Boating holidays on the UK canals & inland watersways UK
Drifters
  • Home
  • Boating Holidays
    • First Canal Holiday?
    • Making a booking
    • Visitors from the USA
    • Rural retreats
    • City Breaks
    • Boating holidays for groups
    • Greener holidays
    • Hire Boat Survey
  • UK Canal Map
    • Map of UK canals
    • Canals of North East England
    • Canals of North West England
    • Canals of Central England
    • Canal holidays in Southern England
    • Canals of Wales
    • Canals of Scotland
    • Canal Cruising ‘Rings’
  • Our Boats
    • Drifters Standards
    • Quality Grading
    • Tuition
    • Canal Boats
    • Boat Interiors
    • Photographs
    • Day Boats
  • News
    • Newsletter & Offers
    • Facebook
    • YouTube Channel
    • Instagram
    • X
    • Blog
    • Press Coverage
  • Information
    • Boating safety video
    • Faqs
    • Videos
    • About Us
    • Press Office
    • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
Check Availability
Hide Availability

Advanced search

Choose from available start days:
Advanced options
You are here: Home

  • Drifters Standards

    All our canal boat hire operators uphold standards of excellence, find out more here

Welcome to Drifters

Drifters brings you Great British Boating

Drifters is made up of nine professional canal boat holiday operators, handpicked because they uphold the highest standards.

With over 500 narrowboats for hire from 40 bases across England, Scotland and Wales, Drifters offers the choice of hundreds of narrowboat holiday routes and destinations.

Our operators invest more in new canal boats each year than all the other UK operators put together, ensuring we offer high quality holidays afloat.  We are all independently assessed and accredited by the trade federation for the boating industry British Marine, so you can embark on your canal adventure with confidence.

We work with the Canal & River Trust for the good of Britain’s canal network – and to promote the enjoyment of canal boat holidays.

To find out more about Drifters Standards offering excellence afloat, please Click here

Read More

Try out our Interactive map

Try out our canal boat holiday destinations Interactive map

Click here

Hire Boat Survey

The Canal & River Trust’s annual Hire Boat Survey is now live.

The national waterways charity wants to know about your experience of hiring a boat on the canals and rivers in its care, to help make the experience better.

If you take a canal boat holiday this year, please do share your feedback here

Drifters price promise

If you see the same holiday elsewhere at a lower price,
we will match it.

Sign-up for our free Newsletter

Drifters’ monthly e-newsletter offers subscribers updates on:

 offers, special events, competitions, destinations, boating tips and holiday reviews.

Click here for details

New to the

Canals?

If you’ve never been on a narrowboat and canal boating holiday before, it’s easy to learn how to drive a boat and all our operators include tuition in their holiday packages.

You don’t need a licence and it’s easy to learn how to drive a boat.

We’ve got lots of advice for beginners, including the best routes, what to pack and how to prepare for a holiday afloat.

Read More
Latest news from

The Blog

Top 8 waterside museums to visit on a canal boat holiday

Top 8 museums to visit on a canal boat holiday

May 9, 2025
Read more
https://www.drifters.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/National-Waterways-Museum-Ellesmere-Port-credit-Canal-River-Trust.jpg 750 1124 Debbie Ludford https://www.drifters.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/logo-300x62.png Debbie Ludford2025-05-09 07:52:052025-05-09 08:47:59Top 8 museums to visit on a canal boat holiday

Family holiday on the Llangollen Canal

April 29, 2025
Read more
https://www.drifters.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Jennyeaves-Llangollen-press-trip-April-16-2025-2-landscape-web-res.jpg 1875 2500 Debbie Ludford https://www.drifters.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/logo-300x62.png Debbie Ludford2025-04-29 15:11:342025-04-29 15:12:05Family holiday on the Llangollen Canal

Canal anniversaries in 2026

April 28, 2025
Read more
https://www.drifters.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Leeds-Liverpool-Canal-low-res-credit-Canal-River-Trust.jpg 1223 1830 Debbie Ludford https://www.drifters.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/logo-300x62.png Debbie Ludford2025-04-28 14:08:082025-04-28 14:12:21Canal anniversaries in 2026

Best family canal boat holiday escapes this summer

April 27, 2025
Read more
https://www.drifters.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Summer-campaign-Tile-1.jpg 2048 2048 Debbie Ludford https://www.drifters.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/logo-300x62.png Debbie Ludford2025-04-27 14:01:582025-04-28 14:17:06Best family canal boat holiday escapes this summer

Popular Pages

  • Day Boat Hire
  • Map of the Canals
  • Canal Boats

Newsletter signup

Follow us on Facebook

© Copyright - Drifters
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept settingsHide notification onlySettings

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settingsHide notification only