Cinque Terre National Park
Liguria, Italy
Cinque Terre National Park protects the five fishing villages and terraced cliffs of the Ligurian coast between Levanto…
211 tickets & tours
By type
Best marine parks to visit worldwide
In a marine park the thing protected is mostly under water, so the visit is a boat. Snorkelling and diving trips run to the reefs of Cozumel, Puerto Morelos, Ras Muhammad and Cabo Pulmo; island-hopping day boats work the Rosario Islands off Cartagena, Phang Nga Bay, the Phi Phi and Similan groups and the Kornati archipelago; and whale-watching boats leave from Marino Ballena and the Saguenay.
Cape Point Nature Reserve
Western Cape, South Africa
Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope form the southern tip of the Cape Peninsula, the mountainous finger of land that…
154 tickets & tours
Rosario and San Bernardo Corals National Park
Colombia
The Corales del Rosario y San Bernardo is a marine park off the Caribbean coast of Colombia, protecting the coral reefs…
97 tickets & tours
Arrecifes de Cozumel National Park
Mexico
The reefs of Cozumel, off the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, are among the most celebrated diving…
75 tickets & tours
Ao Phang Nga National Park
Thailand
Ao Phang Nga is the bay of limestone towers between Phuket and Krabi that Hollywood made famous as the setting for a…
73 tickets & tours
Puerto Morelos Reef National Park
Mexico
Puerto Morelos is the fishing village between Cancún and Playa del Carmen whose reef, part of the Mesoamerican barrier…
45 tickets & tours
Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park
Thailand
The Phi Phi islands are protected as the Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park, and the park fee is collected…
37 tickets & tours
Zingaro Nature Reserve
Sicily, Italy
Zingaro is the seven-kilometre stretch of wild coast between Scopello and San Vito lo Capo in north-western Sicily, the…
33 tickets & tours
Cahuita National Park
Costa Rica
Cahuita is the small coastal park next to the village of the same name on Costa Rica's southern Caribbean coast,…
26 tickets & tours
Marino Ballena National Park
Costa Rica
Marino Ballena is the whale park at Uvita on Costa Rica's southern Pacific coast, three and a half hours from San…
21 tickets & tours
Mu Ko Surin National Park
Thailand
The Surin islands are a group of five forested granite islands in the Andaman Sea, about sixty kilometres off the west…
21 tickets & tours
Ras Muhammad National Park
Egypt
Ras Muhammad is the headland at the very southern tip of the Sinai peninsula, in Egypt, where the gulfs of Suez and…
20 tickets & tours
Tayrona National Natural Park
Colombia
Tayrona is the park of jungle-backed beaches east of Santa Marta on Colombia's Caribbean coast, an hour from the…
19 tickets & tours
Kornati National Park
Croatia
The Kornati are the archipelago of bare islands off the Dalmatian coast between Zadar and Šibenik, and the park is…
18 tickets & tours
Scandola Nature Reserve
France
Scandola is the red-rock peninsula on the west coast of Corsica, and the reserve is closed to walkers and to anchoring,…
17 tickets & tours
Abel Tasman National Park
New Zealand
Abel Tasman is the coastal park at the top of New Zealand's South Island, an hour from Nelson to the gateway…
16 tickets & tours
Los Arcos National Marine Park
Mexico
Los Arcos are the granite islets with the arches off Mismaloya, twelve kilometres south of Puerto Vallarta, and the…
16 tickets & tours
Pigeon Island National Park
Sri Lanka
Pigeon Island is a pair of tiny rocky islands a kilometre off the long beach of Nilaveli, fifteen kilometres north of…
16 tickets & tours
Porto Conte Regional Natural Park
Sardinia, Italy
Porto Conte is the bay and the limestone headlands west of Alghero in north-western Sardinia, twenty minutes from the…
13 tickets & tours
Mu Ko Ang Thong National Marine Park
Thailand
Ang Thong is the archipelago of forty-two limestone islands west of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand, and it is…
12 tickets & tours
Tasman National Park
Tasmania, Australia
Tasman National Park is the sea-cliff coast of the Tasman Peninsula an hour and a half south-east of Hobart, and it…
10 tickets & tours
La Cordillera Reef Nature Reserve
Puerto Rico, United States
La Cordillera is a chain of small, uninhabited cays, reefs and rocks that stretches eastwards from the north-eastern…
9 tickets & tours
Cabo Pulmo National Park
Mexico
Cabo Pulmo is a village of a few hundred people on the East Cape of Baja California Sur, on the Gulf of California,…
8 tickets & tours
Lake Malawi National Park
Malawi
Lake Malawi National Park is the rocky southern tip of the lake around the village of Cape Maclear, about four hours by…
7 tickets & tours
The practical questions are the same everywhere. Is the park fee included or collected in cash at the pier? Is the boat a speedboat that reaches the far reefs or a slow boat that stops short? And which season is the sea calm and clear: many Andaman Sea parks close entirely from May to October, the Caribbean has its hurricane months, and Mediterranean reserves such as Zingaro and Scandola are at their best outside August. Coastal reserves walked rather than sailed, Cape Point and Abel Tasman among them, are listed here too. Each page says what you will actually see from the boat or the mask, and which departure port makes the day shortest.