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Cumberland Caverns

Photo: RL0919 / CC BY-SA 4.0

🕳️ Caves

Cumberland Caverns

McMinnville, TN · Cumberland Plateau

About

Tennessee's third longest cave runs more than 27 miles under the Cumberland Plateau, but the moment everyone remembers is the Volcano Room, a vaulted chamber where a crystal chandelier rescued from a 1920s Brooklyn theater hangs 60 feet over the floor and live bluegrass fills the dark. Walking tours pass the Hall of the Mountain King, a passage nearly two football fields long, while the Lanterns and Legends tour cuts the lights and hands you a flame to read the formations the way the first explorers did. It earned National Natural Landmark status in 1973, and between the wild rooms, the underground concerts, and the lantern-lit history, it lands on the short list of caves worth the drive.

Highlights

The Volcano Room and its 60-foot theater chandelierUnderground bluegrass and Cumberland Caverns Live concertsHall of the Mountain King, nearly two football fields longLanterns and Legends lantern-lit tour27+ miles of mapped passage, a National Natural Landmark

Getting there

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Part of these collections

Curated guides that feature Cumberland Caverns.

America's Best Caves22 places

America's Best Caves

Step out of the daylight into another world: the longest cave on the planet in Kentucky, a desert chamber big enough to swallow a stadium in New Mexico, an underground waterfall in Tennessee, and a living crystal cavern in Arizona. Some you walk, some you ride a boat through, and one you crawl with a headlamp. America's great caves and caverns, from the national parks to the lantern-lit show caves.