Description: US coastal cruises planned by season: New England foliage, Chesapeake Bay, the Intracoastal Waterway and the Pacific Northwest, with who sails each.
Four American coasts, each with its own best months.
US coastal cruises follow the weather. The same small ships that spend autumn among New England’s harbors move south for a Carolina and Georgia spring, while others reposition west to sail Puget Sound and Alaska in summer. Pick the right month and you get a coast at its best; pick the wrong one and you get fog, heat or hurricane watches. This site is organized the way the ships are: by coast and by season.
We are not a guide to every cruise that leaves an American port. If you want the big-ship homeports — Miami, Galveston, Seattle round trips — our sister site Cruising America covers them, and Cruise the USA explains which cruises never leave U.S. waters at all and why. Here we stay close to shore: the four coastal regions where small ships do most of their American sailing, and the months that suit each one.