Nicaragua · NI
Parque Nacional Volcán Masaya
Masaya Volcano National Park (Parque Nacional Volcán Masaya) is Nicaragua's first and largest national park, a protected volcanic caldera just 23 km south of Managua on the road to Masaya. Created in 1979, it wraps around a collapsed crater some 54 km² in size, holding two volcanoes, five craters, a crater lagoon and a maze of old lava flows. Unlike most volcano visits in the country, there is no long climb: a paved road runs almost to the lip of the active crater, so you can stand at the edge of a living volcano within minutes of the car park.
The star of the show is the Santiago Crater, the only active vent in the system. The Spanish called it the "Mouth of Hell," and the name still fits: a bowl roughly 500 metres wide and 200 metres deep that breathes out a steady plume of sulfur dioxide. For years a glowing lava lake made it world-famous; after a landslide buried that open lake in 2024, the headline sight is now a deep red incandescent glow that rises from the pit after dark when the gases and weather allow. It is one of the most accessible close-up encounters with active volcanism anywhere in the Americas.