Grand Canyon, Serengeti, Plitvice. Someone else drives, and you are inside before the coaches.
What the tour covers and what the gate still charges. Which parks are a day out of a city and which need two nights. Where the animals are in the month you are going. Reviews of every national park tour you can book.
A canyon rim, a limestone gorge, a granite valley, a balloon over grass.
Four park days that people fly for, on four continents. What each one costs and what the travellers who took it came back saying.
01The canyon dayGrand Canyon West, Hoover Dam Stop and Optional Lunch and SkywalkGrand Canyon West and the glass floor at Eagle Point, out of Las Vegas and back the same evening. The most-booked park day anywhere.
02The falls dayKrka Waterfalls Trip with Boat Cruise and SwimmingKrka from Split: a boat up the river, the falls at Skradinski Buk, back on the coast for dinner.
03The granite dayYosemite Highlights & Giant Sequoias Day Tour from San FranciscoYosemite and the giant sequoias in one very long run out of San Francisco. Small groups, because the valley road punishes coaches.
04The first-light daySerengeti Balloon Safari and authentic bush breakfastA balloon over the Serengeti at dawn, landing wherever the wind finished, where breakfast has been carried out to meet you.
Coach day, small group, or your own wheels. Pick the shape of the American park day first.
Almost every American park tour is one of three things: a long coach run out of a city, a small-group day with a guide who chooses the viewpoints, or your own car with a route somebody else has already worked out. What each costs, and which parks each suits.
The park days more travellers book than any others.
Every park tour, priced →The Skywalk run out of Las Vegas, the Krka boat, an airboat out of Miami. Each of these carries tens of thousands of travellers a year, and each earns it for a different reason.
1
Grand Canyon West, Hoover Dam Stop and Optional Lunch and Skywalk
Leave Las Vegas early for Grand Canyon West, with direct bus access to Eagle Point and Guano Point, a Hoover Dam photo stop, and about 3.5 hours at the rim. Add the Skywalk, lunch, or a helicopter and Colorado River boat ride. Guides such as Sarah, Adam, and Jesse James keep the long day moving.
From · $109
Read our review →
2
Grand Canyon West, Hoover Dam Stop, Breakfast, Lunch & Skywalk
from $94
3
Krka Waterfalls Trip with Boat Cruise and Swimming
from $31
4
Krka Waterfalls, Food & Wine Tasting Tour
from $45
5
Everglades Airboat, Wildlife Show & Bus Transfer
from $49
6
Cinque Terre Day Trip with Optional Hiking or Pisa
from $66
7
Everglades National Park Airboat Tour & Wildlife Show
from $42
8
Grand Canyon West Bus Tour with Hoover Dam and Optional Skywalk
from $85
The park day trip, and how far a single day really reaches.
A day trip works when the gate is under three hours from your bed. Past that you are paying for the coach rather than the park, and a second night costs less than the hours you lose. These are the day runs that hold up.
Six countries where the park is the reason for the flight.
Red rock and geysers across the American West, lakes the colour of paint under the Canadian Rockies, boardwalks over the Krka, the Mara in migration season, Ligurian cliff paths, and a glacier tongue you can walk onto. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
In the American Southwest the whole day is arranged around one edge.
Grand Canyon West for the glass floor and the short drive out of Las Vegas, the South Rim for the view everybody pictures, Moab for red rock you reach in low gear. First and last light are the only two hours the rock really does anything, and every good operator plans around them.
A game drive is a shape of day before it is a place.
Everything on safari →
Nairobi National Park starts twenty minutes from a downtown hotel and finishes before lunch. Arusha is the gate to the Serengeti and wants three days and a light aircraft. Between the two sits every kind of drive there is, and the price gap is enormous.
Nairobi, done before lunch
Rhino, buffalo and giraffe against the office towers, twenty minutes from the centre. The cheapest real game drive anywhere, and the only one that fits inside a layover.
One long day in a reserve
Pilanesberg out of Johannesburg, Yala from a beach hotel on the Sri Lankan south coast, Mikumi by air from Zanzibar. One reserve, one day, no camp to pack for.
Herds, on their own terms
Udawalawe and Addo build the drive around resident herds rather than a checklist. None of these ride or bathe an elephant, which is the point.
What a day inside a national park actually costs.
Every park tour here, grouped by price. The gate fee is usually already inside the ticket, and the cheap end is mostly the parks a city bus already reaches.
Half-day drives out of Nairobi and Miami, the Krka river boat, park entries and the short walks from a gateway town.
The full-day standards: the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas, Plitvice from Split, Banff from Calgary, Yosemite from San Francisco.
