10 of America’s Most Spectacular Cave Trails

Nothing engages your inner explorer quite like stepping into the cool, calm core of a cave—especially when perfectly-lit pathways or ranger-led routes simplify your journey to the center of the Earth. 

As nature’s earliest homes and history’s hidden theaters, caves are slow-dripping time machines of mineral magic and mystery. They blend geological marvels with accessible adventure, spanning everything from stroller-friendly routes to headlamp-only squeezes.

Whether you’re into stalactite symphonies, prehistoric shelters, or just love your trails dark and damp, these 10 U.S. underground wonders (cited by fans on TripAdvisor and other sources) have you covered. And always remember—look, but don’t touch.

1. Mammoth Cave National Park // Kentucky
2. Carlsbad Caverns // New Mexico
3. Luray Caverns // Virginia
4. Lehman Caves // Nevada
5. Onondaga Cave State Park // Missouri
6. Bluespring Caverns // Indiana
7. Minnetonka Cave // Idaho
8. Niter Ice Cave // Idaho
9. Russell Cave National Monument // Alabama
10. Jewel Cave National Monument // South Dakota
11. Cave Trails Cheat Sheet

Mammoth Cave National Park // Kentucky

It’s hard to fathom just how mammoth Mammoth Cave is. As of 2022, it offers more than 426 miles of charted passages, with new segments still being discovered—it’s like geology’s subway system. Tours range from 10-minute moseys to two-hour treks, with highlights including nearly 20 miles of trails you can easily get to on your own. The steady 54°F interior temperature makes it an accessible adventure year-round (and a surprise hit in summer). Early explorers used ropes and torches, but you’ll get railings, paved paths, and the big benefit of not falling into a bottomless pit.

Carlsbad Caverns // New Mexico

A sun-baked desert in southeastern New Mexico hides one of the most awe-inspiring subterranean sites in the U.S. The star of Carlsbad is its Big Room, a natural limestone chamber the approximate size of 14 football fields, making it North America’s largest cave chamber by volume. A 1.25-mile trail through these wonders takes about 1.5 hours on average. You can enter via elevator or walk the steep trail that spirals 750 feet down. In summer, the sunset bat flight is its own spectacle—watch upwards of 500,000 Brazilian free-tailed bats swirl into the sky in total silence. It’s the coolest bat signal you’ll ever see.

Luray Caverns // Virginia

Luray Caverns was discovered in 1878 and remains one of the most accessible show caves (commercially operated with tourists in mind) in the eastern U.S. Its mirrored pools, massive mineral draperies, and stone formations that look like eggs fried sunny side up can be observed by taking a gentle stroll along its smooth and brightly-lit 1.25-mile path.

If caves could earn concert hall recognition, Luray would be like sitting in the front row at Carnegie. This cave’s claim to fame is its Great Stalacpipe Organ, a working lithophone (instrument made of stone) that taps stalactites to play Bach. The invention by Leland W. Sprinkle, a mathematician and scientist at the Pentagon, was born from his visit to the caverns in 1954. It’s just one of Luray’s quirky charms.

Lehman Caves // Nevada

Great Basin National Park may not get the crowds of Yellowstone or Yosemite, but that’s a big part of the appeal. Beneath the surface here lies Lehman Caves, with hundreds of rare calcite cave shields—circular rock creations forming from fractures that resemble medieval crests or, depending on your angle, pancakes. Lehman is an ancient cave: One stalagmite has been confirmed to be 2.2 million years old, and its rooms are dripping with stalactites, flowstone, and soda straws. Ranger-led tours (no DIYing here) range from about a half-mile in length to 1.5 miles on the strenuous “introduction to wild caving tour,” which teaches participants how to spelunk safely. Along the tours, you’ll hear about Lehman Caves’ long history and see more than 2000 historic graffiti notes left by 1890s explorers and many others.

Onondaga Cave State Park // Missouri

Missouri is called “the Cave State” for good reason: It has more than 5500 caves. Onondaga Cave was featured in the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and became a popular stop due to its location along historic Route 66. Today, it delivers colorful 1-mile walking tours that wind past coral-like dripstone and underground streams. Lantern-lit excursions through nearby Cathedral Cave add an old-timey vibe and deepen your geological immersion. As a bonus, the surface trails follow the Meramec River and are especially lush in spring, making it one of the Midwest’s best cave-and-hike combos.

Bluespring Caverns // Indiana

If your dream cave involves more floating than forging, this is your place. Blue Spring features a three-mile boat ride 400 feet below ground level along the longest navigable subterranean river in the U.S. Its unique and unusual animal life also sets it apart. You’ll glide past blind cavefish and pale crayfish in absolute silence—the wet conditions combined with the constant blackness makes for the best home for eyeless and/or translucent creatures. There’s no lighting in the cave aside from your boat's beam, so the darkness feels deep and perfectly peaceful (and maybe a little spooky).

Minnetonka Cave // Idaho

In Idaho’s Bear Lake region, Minnetonka Cave charms visitors with more classic show cave appeal within Cache National Forest. It’s a karst limestone cave, meaning Minnetonka was made by groundwater slowly dissolving the surrounding stone over many millennia. Guided tours take you down nearly 450 stairs through nine dripstone rooms with names like Dwarf Kingdom, showcasing several stalactites and stalagmites that resemble cartoon characters and animals. You may also see real animals—the cave is home to several bat species. The interior stays at a brisk 40°F, perfect for dodging the summer heat. 

Niter Ice Cave // Idaho

Not too far from Minnetonka, Niter Ice Cave is a wetter, wilder experience. Rather than being carved by dripping water, this cave was formed from a volcanic lava tube roughly 500,000 years ago, and it remains icy year-round. This feature once made it useful to Indigenous people and early settlers for “refrigerating” foodstuffs and as shelter. There are no guided tours here, so bring a flashlight and watch your step along the 1800-foot boardwalk leading into the earth. The slippery surfaces and graffiti-scarred walls are part of this scrappy little cave’s vibe.

Russell Cave National Monument // Alabama

This isn’t your typical stalactite-studded chasm. Russell Cave delivers something arguably deeper: one of the most complete catalogs of ancient human culture in the Southeast U.S. This rock shelter served as a home to Indigenous groups for more than 10,000 years, including the earliest known people living in the region. Raised walkways lead through a dense forest and to the main chamber, and a strenuous 1.2-mile trail winds through a landscape that would have been familiar to the ancient peoples. Museum exhibits show how the early inhabitants lived through displays of tools, arrowheads, and fire pits from the site. It’s part cave, part archaeological dig.

Jewel Cave National Monument // South Dakota

Beneath the sacred Black Hills lies Jewel Cave, a glittering geologic maze unearthed in 1900. At that time, explorers mapped only two miles of its extent and its true glory remained obscured for another 60 years. In the 1960s, dedicated spelunkers Herb and Jan Conn and geologist Dwight Deal began charting its passages, which are currently known to extend 220 miles and make Jewel Cave the fifth-longest cave system in the world. 

Jewel Cave earns its name from its calcite crystals, flickering in flashlight beams like frozen fireworks. Tours range from family-friendly elevator routes like the 20-minute Discovery Tour to the more challenging Scenic Tour to sweaty expeditions where you’ll crawl, climb, and possibly wonder why you volunteered for this. Scenic trails above ground wind through wildflower meadows, ponderosa pines, and limestone cliffs, proving that adventure can be found above-ground as well.

Cave Trails Cheat Sheet

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