The ultimate guide to Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Some tips for visiting Carlsbad Caverns National Park:

-Ranger-led tours guide you through some of the lesser-seen cave rooms. Currently, only the King's Palace tour is available and is offered at 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. daily. Reservations are required and can be made online at Recreation.gov or over the phone.

-There are two self-guided trails that those who are short on time can check out: the Natural Entrance Trail, which descends 79 stories from the mouth of the cave to the Big Room, and the Big Room Trail. Reservations are required and can be made online at Recreation.gov or over the phone.

-The rangers also offer bat programs at night between Memorial Day and October. At 7:30 p.m. local time, learn about these mysterious creatures and watch nearly 400,000 Brazilian free-tail bats leave the caves for their nightly feedings.

-There's an elevator into the cave for those unable to hike the intense switchback trail into the Big Room, and some rooms in the caves are pretty big and easy to navigate, for those who aren't fond of small, dark spaces.

-When going into the cave, remember that you can only bring plain water with you (because the cave is home to a delicate ecosystem) and that you might want a jacket or a sweater, since it's cooler underground. There's a snack bar inside, though, in case you get hungry.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is home to a fascinating (and controversial) restaurant. The reason? The Carlsbad Caverns lunchroom is located 750 feet underground, right inside the caves.

It all started when Jim White, who discovered the caverns, began selling his autobiography in the room that would later become the restaurant. The lunchroom opened in 1928, 2 years before Carlsbad Caverns became a national park. Back then, there was an actual need for a place to serve food within the caves—it took tourists 6 hours to hike down into the Big Room, one of the main attractions of the park. Nowadays, the 6-hour hike can be done in a matter of minutes thanks to the elevators.

P.S. Tourists can write a postcard and mail it from inside the cave—and have it stamped with "Mailed from 750 feet below ground."

Between the 1920s and 1940s, a good deal of construction went on at Carlsbad Caverns, putting up buildings for visitor and ranger use. Mess halls, dorms, powerhouses, and more were done in Pueblo and Territorial Revival style, and even though many of these buildings were taken down, a few still remain as part of the Caverns Historic District.

Another cave tour offered by the National Park Service is the Left Hand Tunnel Tour. Rangers guide you along a primitive, unpaved trail in an undeveloped portion of the cave... and each visitor gets a lantern to light the way as they explore the more rugged areas of Carlsbad Caverns. It's an old-school way to experience the underground tunnels.

Note: The Left Hand Tunnel Tour is temporarily suspended until further notice.