My Top 5 Marine Wildlife Spots From Our 50 State Road Trip Across The USA

This is the final post in a series about animals and wildlife from our 7 year, 50 state road trip. Most recently I wrote about wildlife you can find on land across the USA. Now, it’s time for marine wildlife although, full disclosure, most of these marine animals are on the land where you can get the best pictures.

1. My Top 5 Zoos & Aquariums
2. My Top 5 Captive Animal Experiences 
3. My Top 5 Land Wildlife Spots
4. My Top 5 Marine Wildlife Spots (this one)

As with the land-based wildlife, it’s probably too hard to put these in a 1-5 order of preference. They were all amazing in their own way, but to put them in order of size is more difficult so I’m just going in alphabetical order by animal for you on this one.

Elephant Seals in California

The first time I ever saw elephant seals in real life was in July 2021 for my bestie’s 40th birthday. They were so incredibly cool looking! You can see them at Elephant Seal Vista in San Simeon, California. There’s a raised boardwalk for you to observe them from, but it’s nice and close to the beach where they relax, so you can get good shots of them.

Manatees in Florida

One of the coolest experiences is seeing marine wildlife IN the water. The manatees that live in Florida part of the year are no exception. We went in August 2020 for my mom’s 60th birthday, not realizing that manatees spend the summer months in the Atlantic Ocean and all the way up to the Chesapeake Bay (where we lived in Virginia!), so we only saw 3 total.

We made a plan to go back again in January when the manatees are in the Crystal River near the hot springs. We were not disappointed with that choice; they were incredible and we had so much time to swim with them in January 2024. Some of them being more curious than others made it a lot of fun, but harder to keep your distance since they would come up to you. Remember – no touchy!

Here’s a five minute video and several photos from our GoPro from the day.

Orcas near Seattle, Washington State

When we visited Seattle in the summer of 2021 we decided to go whale watching. While I’d hoped to see other whales, seeing so many orcas together was really neat. They were up and down and the captain mentioned that they likely had a kill below that they were feeding from. The whole experience was great. The ship was large and fast, the captain and crew were really helpful in spotting and keeping the Orca in view, and it ended with a blueberry buckle dessert – what more could you want!?

Sea Lions in California

Sea lions can be spotted all along the California coast depending on the time of year, but the easiest ways to see them are at Pier 39 in San Francisco or at La Jolla in Southern California.

Sea lions are such a fun marine animal to watch – both in and out of the water. The primary way to tell if the pinniped you’re seeing is a seal or a seal lion is to check their flippers and their ears. Sea lions almost always have ear flaps over their ears, while seals almost always have just a hole. Seals flippers are shorter, especially at the back, so they bounce (or galumph) on the shore, while sea lions waddle or almost “walk” on their longer flippers.

Sea Turtles in Hawaii

Well, I know I said that I couldn’t rate the marine wildlife experiences I had, but if I could this would be really, really, really close to #1. I even ended up with a sea turtle (honu) tattoo at the end of my time in Hawai’i.

Between swimming alongside sea turtles in the water along the different islands to watching them come up on shore for the evening, it was a magical opportunity to see wild sea turtles in and out of the water.

Wildlife in Monterey Bay, California

An honorable mention has to go to Monterey Bay in California. There were all kinds of wildlife along the coast and I highly recommend having your camera with you since you never know what you might see.