The whale decides. Everything else you can book.
Which coast has whales the month you travel, what a sighting guarantee is really worth, and whether the inflatable or the big cruiser suits you. Reviews of whale and dolphin watching trips worldwide.
Four boats that make whale watching look easy.
A cheap Atlantic morning, the Reykjavik classic, an Alaskan fjord and a raft off Maui that sits at eye level. What each costs, and what the people on board said afterwards.
01The cheap oneTenerife: Eco-Yacht Whale and Dolphin Watching and SwimmingShort-finned pilot whales live off Los Cristianos all year, so this sails in January as readily as August, swim stop included.
02The classicReykjavík: Whale Watching and Marine Life CruiseOut of the old harbour into Faxafloi for minke, humpback and white-beaked dolphins. Take more layers than you think you need.
03The Alaskan oneJuneau Wildlife Whale WatchingHumpbacks working the herring in Stephens Passage with the Mendenhall ice on the skyline. Priced like a flight, and worth it once.
04Eye levelMaui Eco-Raft Tour: Eye-Level Whale or Dolphin Watching – LahainaA rigid inflatable rides low enough that a humpback surfaces at your shoulder. No shade, no bar, nothing between you and it.
Whale watching runs on a calendar, and it is different on every coast.
Humpbacks are off Hawaii and Baja from December to April, then off Alaska and eastern Australia from June. Iceland fills up through the light summer. Arctic Norway waits for the herring in November. The Canaries keep resident pilot whales year round, which is why a January booking there works when nothing else does.
Whale watching in the USA means Alaska, California or the Salish Sea. Pick the whale.
Humpbacks lunge-feed in the Alaskan panhandle from May. Grays pass Dana Point and Monterey twice a year on the longest migration any mammal makes. Resident orca hunt salmon between the San Juan Islands. The boat, the price and the month all change with the coast.
Six coasts where whale watching is the whole reason to go.
A volcanic strait with resident pilot whales, two Icelandic bays, the Baja lagoons, deep Atlantic water off Funchal, the orca coast of British Columbia and the one place you are allowed in the water with a humpback.
A whale watching morning is decided by the hull you book.
A rigid inflatable puts you at eye level and soaks you. A catamaran gives you shade, a flat deck for the camera and somewhere to sit down. A big cruiser is stable, warm, and carries two hundred people. Same whales, three completely different mornings.
Most whale watching trips find the dolphins first.
Pilot whales, bottlenose and common dolphins live where the seabed shelves, and they turn up long before anything with a fluke does. These are the trips that count both, and the ones that cut the engine and let you get in.
The most popular whale watching trips on the water.
Every whale watching review →The sailings more travellers take than any others, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Tenerife: Eco-Yacht Whale and Dolphin Watching and Swimming
Join Travelin Lady from Los Cristianos for a 90-minute, no-chase whale and dolphin trip on Tenerife’s purpose-built eco-yacht. Guides such as Ines explain the wildlife in several languages, with time for the Cave of Love and a swim stop if conditions allow.
From · $13
Read our review →
2
Los Cristianos Respectful No-Chase Whale and Dolphin Safari
from $29
3
Reykjavík: Whale Watching and Marine Life Cruise
from $87
4
Funchal: Ecological Catamaran Dolphin Whale Watching
from $41
5
Juneau Wildlife Whale Watching
from $177
6
Juneau Wildlife Whale Watching & Mendenhall Glacier
from $249
7
Funchal: Dolphin and Whale Watching Catamaran Cruise
from $41
8
Costa Adeje: Whale & Dolphin Eco-Cruise with Snacks & Drinks
from $52
What a morning of whale watching actually costs.
Every trip on the site, grouped by price. The Atlantic islands run cheap all year. Alaska and Arctic Norway are a different conversation.
Canary Island cruises, the Sri Lankan and Philippine boats, and short harbour runs that are back before lunch.
The standard half day: Iceland, New England, Baja, the Azores and the Australian east coast.
Alaska, Arctic Norway, private charters, and the long boats that go out looking for orca.
Tenerife is where whale watching still happens in January.
A resident pod of short-finned pilot whales lives in the strait between Tenerife and La Gomera, in water that drops past a thousand metres a mile offshore. Boats leave Los Cristianos and Los Gigantes all year, most of them cheap, many of them with a swim stop under the cliffs.
Every Tenerife whale watching trip →
Three whale watching days that are nothing like a boat trip.
Almost everything here keeps you dry and above the surface, watching a back roll past. These three do not.
Swimming with humpbacks
Humpbacks calve in the warm water around Moorea and Tahiti between July and November, and French Polynesia is one of a very small number of places that licenses guides to put swimmers in with them. Numbers, distance and time in the water are all capped. You slip in off the back of the boat, finning quietly, and the whale either comes or does not.
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Snorkelling with whale sharks
A whale shark is a fish, not a whale, and the biggest one alive. Off Isla Mujeres and La Paz they gather in open water where plankton blooms, and boats drop two snorkellers at a time in front of a moving mouth. Oslob in Cebu is different: the sharks there are fed to keep them close, which is why it is cheap, reliable and argued about.
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Going out for orca
Orca follow food, so the trips follow the orca. Northern Norway sails into the fjords around Skjervoy and Tromso from November while the herring hold, in about four hours of usable light a day. The Salish Sea is the summer version: flat green water, forest on both sides, and pods that researchers know by name and dorsal fin.
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Four whale watching trips that will not wait for you.
Most of this can be sorted the night before from a harbour cafe. These four run on migrations, permits and daylight, none of which take any interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Juneau Wildlife Whale WatchingThe Juneau boats are small and the cruise ships unload by the thousand. This is the booking you make before the flight, not after it.
- 02Húsavík: Whale Watching Tour with GuideThe north Iceland season runs roughly April to September on the long summer light. Outside it there is no schedule to book.
- 03Swimming with Whales in Moorea (Half Day tour)Only licensed operators may put swimmers in the water with humpbacks here, the places are capped, and the season is July to November.
- 04Tromsø: Whale Watching Tour by Hybrid-Electric BoatThe Arctic orca season is November to January, and the sun barely clears the horizon. Every operator sails the same short window.
Icelandic whale watching sails from two harbours, and they are not the same trip.
Reykjavik goes out into Faxafloi for minke, humpback and white-beaked dolphins, three easy hours from the old harbour and back in time for dinner. Husavik, up on Skjalfandi bay, has the better strike rate and the old oak schooners. Both hand you a boiler suit at the gangway, and you will want it.
- 1Reykjavík: Whale Watching and Marine Life Cruisefrom $87
- 2Akureyri: 3-Hour Classic Whale Watching Tour by Shipfrom $108
- 3Reykjavík: Whale Watching Cruise on the Amelia Rose Yachtfrom $107
Whale watching by place
Whale watching by kind of trip
Where the whales are, month by month.
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