Caves and caverns hold underground wonders that are hard to imagine and must be seen to be believed.
Some of the best-known caves in the country, like Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, and Luray Caverns in Virginia are justifiably beautiful and famous, but here are some caves and caverns that, while not exactly secret, aren’t as well-known but don’t sacrifice any quality of scenery. And a lot of them aren’t what many would call tourist traps.
Jewel Cave, South Dakota
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The namesake cave of this national monument in the Black Hills is the third-longest cave in the world.Tours of different lengths and difficulty levels, revealing a wide assortment of marvelous natural formations.
Wind Cave, South Dakota
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Also the namesake of a Black Hills national park, Wind Cave is a short drive away from Jewel Cave, and you can easily visit both in a single day. It was the world’s first cave designated as a national park, and it’s famous for a feature called boxwork. 95% of the world’s known boxwork is found here.
Niagara Cave, New Mexico
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Open to the public seven days a week during the summer, Niagara is remarkable for its smooth, water-sculpted walls that have widened into passageways. The cave also features fossils, interesting rock formations, and a waterfall.
Lost Sea Cave, Tennessee
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In this cave which is also a registered National Natural Landmark, you’ll find America’s largest underground lake, and you can go on a boat ride across it. Delicate “cave flowers” are among many of the beautiful formations to keep an eye out for.
Cosmic Canyon, Arkansas
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Privately owned, Cosmic Canyon is nevertheless open to the public for tours. Standard cave tours are the most popular, but for the more adventurous, there’s a “Wild Cave Tour” that accesses less-explored sections. There are also two lakes that are home to blind trout, and you can sift for gemstones and keep any you find.
Lava Beds National Monument, California
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Volcanic activity formed a series of 24 caves here, including some classified as lava tubes. Some caves have easy walking paths through them, but there are also some that are tighter and more difficult to navigate.
Kartchner Caverns State Park, Arizona
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Near Benson, the caverns here have some of the world’s longest soda straw stalactites, but there’s more. The world’s most extensive waves of moonmilk are also here, as well as the largest natural underground column in the state. Extensive parts of the main cavern are wheel-chair accessible.
Lehman Caves, Nevada
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A lot of people have never heard of Great Basin National Park, and a lot more have never heard of the Lehman Caves inside it. There is a rich collection of spectacular and diverse formations here, and you can see a lot of them on the standard cave tour.
Oregon Caves National Monument, Oregon
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One of the oldest national monuments in the nation, Oregon Caves is in densely forested southern Oregon near the California border. Being made of marble, this cave has formations that make it different from most of the other caves in this article.
Makauwahi Cave, Hawaii
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To get through the small entry to this cave located in a sinkhole on Kauai, you have to get down on your hands and knees. The richest fossil deposits on the Hawaiian islands are found here, and many blind cave animals call this cave home.
Slaughter Canyon Cave, New Mexico
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The main cavern at Carlsbad Caverns gets almost all the attention. Slaughter Canyon Cave, though, is accessed from a different road and requires a sometimes-steep hike up a mountainside to reach the entrance. This keeps most casual cave tourists away and provides a more intimate experience.
Bracken Cave
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Located on the northwestern outskirts of San Antonio, Bracken is on private land but occasionally is open to very limited numbers of the public. You can’t go inside the cave– the toxic gases emanating from the tons of bat guano here would kill you– but this place is all about raw nature. In the summer, millions of bats emerge at dusk and form a river in the sky as they fly south to hunt for the night. As they do so, gathering raptors dive for meals while snakes leap from the ground in an attempt to catch dinner. As night falls, raccoons emerge to hunt and scavenge.
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