162 waterfalls · 6 continents · 51 countries
Every great waterfall
on earth — and how
to actually go.
Not a photo gallery. A working guide to what you can do at each one, which months it's worth the flight, what it costs to get in, and where to book the jump, the raft and the bed.
The first full guide · Zimbabwe & Zambia
Victoria Falls
A mile and a half of river falling into a crack in the earth, and the highest concentration of bookable adrenaline of any waterfall on the planet. We built this one out in full first — every activity, every season, both sides of the border.
- 111 m bungee off the 1905 bridge, Grade V rafting through the Batoka Gorge, and a swimmable pool on the actual lip
- Which months open Devil's Pool, close the rafting, and hide the falls in spray
- Zimbabwe vs Zambia, park fees, the KAZA visa and the walk across the bridge
Book by what you want to do
The adventures, not just the view
Most waterfall guides stop at where to stand. Start from the activity instead and find the falls that run it.
Swimming
Plunge pools, natural infinity pools and the occasional lip pool you can le…
37 destinationsZip lines
Cable-crossing a gorge at the height the spray reaches, usually with the fa…
10 destinationsWhite-water rafting
Below a great waterfall there is usually a great gorge, and in that gorge s…
8 destinationsKayaking
Flatwater above the lip or big water below it — kayaking gets you closer to…
8 destinationsHelicopter flights
Some falls are simply too wide to see from the ground. Twelve minutes in th…
6 destinationsCanyoning
Abseiling, sliding and jumping down the watercourse itself — the only way t…
5 destinationsScenic flights
Microlights, floatplanes and fixed-wing sightseeing runs over falls you can…
4 destinationsAbseiling
Going over the lip on a rope, face-first or otherwise, with the water beside you.
4 destinationsThe shortlist
Waterfalls worth the flight
Victoria Falls
The Zambezi drops as a single curtain into a narrow slot chasm cut into basalt, throwing spray visible for 20 km that locals call '…
Angel Falls
Water leaves the flat top of Auyán-tepui and falls so far that much of it atomizes into mist before ever reaching the pool below, a…
Niagara Falls
Three falls in one — Horseshoe, American, and Bridal Veil — move more water per second than almost any other falls on Earth, funnel…
Kaieteur Falls
A single, uninterrupted drop nearly five times the height of Niagara pours off the Guiana Shield through untouched rainforest, with…
Gullfoss
The glacial Hvítá River drops in two stages into a jagged crevice 32 metres deep, seemingly vanishing into the earth from certain a…
Sutherland Falls
New Zealand tallest waterfall drops in three stages from Lake Quill and can only be reached on foot, via a short side trail off the…
Tugela Falls
Five free-leaping tiers drop off the Amphitheatre escarpment in the Drakensberg, and depending on measurement method it rivals Ange…
Havasu Falls
Mineral-rich travertine dissolved from the canyon walls tints the plunge pool a surreal turquoise-blue, a color that persists year-…
Ban Gioc-Detian Falls
The largest waterfall straddling an international border in Asia is known by two names on two sides of a single river, with bamboo …
Tumpak Sewu
Dozens of separate streams fan out across a vast horseshoe amphitheatre at the base of Mount Semeru, an active volcano whose runoff…
Skógafoss
A former sea cliff now stranded inland by shifting coastlines, the falls drop in a wide, almost perfectly rectangular curtain that …
Plitvice Lakes Waterfalls
Sixteen terraced turquoise lakes cascade into one another over travertine barriers built continuously by mineral deposits and moss,…
By continent
Where you're going
Africa
Tugela Falls, Kalambo Falls, Maletsunyane Falls
19 waterfallsSouth America
Angel Falls, Yumbilla Falls, Gocta Falls
16 waterfallsNorth America
Yosemite Falls, Della Falls, Takakkaw Falls
38 waterfallsEurope
Kjelfossen, Langfoss, Seerenbach Falls
40 waterfallsAsia
Kunchikal Falls, Nohkalikai Falls, Dudhsagar Falls
30 waterfallsOceania
Sutherland Falls, Wallaman Falls, Jim Jim Falls
19 waterfallsHow this pays for itself
We don't sell the tours. We send you to the people who run them.
Every booking link here goes to an operator or a marketplace that actually holds the inventory — Viator, GetYourGuide, Booking.com, and the local concessionaires by name where a local concessionaire is the only way to do it. Some of those links pay us a commission. None of them change the price you pay, and none of them buy a recommendation. Where an activity has been discontinued, we say so instead of selling you a link to nothing.