Elisa Egedel, a college student from Massachusetts, went on an adventure tour with her mom and some family friends while visiting the area. She said she didn’t really know what to expect, but that it was a lot of fun. “The guides made the whole experience great,” she said. “There were places where you had the option to go the hard way or the easy way, and the guides were really encouraging and reassuring that we could do it.” Adventure tours are offered several times a week and require participants to reserve in advance. Grand Caverns also offers tours focusing on the history and the geology of the cave and runs special events throughout the year. Beginning on May 31, Grand Caverns will host a week-long Caving and Karst Week with free activities designed to get adults and children excited about caves and conservation. Other seasonal activities include music and movies in the cave. At a steady 54 degrees Fahrenheit year-round, a cave tour is a great way to escape hot, cold or rainy weather any time of year.
“At Grand Caverns you get a personal experience because you have a guided tour,” she said. “It amazes me the amount of information we give the rangers to learn and retain. But most of them find such a passion for the caverns that they learn even more on their own.” Collins added that all the Grand Cavern tour park rangers are in the process of attaining a Certificate in Interpretive Guiding awarded by the National Association of Interpretation, a process that will require additional training in education and interpretation techniques.
For those for whom a belly crawl sounds like fun, Grand Caverns also offers three levels of adventure cave tours. These tours have participants squeezing though crevices and crawling on their hands and knees through the mud in either Grand Caverns or the neighboring Fountain Cave. These tours require close-toed shoes, long pants and long sleeves. Participants are provided with a helmet, headlamp and kneepads, and should expect to get muddy.
Grand Caverns is located at 5 Grand Caverns Drive in Grottoes and is open daily. In addition to the cave, Grand Caverns park includes an outdoor pool (open seasonally), mini golf, three miles of trails and picnic shelters. Tickets for tours and events can be purchased in advance at GrandCaverns.com. < Top: Grand Caverns even hosts concerts, unplugged and underground. The 2026 season featured 12 concerts over a nine-week period.
“Our goal is to entertain, educate and provide memories for people,” Collins said. Staff are also always working to learn more about the cave and advocate for its protection. Around the 200th anniversary of the cave’s discovery, Grand Caverns embarked on a project to update the maps of the caverns. One of the expert cavers brought in on the project was a dog named Rosie. She detected a difference in air pressure in one corner of the cave and pointed the human cavers to a whole new unexplored portion of the cave. This portion of Grand Caverns is not open to the public, largely because it requires a 45-minute belly crawl to access. Stay in Touch
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