Los Haitises National Park
Dominican Republic
Los Haitises is the mangrove and karst park on the southern shore of Samaná Bay in the north-east of the Dominican…
107 tickets & tours
By type
Best wetland parks to visit worldwide
Wetland parks are for birds, boats and patience. Flamingos colour Lake Nakuru and Ria Lagartos; pelicans and waders fill the Danube Delta, Djoudj and the Camargue; Tortuguero, the Everglades, Kakadu and Los Haitises are explored along channels and mangrove creeks where crocodiles, manatees or caimans are the draw.
Lake Manyara National Park
Tanzania
Lake Manyara is the small park under the Rift Valley wall that most northern Tanzania safaris pass through on their…
81 tickets & tours
Lake Nakuru National Park
Kenya
Lake Nakuru is the closest of Kenya's great parks to Nairobi, about three hours by road up the Rift Valley, and it…
57 tickets & tours
Tortuguero National Park
Costa Rica
Tortuguero is the park of canals and sea turtles on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, reachable only by boat or light…
53 tickets & tours
Van Long Wetland Nature Reserve
Vietnam
Van Long is the quiet alternative to Tam Coc and Trang An in Ninh Binh province, two hours south of Hanoi, a wetland…
50 tickets & tours
Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve
Mexico
Ría Lagartos is the flamingo lagoon on the northern tip of Yucatán, two hours from Valladolid and three from Cancún or…
28 tickets & tours
Bundala National Park
Sri Lanka
Bundala is the wetland park on the south coast of Sri Lanka near Hambantota, half an hour from Tissamaharama and the…
23 tickets & tours
Kumana National Park
Sri Lanka
Kumana is the eastern half of the Yala system, the park on the south-east coast of Sri Lanka reached from Arugam Bay,…
20 tickets & tours
Everglades National Park
Florida, United States
The Everglades are sold from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Naples and even Orlando as airboat rides, and the first thing to…
18 tickets & tours
Camargue Regional Natural Park
France
The Camargue is the Rhône delta south of Arles, an hour from Avignon and Montpellier, and its regional park is visited…
14 tickets & tours
Skadar Lake National Park
Montenegro
Skadar is the great lake on the border of Montenegro and Albania, half an hour from Podgorica and from the coast at Bar…
12 tickets & tours
Doñana National Park
Andalusia, Spain
Doñana is the delta of the Guadalquivir on the Atlantic coast of Andalusia, an hour from Seville, and the core of the…
10 tickets & tours
Palo Verde National Park
Costa Rica
Palo Verde is the wetland park on the lower Tempisque river in Guanacaste, and almost every visitor from the Pacific…
10 tickets & tours
Kakadu National Park
Northern Territory, Australia
Kakadu lies in the tropical north of Australia, its edge 150 kilometres and its centre at Jabiru 250 kilometres east of…
9 tickets & tours
Kemeri National Park
Latvia
Ķemeri is the bog and forest park behind the Baltic resort of Jūrmala, forty-five minutes west of Riga, and its single…
8 tickets & tours
Butrint National Park
Albania
Butrint lies at the southern tip of Albania, eighteen kilometres and half an hour from the resort town of Sarandë,…
7 tickets & tours
Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve
Mexico
Sian Ka'an begins where the hotel strip of Tulum ends, on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán peninsula, and the…
6 tickets & tours
Keoladeo National Park
Rajasthan, India
Keoladeo, still widely known as the Bharatpur bird sanctuary, lies on the edge of the town of Bharatpur in eastern…
4 tickets & tours
Ebro Delta Natural Park
Catalonia, Spain
The Ebro Delta is the great flat triangle of rice fields, lagoons and empty beaches that the longest river wholly…
3 tickets & tours
Lochinvar National Park
Zambia
Lochinvar is a small, flat, remote park on the southern edge of the Kafue Flats, the great floodplain of the Kafue…
3 tickets & tours
Molentargius-Saline Regional Park
Sardinia, Italy
Molentargius is a wetland of lagoons and abandoned salt pans lying inside the urban area of Cagliari, the capital of…
3 tickets & tours
Sevan National Park
Armenia
Lake Sevan is the great lake of Armenia, the blue eye of a landlocked country, which its people treat as their seaside,…
3 tickets & tours
West Coast National Park
Western Cape, South Africa
The West Coast National Park lies on the Atlantic coast of South Africa about a hundred and twenty kilometres north of…
3 tickets & tours
Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve
Romania
The Danube Delta is at the far eastern end of Romania, where the river enters the Black Sea, and has nothing to do with…
2 tickets & tours
A guide with a boat is the normal way in, and the water level sets the season. In the dry months animals and birds concentrate on the shrinking pools, which is why Bundala, Keoladeo and Kakadu’s Yellow Water are best late in the dry season, while migratory wetlands in Europe and the Sahel peak in winter. Donana admits visitors only on authorised 4×4 tours, and turtle nesting at Tortuguero is watched at night in ranger-led groups. Take repellent and binoculars. Each page gives the months when the birds are present, the boat or vehicle the visit needs and the town the trips leave from.