“My God… That’s spectacular.” On our final tour at Mammoth Cave National Park, the man directly in front of us said this exact line every single time we turned a corner. No, I’m not exaggerating. While I didn’t share his same enthusiasm, I will say that Mammoth Cave is pretty cool. Some of these rock formations are incredible and it’s worth a visit to tour this cave system.
About Mammoth Cave National Park
Mammoth Cave National Park is home to the worlds largest cave system, with over 400 miles of cave discovered and mapped so far (and still many miles of cave that still need to be explored). The cave is massive and until you visit, it can be difficult to really understand how the true scale of these caves.
Mammoth Cave National Park is located in central Kentucky, just outside of Cave City. A visit here is a little different than most of your national park experiences. Rather than just jumping in your car and exploring on your own, you must sign up for guided tours of the cave. There is a self guided tour option for those who don’t like the idea of a group tour. However, a ranger led tour will give you so much more information about the area you’re exploring. Plus, there are many areas of the caves that are only accessible on a tour.
Mammoth Cave National Park Tours
There’s several tour options for Mammoth Cave National Park and each one is slightly different. On my visit, my mom and I took three tours: The Star Chamber Tour, The Historic Tour, and the Domes and Dripstones Tour. While three tours may sound like a lot, each one was very different and the variety helped to make our visit that much better.
Please note that tour offerings are constantly changing. I do my best to keep this article up to date, but for the most up to date tour offerings, refer to the official website.
The Star Chamber Tour
This tour at Mammoth Cave is a bit different than most. The cave is filled with artificial lights which are turned on during most tours so everyone can see where they are going (and see the true scale of these caves). But during the Star Chamber Tour, these artificial lights are turned off.
You follow your guide through the cave by oil lantern, just like the early tourists who visited here. Because of the limited light, it can be difficult to truly grasp how big the cave really is. Still, it is a great experience. You’ll travel down through the main entrance and down Gothic Avenue before reaching the Star Chamber, at which point you’ll turn around and retrace your steps.
If you’re going to do this tour, I recommend making this your first tour. It’s a great introduction to the cave. The cave feels big, but the lanterns don’t really let you see the true scale. The next day, when we took the Historic Tour, my mom and I were in awe of how big the cave really was. I don’t think you’ll get that same experience if you do the Star Chamber Tour as your last tour of the trip.
It’s such a unique experience that I have to recommend doing this tour.
Total Distance: 2 miles
Length of Tour: 2.5 hours
Number of Stairs: 160
Cost: $30 per adult
Learn more and book your ticket.
Historic Tour
This tour is a classic and leads you down into Mammoth Cave. You’ll enter through the main entrance and retrace some of the steps you made on the Star Chamber tour. However, now you have the artificial lights turned on and you can really get a sense for how massive this cave system is. It’s amazing how much different and bigger the cave feels with those artificial lights.
There are two big things to be aware of before signing up for this tour. There can be low ceilings and narrow passage ways. At a few points in the tour, you may need to crouch down and walk along the passage way for an extended period. For reference, I’m 5 feet 4 inches and I occasionally had to crouch down, while my mom at 5 feet 7 inches had to duck more often.
My mom gets claustrophobic and was a bit nervous about this, but went anyway. She said that she felt that rangers over exaggerated how bad it was going to be. Still, you should know your limits. If you are concerned, talk to rangers before you book your tickets. They will also reiterate all of this information at the safety briefing before starting your tour.
Total Distance: 2 miles
Length of Tour: 2 hours
Number of Stairs: 540
Cost: $24 per adult
Learn more and book your ticket.
Domes and Dripstones
This is the tour that I think of when I think of Mammoth Cave. It was on this tour that we heard “My God… That’s incredible!” at least 25 times in the course of the two hour tour.
From the visitor center, you’ll board a bus and travel to another entrance to the cave. At this second entrance, you’ll descend a narrow staircase down into the cave. Once you’re down here, the rangers will lead you to some of the most incredible rock formations of the cave system. The highlight for me was the Frozen Niagra area toward the end of the tour.
This tour had more narrow spaces than the Historic Tour, but I found myself having to duck less on this tour than on the Historic Tour. You will get a safety briefing before your tour that will outline exactly what you’re going to go through.
Total Distance: 1 miles
Length of Tour: 2 hours
Number of Stairs: 500
Cost: $30 per adult
Learn more and book your ticket.
More Tour Options
The three tours listed above are the tours that I have personal experience with. I would recommend all three tours as I think they give a fantastic overview of Mammoth Cave National Park. But these are not the only tours at Mammoth Cave. Take a look at the tours below. Perhaps something piques your interest more than the Mammoth Cave tours I’ve already covered.
