Best Spelunking Vacations

Best Spelunking Destinations

Spelunking is the exploration of caves and can be an extreme adventure, depending on where you go and the location of the caves.

Carlsbad Caverns

Located in the Carlsbad Caverns National Park there are caves that see around 300 000 tourists every year and are a great way to see underground worlds.  There are guided tours catering to all levels of skill from moving through narrow passages in Spider Cave.  It may be quite chilly in the cave, around 13 degrees Celsius.  The Natural Entrance is as spectacular as the gambling online NZ has to offer, but it may be challenging to explore, as the trail is quite steep.

Lost Sea Wild Cave

The Lost Sea Wild Cave is an underground lake and the biggest of its kind in the US.  The cave is also the 2nd largest in the world and is located in the Craighead Caverns, Tennessee.  It is a beautiful cave to explore with clusters of crystals, stalagmites and stalactites, unusual rock formations and a waterfall and was once used to produce moonshine.  Guided tours are offered to the brave and adventurous for crawling through the cave rooms narrow crevices and cracks and here you can see geological formations such as cave flowers which are very rare.

El Capitan Cave

El Capitan Cave in Alaska is cold, wet and muddy and is the longest cave in Alaska.  This cave is not for the faint hearted and to get below you will need to hike a steep stairway (367 steps) to reach the entrance to the cave.  When you get about 60 m into the cave you will come face to face with a steel gate (only allowing for bats to move in and out) to prevent vandalism.  During the summer months you can take a guided tour through the cave.

Cosmic Cavern

Cosmic Cavern in Arkansas offers guided tours and visitors can see bottomless lakes.  One of the features of this cave is the soda straw formations which measure over 2.7 m long and are called Silent Splendour.  This cave is also warm at 18 degrees Celsius with 96 % humidity.

Ellison’s Cave

Georgia is home to Ellison’s Cave and this is a real adventure experience with an unrivalled vertical drop.  Fantastic Pit is 179 m deep and is so big that the Washington Monument can fit into the pit.  This is a dangerous area to explore and beginners should not try this one their own.  The vertical parts of the cave will require knowledge of single rope technique climbing as well as knowing how to use heavy ropes in wet conditions.

Great Blue Hole

The Great Blue Hole is off the coast of Belize and is a circular marine sinkhole that is 318 m wide and 124 m deep and forms part of the Belize Barrier Reef System.  This is a diving adventure where you can see huge stalactites, dripstone sheets that were formed during glacial periods while the cave was still above sea level. The fish here are magnificent and you will get to spot Midnight Parrotfish and Caribbean Reef Sharks.  Diving here requires skill and you will need to have logged more than 24 dives before diving here.