At the end of our Thanksgiving holiday, we decided to take a day trip down to Tucson, AZ. In all of our time in Arizona, we’ve not made the trip down there. It’s not that far of a drive, but we had just never made it a priority.
Mike has some friends who moved down not long after us, so we took this opportunity to meet up with them for lunch in downtown Tucson. It was great to catch up with them and lunch was pretty good, albeit a bit rushed since we had a reserved time for our tour of the cavern.
From downtown Tucson, we still had another hour drive to Kartchner Caverns just outside the city of Benson. It’s been years since we’ve gone a cave hike, but we were really looking forward to visiting these ones so close to home.
When we arrived, we walked around through the gift shop a little bit before the time of our tour.
We were greeted with a great overview and history of the caves before hopping on a tram to rid up the mountain to enter into the caves. Once inside, we were blown away. We took the “Rotunda/Throne Room” tour which lasted about an hour and a half. It was absolutely stunning and incredible. It’s hard to believe that in the middle of the desert, there is this incredible living cave to enjoy.
There’s one more tour that is available that is not year-round (they close it down when the bats come back!), so we’re planning to take another trip down to check out the other room.
No pictures are allowed in the cave itself, but below are a couple from their website…