Accessible Tour – For those with limited mobility, take a look at this tour. This is 2 hours, 0.5 miles, and has no stairs. Cost: $27 per adult. Learn more.
Cleveland Avenue – This focuses on Cleveland Avenue and the Snowball Room and you’ll see unique passages and gypsum covered walls. This is 2 hours, 1 mile, and 200 stairs. Cost: $30 per adult. Learn more.
Discovery (Self Guided) – This is the only self-guided option to explore Mammoth Cave. This is 1.25 hours, 0.75 miles, and 125 stairs. Cost: $12 per adult. Learn more.
Extended Historic – Unsurprisingly, this the Historic Tour with an extension (to the 1840s Cave Experiment). This is 2.25 hours, 2 miles, and 540 stairs. Cost: $27 per adult. Learn more.
Frozen Niagara – If you only want to see Frozen Niagara and skip the rest of the Domes and Dripstones tour, look at this tour. This is 1.25 hours, 0.25 miles, and 110 stairs (98 are optional). Cost: $26 per adult. Learn more.
Gothic Avenue – This focuses on more in depth on Gothic Avenue, which is also seen on Star Chamber, Historic Tour, and Violet City Lantern Tour. This is 2 hours, 1 mile, and 160 stairs. Cost: $23 per adult. Learn more.
Grand Avenue – This is another in depth tour, but it does a deeper dive on the Domes and Dripstones tour. This is 4 hours, 4 miles, and 1521 stairs. Cost: $42 per adult. Learn more.
Great Onyx Lantern Tour – This is another lantern tour, but it should be noted that this cave is not known to be part of the Mammoth Cave system. Remember that the cave system is still being mapped and explored, so one day, they may be able to connect it with the Mammoth Cave system. This is 2.25 hours, 1 miles, and 40 stairs. Cost: $31 per adult. Learn more.
Introduction to Caving Tour – This is exactly what it sounds like. For those interested in caving, this tour teaches you techniques while exploring parts of Mammoth Cave. It’s 3.5 hours, 1 mile, and 300 stairs. Note that you will be caving which means you should be prepared for tight spaces and potentially difficult climbs. Learn more.
Mammoth Passage – This is an introduction to the Historic Tour and is a guided version of the Discovery (Self Guided tour). This is 1.25 hours, 0.75 miles, and 125 stairs. Cost: $15 per adult. Learn more.
River Styx Lantern Tour – If you love geology, consider this tour as its a huge focus of this tour. You’ll follow the Historic Tour, but also detour to the underground water level. This is 2.5 hours, 2.5 miles, and 600 stairs. Cost: $26 per adult. Learn more.
Trog Tour – If you’re traveling with kids, this may be an option. This is a kids only tour (for children aged 8 – 12) that teaches kids about the cave and gives a cool opportunity for exploring. This is 2.75 hours, 1 mile, and 200 stairs. Cost: $25 per child. Learn more.
Violet City Lantern Tour – This is another lantern tour option, but is slightly longer than the Star Chamber tour. This is 3 hours, 3 miles, and 160 stairs. Cost: $32 per adult. Learn more.
Wild Cave Tour – Advertised as the most extreme tour at Mammoth Cave, you’ll spend 6 hours caving and learning about the history of exploration at Mammoth Cave. This is 6 hours, 6 miles, and 500 stairs. Cost: $79 per adult. Learn more.
Wondering Woods – This is more focusing on the surrounding forests, but does feature a short visit to the cave. This is 1.5 hours, 1 mile, and 194 stairs. Cost: $26 per adult. Learn more.
Tours Not Currently Offered
Tours are constantly changing and as I’ve updated this post over the years, I’ve noticed myself deleting tours and adding them back on. So here’s the Mammoth Cave tours that are not currently offered (at the time of writing). If these sound interesting to you, check the official website, because tour offerings change constantly and you never know when these may come back.
Broadway Tour – This tour uses the Historic Entrance but also features several other stops including Broadway Avenue, mining ruins, the Tuberculosis Huts, and more. This is just over 2 hours, 1 mile, and 125 steps.
Grand Historic – This is one of the most in depth tours and you’ll visit many of the iconic sites that are also seen on the Historic, Extended Historic, Gothic Avenue, Star Chamber, River Styx, Mammoth Passage, and Violet City tours. This is 4 hours, 4 miles, and 640 stairs.
Which Mammoth Cave Tour Should You Do?
The choice of tours is entirely up to you and you should take your own preferences into account, particularly if you love geology. But for the average person, I think the three tours I did (Star Chamber, Historic, and Domes and Dripstones) is a really good combination. Many tours have some overlap with another tour. By picking these three tours, you’ll have slight overlap (the Star Chamber and Historic use the same entrance), but there’s still plenty of variety.