Balloons over the Serengeti, glacier walks with the crampons supplied, and the multi-day runs that include the nights.
Three days you cannot buy anywhere else.
Viewpoints and walking trails exist everywhere. A cave carved fresh out of a glacier every winter, a balloon over a migration, and a boardwalk laid across sixteen falling lakes do not.
The blue ice caves
Every autumn the meltwater channels inside Vatnajokull drain and freeze hard enough to walk into, and guides run them until the thaw. No cave is the same two winters running, some collapse mid-season, and the whole window is roughly November to March. Nobody books one in July because in July it is a river.
- 1Wilderness, Wildlife, Glacier Experience from Anchorage★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,004 reviews
- 2Jökulsárlón: Vatnajökull Ice Cave Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 2,046 reviews
- 3Kenai Fjords National Park Glacier & Wildlife Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,756 reviews
A balloon over the Serengeti
Baskets launch at first light because that is the only hour the air holds still, then land wherever the wind has finished with them, which is where the breakfast table has been driven out to meet you. It is the most expensive hour in African travel and very few people who have done it argue with the price.
- 1Serengeti Balloon Safari and authentic bush breakfast★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,480 reviews
- 2Balloon Safari & Bush Breakfast in Serengeti – Miracle Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,646 reviews
- 3Mikumi Safari Day Trip with Flights and Meal★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,470 reviews
Krka and Plitvice
Both are limestone gorges where the water lays down the rock it falls over, and both are boardwalk parks with one direction of travel and a capped entry time. Krka is the shorter run out of Split and you can still swim below Skradinski Buk. Plitvice is longer, quieter, and worth the extra hour in the minibus.
- 1Krka Waterfalls Trip with Boat Cruise and Swimming★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 10,519 reviews
- 2Krka Waterfalls, Food & Wine Tasting Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 9,326 reviews
- 3Krka Waterfalls, Food & Wine Tasting Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 6,598 reviews
Four park bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of a trip can be arranged from the hotel lobby the night before. These four run on capped entry slots, one departure a morning, or a season that simply ends.
- 01Grand Canyon West, Hoover Dam Stop and Optional Lunch and SkywalkThe glass floor at Eagle Point takes a fixed number of people an hour, and the Las Vegas coaches hold those slots weeks ahead.
- 02Jökulsárlón: Vatnajökull Ice Cave Guided TourIce caves are a winter thing, run from roughly November to March. The tunnel you booked will not exist by spring.
- 03Serengeti Balloon Safari and authentic bush breakfastOne launch a morning, weather permitting, and the baskets are sold long before the migration season starts.
- 04Plitvice Lakes Guided Day Tour with TicketsPlitvice entry is timed and capped through the summer and the boardwalks run one way only, so a late slot buys you a shorter park.
Half the great parks close a road, a season or a gate on you.
Yellowstone shuts most of its interior to cars from November. Yosemite keeps Tioga Road under snow into early summer, Yala closes for a month, the Icefields Parkway turns into a winter drive, and the migration only stands in the north of the Serengeti for part of the year. The answer is the same everywhere: go with someone who already knows which gate is open this week, or go where the season is working for you.
Croatia keeps its two best parks an hour apart and sells both from Split.
Krka is the half day: a boat up the river, the falls at Skradinski Buk, back on the Riva for dinner. Plitvice is the long one, north through the Dinarides, and it earns the extra hours. Zadar runs the same trip with an earlier start and a smaller bus.
Every Croatian park day →
Banff and Jasper are one road, and the road is half the attraction.
Lake Louise and Moraine both shut to private cars through the high season, which is exactly why the shuttle-and-guide day exists. North of them the Icefields Parkway runs three hours to Jasper past the Columbia Icefield, where a purpose-built bus puts you out on the glacier. Calgary is the airport; Banff is the base.
- 1Banff Gondola Admission Ticketfrom $53
- 2Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Banff Tour from Calgary/Canmore/Banfffrom $74
- 3Banff Gondola Ride Admissionfrom $55
By country and gateway town
By kind of day — drive, boardwalk, boat or ice
Las Vegas, the canyon, Moab, the Tetons: the American park run almost everybody does first.
The South Rim
Jackson
YellowstoneThe newest park tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Semi Private Yosemite Tour with Ahwahnee Lunch and Hotel Pickup
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Yala National Park Wildlife Safari/ Game Drive – by Ajith Safari
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Beatrix Potter’s Half Day Lake District Tour Including Lake Cruise
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Lower Loop Van Tour from West Yellowstone: Grand Prismatic and Old Faithful
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Khao Sok: Elephant Day Care, & Bamboo Rafting Day Tour
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