Destination
USA and Canada
North America’s waterways offer an extraordinary range of cruise experiences—whether you're navigating the coastal inlets of New England, exploring Alaska’s glacier-carved fjords, cruising along the Mississippi River, or discovering the wild beauty of Canada’s Atlantic coast. A small ship cruise through the United States and Canada brings you closer to the culture, nature, and history that define this diverse and richly storied region.
At Small Ship Travel, we curate a collection of cruises aboard intimate small ships —many accommodating fewer than 200. These small ship and river journeys deliver unmatched access to scenic harbors, remote coastlines, and culturally rich towns. Whether you're looking for heritage, wildlife, or culinary depth, we help you explore the best of North America in comfort and style.
From historic harbor towns and lighthouses to untouched fjords and riverfront cities, North America offers tremendous diversity best explored by water. Small ship cruising provides access to less-crowded ports, inland waterways, and remote shorelines, with more time to enjoy places that larger ships overlook.
Travelers benefit from:
Sample Experiences Include:
North America offers year-round cruising opportunities, depending on the region:
At Small Ship Travel, we specialize in matching travelers with thoughtfully curated itineraries that highlight the best of each destination. Whether you're discovering hidden gems close to home or venturing into new corners of North America, our expert team ensures a seamless and enriching experience.
We provide exclusive perks such as onboard credits, cabin upgrades, and access to limited-capacity sailings and private excursions. Our personalized planning includes pre- and post-cruise stays in cities like Boston, Seattle, Vancouver, or New Orleans. From the moment you reach out to the day you return home, a dedicated advisor will support you every step of the way.
Reach out to our travel concierges today to create your perfect journey.
Get in the mood for cruising by reading our travel guides, recommendations and cruise reviews.
The first international trip is the one that determines whether international travel becomes a lifelong practice or a one-time adventure. The small ship cruise — with its managed logistics, its built-in cultural education, and its community of experienced travelers — is one of the best possible formats for a first international experience.
Romance in travel isn't a category. It's a quality. It's not produced by a sunset dinner package or a rose-petal turndown. It comes from being somewhere extraordinary with someone you love, in conditions that remove the noise of daily life and replace it with beauty and time. Small ships do this better than almost any other form of travel.
A hotel barge carries 6 to 20 guests. It moves at walking pace along canals so narrow that branches brush the hull. The chef bought the cheese from the producer's farm that morning. The wines are from the vineyard you visited after lunch. At 5 PM the barge ties up for the night in a village with a restaurant that has been open since 1952. This is the most intimate, most food-centered, and most genuinely French form of travel available.
For four centuries, the Northwest Passage — the sea route through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans — was the object of the most determined and most deadly quest in the history of exploration. Ships were lost. Men died. The Passage defeated everyone who attempted it until Roald Amundsen succeeded in 1903, taking three years to complete what expedition ships now do in three weeks.
Cabin selection on a small ship is more consequential than on a large ship for a simple reason: you'll spend more time in it. When a ship carries 92 guests rather than 4,000, the common areas are more intimate, the cabin is more frequently a retreat, and the proportional difference in quality between cabin categories is more pronounced.
The Galapagos Islands are the only place on Earth where a marine iguana will walk across your feet without breaking stride, where a blue-footed booby will perform its mating dance three feet from your camera, and where a sea lion pup will follow you along the beach out of pure curiosity. This is not wildlife viewing. This is wildlife coexistence.