On our trip, we arrived into Cave City at around 3:00pm. We got an early dinner in Cave City and then drove to Mammoth Cave National Park to take the Star Chamber Tour at 6:15 that evening. The next day we took the 10:00 am Historic Tour and the 2:15 pm Domes and Dripstones Tour.
If you’re doing both the Historic Tour and Domes and Dripstones on the same day, I think this spacing (10am Historic and 2:15 Domes and Dripstones) works well. The Historic Tour finishes at 12:00, so you have plenty of time for lunch (there’s a Camp Store that serves sandwiches just down the road from the visitor center) and time to relax. If you take an earlier tour, you may be rushed during lunch.
Also note, that tour times change based on the season. We were here in early August when there were numerous tours available, but in winter fewer tours are offered. Always look ahead on the NPS website to see what tours are available for your dates.
It’s a good idea to book your tickets in advance. We booked our tours online approximately six weeks in advance for a visit in August. At that time, there were still plenty of tickets available. However, by the time we arrived in Cave City, nearly everything was sold out. If there’s a tour you really want to do, buy your ticket in advance.
Booking Your Mammoth Cave Tour
While you can wait until you’re at Mammoth Cave National Park to select your tours, you run the risk of tours selling out. Despite large groups for some of the tours (there must have been 100 people on two of my three tours), they regularly sell out. This is especially true during the peak travel months.
So, once you know when you’ll be at Mammoth Cave National Park, book your tours through the recreation.gov website.
Lastly, please note that your America the Beautiful Pass (or similar annual pass), does not change the price for your tours. Even owners of the annual passes have to pay full price for their Mammoth Cave tours.
Additional Helpful Information
Each tour at Mammoth Cave (except the Accessible Tour) contains a lot of stairs. Both the Historic Tour and Domes and Dripstones state that you will do over 500 stairs. That said, the stairs are not all at once and are spread out throughout the tour, which is anywhere from .75 to 2 miles in length.
Tour groups can get big. The Star Chamber Tour has limited spots since they have limited lanterns. Our group for this tour had approximately 30 people. However, our groups for the Historic Tour and Domes and Dripstones were at least 100 people. To get the most out of your tour (and to maximize your time for photos), stick to the front of the group.
We were at the back of the group for the Star Chamber Tour, but I don’t think we missed much. For the other two tours, had we stayed at the back, we would have gotten the essential information, but we would have missed some more of the “fun facts” and other random tidbits from our ranger. He’d typically give these facts to the front of the group while we waited for the back part of the group to file in.
There are no facilities on your tour. Use the bathroom before you depart and carry anything you might need (although you really shouldn’t need much as food and drinks other than water are not allowed in the cave).
Getting to Mammoth Cave
Look at the map before you go. There is no service and the National Park Service strongly recommends avoiding Google Maps to navigate you to the visitor center. We used Google Maps and had no problems, but it’s something you should be aware of.
When to Visit Mammoth Cave
Mammoth Cave is 52 degrees all year round, so they can be visited at any point. The biggest thing to note is that tour offerings change throughout the year. Summer will have more tours offered than winter.
We visited in early August, so while it was hot and humid outside (with temperatures in the upper 80s), the inside of the cave was cool. I wore leggings and had a light sweatshirt (I only used my sweatshirt on two of the three tours).
Where to Stay on Your Visit to Mammoth Cave
The nearest town to Mammoth Cave is Cave City. It’s a small town with not a lot of options, but you will find a few choices for hotels and restaurants. It was nothing fancy, but it worked, and it was cheap, which is always a plus when traveling national parks.
Final Thoughts
I’ve visited other caves, including Carlsbad Caverns National Park, but nothing was quite like Mammoth Cave National Park. The sheer scale is hard to imagine and when you’re standing in the cave, you can really feel small. It’s definitely worth a visit to Mammoth Cave National Park just to experience it.
Continue Your Adventure
More Caves: For a similar, but also different, cave experience, check out New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Or in South Dakota, visit Wind Cave National Park or Jewel Cave National Monument. And don’t just pay attention to the national parks, Maquoketa Caves State Park in Iowa is a fun visit too.
Nearby National Parks: Nearby is relative, but if you’re chasing national parks, there’s a few to look into. You have Indiana Dunes National Park to the north, Gateway Arch National Park to the west, and New River Gorge National Park to the east. All are between a five to six hour drive from Mammoth Cave.
US National Parks: Start planning your national park vacation with my US National Park Travel Guide. You’ll find information about each park, photos, itineraries, budget tips, advice for non-hikers, the best scenic drives, and more. Plus, don’t forget to book your timed entry reservations in advance!