Carlsbad Caverns National Park (Mar '26)

Why come all the way to West Texas and not visit this park? Well, we don't know the answer to that because we did come all the way to New Mexico to visit this amazing place! Carlsbad Caverns is actually inside the Guadalupe Mountain Range, so naturally, we made our way out here as well! There are several things to do here, but the King's Room Tour sells out quickly, so we needed better planning for this!

The Main Cavern has a staggered entrance, so you need to make reservations for your time. It costs $1 per person, and sometimes they have available slots at the Visitor Center, but they usually sell out of times, so we made our reservations at recreation.gov for an 11:30 entry time. Once you have your time reserved, you will check in and pay for entry at the Visitor's Center. They have a great film and 2 stores to buy souvenirs and a restaurant to grab a bite to eat. From what we saw, it gets pretty busy, so get there early and get your shopping done early.

There are two ways to enter the Caverns, and the hike inside the cavern takes about 1.5 - 2 hours. You can either use the Natural entrance, which takes about 1-1.5 hours as you descend to the Main Room, or you can take the elevator and descend 750 feet into the cavern. This takes less time and gives you more time to explore the caverns. We took the elevator because, honestly, we knew the caverns would be a 2-hour event for us, and we were tired from all the driving, so we decided to save our energy and use the elevator on our way down and up. Next time we come back, we will definitely try the Natural Entrance on the way down and the elevator back up.

There was so much to see in the caverns. I can't even begin to describe all we saw. Some people were being loud, so we couldn't hear the water trickling, but if you come across that, just wait it out. It is worth being away from loud folks because you really do hear the water drops. There are 50 tour points, and there are a few challenging spots so take your time climbing up and down the trail. I am sharing some of the photos down here, but honestly, we needed a better camera.

We didn't see or hear any critters, but in the summer, you can visit when the bats are back, and they fly out of the caverns at sundown to go enjoy the night. I'm not sure I want to be there for that, but for those who like that kind of stuff, it must be amazing to see! For now, enjoy the slideshow! This was not my favorite experience (Claustrophobia and all), but hubby truly enjoyed it, and this might be on his favorite parks list!