Caves you can visit
Commercially operated and publicly accessible caves in North
America
Most people meet cave life for the first time on a guided tour. These caves are open to the public, run by people who know them, and safe to visit without any equipment or experience.
Several are the type locality of a species: the place where it was first collected and described. A few hold animals found nowhere else on earth, a hundred meters from a gift shop.
1 cave in 1 state and province.
Kentucky
Before you go
Cave animals are easy to miss and easy to harm. Most of what you will see on a tour is bats, cave crickets, and salamanders near the entrance rather than the blind, colorless animals people expect: those live in the deepest parts, are rarely more than a few millimeters long, and are mostly found in water.
- Do not touch, collect, or move anything living.
- Keep to the trail. The mud beside it is habitat, and a footprint in it lasts decades.
- Bats disturbed in winter can starve before spring. If a tour is closed in the colder months, that is usually why.
- Clean and dry your gear between caves. White-nose syndrome has killed millions of bats and moves on clothing.
Ask your guide what lives there. Most know, and are rarely asked.
A cave we have missed?
This list is compiled by hand and is certainly incomplete. If you operate a cave open to the public, or know one that belongs here, please tell us.