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Routes of ships on voyage should be adjusted or replanned because of the influences of heavy weather or bad situation in local sea area. In this paper we present an optimal voyage planning approach based on a dynamic access network model. Firstly, a dynamic access route network is constructed by overlaying a static route network with some obstacle region polygons. The static route network is composed of all known ports and routes in a specific area. And the obstacle region polygons can be classified into 2 types: mobile region and static region. The former are shaped by extreme climate conditions, such as windstorm or hurricane, and the latter are shaped by marine topography limit and military control zones. Secondly, according to optimization degree in descending order, an optimal voyage planning approach was designed based on the dynamic access network, which includes accessibility analysis of planned route which is called voyage proceeding strategy and computation of a new shortest route which is called route rounding strategy and seeking of an optimum neighbor port which is called sheltering strategy. Corresponding algorithms were also expounded in detail and its feasibility and effectiveness were confirmed by an experiment with simulation scene and data. The optimal voyage planning strategies proposed in this paper will play a significant role in the field of voyage decision making and maritime rescue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]