Just a short hop from Tucson, near Benson, AZ, is Kartchner Caverns. They have a top-notch RV park with full hookups that ran us about $30/night. It’s not Marriott Autograph Collection level but still great! The grounds are pristine and in addition to Kartchner Caverns, there are a few hikes that leave directly from the RV park.
Consider advanced reservations for the Kartchner Caverns tours and make note that between April 15th to October 15th the big room of this cave is closed so that the colony of bats that live there can give birth and raise their pups. Also, up until June of 2021 there were no photographs allowed inside the cave. I wish I were able to share you with you how stunning this cave is, but since we were there in March of 2021, no photos were taken inside the cave. (The image above is from another cave with similar features and the photo is by Jakub Mičuch @ unsplash).
Because this cave wasn’t even discovered until 1974 and the team that discovered it was extremely careful in its preservation and the steps taken to get it ready for public viewing, it is remarkably pristine. Gary Tenen and Randy Tufts were exploring the limestone hills of this area in search of a cave no one had ever found and they did just that! This cave wasn’t discovered until 1974 and was kept secret by its two founders until 1978 when they told the property owners, the Kartchners, about their awesome discovery. It took 10 years for this to become a state park and another 10 years and $28M to get the upper portion of this 2.4 mile cave ready to open to the public. Its internal features are magical and its delicacy well preserved.
