best seen from a boat. It covers 1.5 million acres of mangrove forests and freshwater bays and rivers, without any trails or roads through much of its environmentally rich terrain. So you’ll need to jump aboard a boat to reach most of it
Kayakers and canoers can navigate through tight mangrove tunnels in the Nine Mile Pond Canoe Trail (guided tours are available seasonally) or Hell’s Bay, where reflections of ghostly cypress trees stretch across still water. From the water, you may spot manatees, American crocodiles, roseate spoonbills, or even bobcats along the shoreline. Other boat tours are also available in the park. The newly opened Flamingo Lodge inside the national park runs boat tours that depart from the nearby marina, and select companies have permission to operate airboat tours inside the park. Note that many companies in the area run airboat tours, but they may be tours through the Everglades — not tours through Everglades National Park.
For a true wilderness immersion, book a multi-day tour on the park’s 99-mile Wilderness Waterway, a paddle route from Flamingo to Everglades City. You’ll camp on remote chickee platforms and ground campsites only reachable by watercraft. Companies like Everglades Adventures can help you plan your trip, whether you want a guided tour, or just rentals and a shuttle back to your car when you finish.
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Unlike most US national parks, Voyageurs has absolutely no roads into its interior. About 40 percent of its 218,000 acres are water, sprawling across dozens of interconnected lakes and islands, many dotted with boat-in-only trails and campsites.
Voyageurs is named after the 18th-century French Canadian fur traders who paddled these routes in birchbark canoes (hence the French spelling), and is still best explored in much the same way. Via boat, visitors can access rock art panels etched by Ojibwe ancestors, glide past uninhabited islands, and spot loons, beavers, and even wolves drinking from the shore. Houseboat rentals are a popular option, allowing for multi-day trips with onboard lodging and access to designated mooring sites. You can rent a houseboat without a guide from companies like Ebel’s Houseboat Rentals or Northeraire Houseboats, but make sure to secure park permits as well on Recreation.gov.
For paddlers, the park has dozens of connected canoe routes and an easy-to-use backcountry reservation system. Boat rentals and water taxis operate from Ash River, Kabetogama, and Rainy Lake visitor centers. NPS also offers seasonal boat tours for people who don’t want to paddle, leaving from the visitors centers.
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Where the Saguenay River meets the St. Lawrence Estuary is a newly expanded marine ecosystem: the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park. The park’s nutrient-rich waters are the idea habitat for feeding whales, including fin, minke, beluga, and even endangered blue whales (rarely seen elsewhere close to shore).
Boat access is the best way to see the marine sanctuary, as the whales typically feed mid-channel, far from the land-based observation points. Most operators are based in the towns of Tadoussac, Baie-Sainte-Catherine, Les Escoumins, or Rivière-du-Loup, with short morning and afternoon whale watching tours aboard Zodiacs or covered boats, depending on conditions. The park is home to the St. Lawrence Estuary belugas, a genetically distinct and endangered population that lives year-round in the estuary. That makes them easier to observe than migratory Arctic populations, as they’re the southernmost beluga pod on Earth. From June to September, you’re more likely to see mothers with calves, usually in tightly knit pods. Look at companies like Croisières AML or Du Fleuve, both running in collaboration with marine researchers from GREMM (Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals). 