Carlsbad Caverns National Park, located around 18 miles from Carlsbad, features more than 119 caves spread throughout a 46,000-acre section of southern New Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert and Guadalupe Mountains. The park's major attraction is Carlsbad Cavern, which is accessible year-round via self-guided and ranger-led tours and features highlights such as the 4,000-foot-long Big Room limestone chamber, the fifth largest of its kind in North America.

Visitors can enter the cavern through its natural entrance or through an elevator from the park's visitor center, which also has educational exhibits and documentary screenings.The park is also noted for its bat flight viewing program, hiking paths, and Rattlesnake Springs Picnic Area, which has been identified by the National Audubon Society as an Important Bird Area.

Wind Cave National Park, near Hot Springs, South Dakota, ranks the second on our list of the most beautiful caves in the United States. The cave was the first cave in the world to be conserved as part of a national park when it opened in 1903. The cave is thought to have been historically referenced in Lakota Sioux legend and was found by Europeans in 1881, gaining its name from the cave's constant atmospheric pressure breathing.

It is now known as the world's densest cave system, with over 140 miles of mapped tunnels showing sites like the Post Office and Elks Room formations. Above ground, the park contains the biggest protected mixed-grass prairie section in the United States, as well as a number of paths with views of the adjacent Black Hills.

Location: 26611 US Highway 385, Hot Springs, SD 57747

Phone: 605-745-4600

Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon near Lake Powell that is located on Navajo Nation reserve territory in Page. The cave was developed as a result of Navajo sandstone erosion caused by flash flooding, and it still undergoes severe flooding today, including a flood in 2006 that closed the cave to the public for five months.

It is separated into two sections, Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon, which are colloquially known as "The Crack" and "The Corkscrew." The cave sections have been exposed to the public exclusively through guided tours since 1997, and despite their limited illumination and foot access trail, they have become a popular place for photography. Upper Antelope Canyon is a popular destination due to its easy ground-level entry, which requires no climbing in or out of the cave.

Location: 22 South Lake Powell BLVD Page, AZ 86040

Blanchard Springs Caverns are a cave system located within the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest and are the only public caves owned by the US government that are not under the control of the National Park Service. The caves are Arkansas' largest in terms of volume and second-longest in terms of length, with a passage span of 8.1 miles.

The three-level cave system lies near Mountain View and is open to the public for guided excursions along multiple tour routes, including the Dripstone Trail, which explores the higher levels of the caverns. The Discovery Trail leads to a 1.2-mile length of the caverns' bottom level, dropping 366 feet below earth and highlighting attractions including the Natural Entrance, the Rimstone Dams, and the Ghost Room. A Wild Cave Tour also gives you access to less developed areas of the tunnels on all three levels.

Location: 704 Blanchard Springs Road, Fifty-Six, AR 72533

Phone: 870-757-2211

Cave of the Winds is located near Colorado Springs and the Manitou Cliff Dwellings in Colorado's Pikes Peak region. The cave was discovered in 1881 by brothers George and John Pickett and has been open to the public as a show cave for more than a century, showcasing spectacular sights such as a Silent Splendor room containing rare crystalline speleotherms and unique passages such as its Old Curiosity Shop narrow passage, which offers glimpses of formations such as the Colorado Rose and Spider Web Valley. The cave deserves to be one of the most beautiful caves in the United States.

Daily guided cave excursions, including 90-minute lantern tours emphasizing the cave's history, folklore, and popular ghost stories, are available. A Terror-Dactyl free-fall cliff diving ride and a Wind Walker ropes obstacle course are also available as family attractions.

Location: 100 Cave of the Winds Rd, Manitou Springs, CO 80829

Phone: 719-685-5444

Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park is built on the location of a cave system found in the late 1800s by Charles W. Darrow. Though the cave has been open to the public for guided tours since the turn of the century, it was transformed into a family adventure park in 2003 and currently attracts more than 150,000 people per year.

A medieval fairy caverns trip, a Kings Row tour, and a wild cave tour are among the cave excursions available, which explore the cave's top and lower regions. The park also has the Wild West Express children's coaster, the Giant Canyon Swing, the state's first 4D theater, and the world's first Alpine coaster.

Location: 51000 Two Rivers Plaza Road, Glenwood Springs, CO 81601

Phone: 970-945-4228

The DeSoto Caverns, often known as Alabama's Big Cave, are located in the Appalachian Mountain foothills near Childersburg. The cave, originally known as Kymulga Cave, is said to have been used by Copena indigenous peoples before Europeans arrived in North America. During the American Civil War, the cave was a major saltpeter mining site, and during Prohibition, the cave housed a hidden speakeasy and dance hall known as the Bloody Bucket.

Since the 1960s, the cave has been run as a display cave, with daily guided tours showing one of the world's largest known accumulations of onyx-marble speleotherms. At the cave site, there are additional family-friendly attractions such as a Lost Trail Maze, a gemstone mining attraction, and children's amusement rides.

Location: 5181 Desoto Caverns Pkwy, Childersburg, AL 35044

Phone: 256-378-7252

Fantastic Caverns was found in 1862 by John Knox, who kept the cave's existence hidden during the American Civil War to avoid its mining for saltpeter. The cave has served as a Prohibition-era speakeasy, a music performance venue for shows broadcast on local radio station KGBX, and a popular Branson-area attraction cave giving guided tours throughout its recorded history.

Today, the cave is the only one in North America that offers ride-through excursions, with 55-minute Jeep tram rides following the channel of a former river within the cave. Every year, around 100,000 people visit the cave, which is kept at a constant temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit all year.

Location: 4872 N Farm Rd 125, Springfield, MO 65803

Phone: 417-833-2010

The Niagara Cave in Harmony, Minnesota, is not to be mistaken with the Canadian border waterfall. The cave was found in 1924 by pig farmers and is now one of the largest caverns in the American Midwest, with a dramatic 60-foot underground waterfall and a variety of interesting limestone and calcite formations. Between April and November, hour-long guided excursions explore a mile of the cave's underground corridors.

Since 2015, the cave site has also been home to many family attractions, including a miniature golf course and a gemstone mining activity, and it has been the world's first entirely zero-emissions display cave.

Location: 29842 Co Hwy 30, Harmony, MN 55939

Phone: 507-886-6606

Rounding out our list of the most beautiful caves in the United States is Jewel Cave. It is the centerpiece of the Jewel Cave National Monument, which was established in 1908 and is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, roughly 13 miles from the city of Custer. The cave is the third-longest known cave in the world, after Kentucky's Mammoth Cave system and Mexico's Sistema Sac Actun, with 192 miles of mapped corridors, albeit only around 5% of the cave's volume has been discovered.

Since 1939, guided tours of the cave have been given, with three tours accessible: a picturesque half-mile illuminated loop tour, a historic candlelight tour, and a wild caving tour via the cave's less developed areas.

Location: 11149 US-16 B-12, Custer, SD 57730

Phone: 605-673-8300