Guide June 6, 2026

Great Loop Marinas: A Free Garmin GPX You Can Import in 60 Seconds

Ninety notable marinas, route-ordered around the entire Great Loop — from the Florida west coast to the Gulf ICW. Download the file, import it into SeaLegs as spots, and have every planned stop on your map before you cast off.

If you're planning America's Great Loop, the single most repeated question on every forum and Facebook group is some version of the same thing: where do I stop? Six thousand miles is a lot of waterway, and stitching together a list of marinas — segment by segment, in the right order — is one of those planning chores that eats a whole weekend.

So we did it for you. Below is a free, route-ordered Garmin GPX file of 90 notable Great Loop marinas, covering all 16 segments of the loop. Download it, import it into SeaLegs in under a minute, and you'll have every planned stop on your map — names, towns, and the segment each one belongs to — before you ever leave the dock.

Free Download: Great Loop Marinas (GPX)

90 marinas · route-ordered · all 16 segments · standard Garmin GPX 1.1

Download great-loop-marinas.gpx

No signup required. Works with SeaLegs and any standard chartplotter.

How to import the file into SeaLegs

SeaLegs reads standard Garmin GPX 1.1 files, so importing the marinas as spots takes about a minute:

Open My Spots and tap Bulk Import (also labeled Import Spots).
Tap Import GPX File, then Select Garmin File (GPX).
Pick the downloaded great-loop-marinas.gpx.
Under Import Options, leave Skip Duplicates on (it skips any waypoint that matches a spot you already have). You can review the Default Spot Type and Duplicate Tolerance here if you want.
Tap Import Spots. You'll get an Import Complete summary with the imported count and anything skipped. The marinas now appear as spots in My Spots.

Works With Your Chartplotter Too

Because this is a standard Garmin GPX 1.1 file, it isn't locked to SeaLegs. You can load it onto a Garmin unit or any other GPS that imports waypoints the same way you would any export from your chartplotter. The same goes in reverse — if you've already built a waypoint list on your plotter, you can export it as GPX and import it straight into SeaLegs.

What's in the file

The 90 marinas are ordered the way you'd actually run the loop, with roughly one stop every 30 to 60 miles. That spacing is deliberate — close enough that you almost always have a known option within a comfortable day's run, sparse enough that the list stays a planning backbone rather than an overwhelming wall of dots. It includes the marinas every Looper ends up talking about: Green Turtle Bay, Joe Wheeler, Bobby's Fish Camp, Hoppie's, Grafton, Mackinac Island, Liberty Landing, Waterford, Big Chute, Killarney, and more.

Here's how the stops break down across the 16 segments, in route order:

#	Segment	Marinas
1	Florida West Coast	5
2	Okeechobee Waterway	4
3	Florida East Coast / ICW	5
4	GA / SC / NC ICW	9
5	Chesapeake Bay	6
6	Delaware Bay / New Jersey	5
7	NY Harbor / Hudson River	3
8	Erie / Oswego Canal	5
9	Lake Ontario / 1000 Islands	4
10	Trent-Severn Waterway (Canada)	7
11	Georgian Bay / North Channel	6
12	Lake Michigan	8
13	Illinois / Inland Rivers	5
14	Mississippi / Ohio / Tennessee	8
15	Tenn-Tom Waterway	4
16	Mobile / Gulf ICW	6

Every waypoint carries the marina name and a short description in the form "City, ST · Great Loop (segment)," so once they're on your map you can see at a glance which leg each stop belongs to.

Read This Before You Rely on It

The famous landmarks and segment-critical stops are verified to the dock basin. A handful of the remaining well-known stops are accurate to the marina but may sit a boat-length or two off the exact slip. Treat this file as a planning and reference aid, not turn-by-turn navigation. Always confirm the approach, current depths, and your slip assignment with the marina and your own charts when you arrive — standard practice on the loop, but worth saying plainly.

Turning the list into a real plan

A list of stops is the starting point, not the plan. The Great Loop is as much about timing as it is about route — the weather windows for crossing open water on the Gulf, the Georgian Bay, or Lake Michigan are what actually shape your schedule, and locking systems and seasonal closures decide when whole segments are even open.

That's where having the marinas in SeaLegsAI pays off beyond just a map full of dots. Once a stop is a spot, you get marine weather for it — and the app's trip forecasts and on-the-water weather monitoring are built for exactly the "is this a good day to make the crossing?" decision that Loopers make over and over. If you want the background on how to think about those calls, our guide on planning a safe offshore trip walks through reading weather windows and making an honest go/no-go decision.

Grab the file, import it, and you've got the skeleton of your loop on the map in a minute. From there it's the fun part — deciding how long to linger in the places worth lingering in.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is America's Great Loop?

The Great Loop is a roughly 6,000-mile continuous waterway route around the eastern United States and part of Canada. It links the Atlantic ICW, the Hudson River and New York canals, the Canadian canals and Great Lakes, the inland rivers, the Tenn-Tom Waterway, and the Gulf ICW into one loop. Boaters who complete it are called "Loopers," and most take anywhere from a few months to a few years.

What's in the free Great Loop marinas GPX file?

Ninety notable marinas, route-ordered around the full loop and covering all 16 segments — roughly one stop every 30 to 60 miles. It includes the well-known Looper landmarks like Green Turtle Bay, Joe Wheeler, Bobby's Fish Camp, Hoppie's, Grafton, Mackinac Island, Liberty Landing, Waterford, Big Chute, and Killarney.

How do I import a GPX file into SeaLegs?

Open My Spots, tap Bulk Import (Import Spots), choose Import GPX File, then Select Garmin File (GPX), and pick the downloaded great-loop-marinas.gpx. Leave Skip Duplicates on, tap Import Spots, and the marinas appear as spots in My Spots. The whole thing takes under a minute.

Will this GPX work with my Garmin chartplotter?

Yes. The file is standard Garmin GPX 1.1, the same format any modern chartplotter or marine app exports and imports. You can load it onto a Garmin unit or other GPS the same way you would any waypoint file. SeaLegs supports Garmin GPX 1.1, so any standard chartplotter export works too.

Are the marina coordinates accurate?

The famous landmarks and segment-critical stops are verified to the dock basin. The remaining well-known stops are accurate to the marina but a handful may sit a boat-length or two off the exact slip. Treat the file as a planning and reference aid, not turn-by-turn navigation — always confirm the approach, depths, and slip assignment with the marina and your own charts on arrival.

Is the file free? Do I need an account?

It's free and there's no signup required to download it. You only need the SeaLegs app if you want to import the marinas as spots — and the app is free to download on the App Store and Google Play.

Put Your Whole Loop on the Map

Import the marinas as spots, then get marine weather, trip forecasts, and on-the-water monitoring for every stop along the way. SeaLegsAI is free to download.