Where to Take a Moose Safari in the United States

Everyone who visits northern New England wants to see a moose. While your family may see one while traveling the back roads of northern Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, you can increase the chances by taking a nighttime moose tour.

These giant animals are most active around dusk and at night, which is why drivers need to be especially watchful at those times. But it’s also the best time to climb into a bus for a guided moose tour. Two firms in New Hampshire’s White Mountains offer nighttime tours that have special permission from the state to use lights (usually forbidden by law), allowing passengers to watch moose after dark.

White Mountain Moose Tours, in Gorham, take three- to four-hour bus tours with a guide who knows all about the habits of moose — and knows the best places to find them. Kids will learn all those habits and about other wildlife, and the chances of seeing at least one moose almost guaranteed. When it’s safe, visitors can get off the bus to watch.

Farther south, and easy to reach from Interstate-93, Pemi Valley Moose Tours in Lincoln has a 90 percent success rate on its evening moose-watching tour.

With a moose population of more than 75,000, second only to Alaska’s, Maine is a good destination for wildlife watching and you have several options of guided tours. New England Outdoors Center schedules two moose and wildlife tours daily, in the early morning and late afternoon when moose are most active. Depending on where sightings have been reported, the trip is by pontoon boat on Millinocket Lake or in a 12-passenger van.

For the ultimate Maine experience, take a moose tour with a registered Maine guide. Find these at Wilson Pond Camps for moose safaris in the Greenville area, and from Green Farm Guide Service, whose moose and wildlife experiences include moose hikes and kayak tours.

New England is not the only place where your family might encounter moose; these animals live in heavily forested and thinly settled regions of Minnesota, Wisconsin and other northern states, but guided tours in Maine and New Hampshire offer the best chance of seeing them.