Caverns of Sonora
Sonora, TX · Texas Hill Country
Out on the dry ranchland west of Sonora, a staircase drops 155 feet into a cave that mineralogists rank among the most beautiful on the planet, and the reason is the helictites…

Photo: Yinan Chen / Public Domain (CC0)
Four college students went looking for passages off a sinkhole in 1960 and broke through into the largest commercial cavern in Texas, named for the 60-foot limestone bridge arching over its mouth. The Discovery Tour drops 180 feet into rooms hung with 6-foot soda straws, sheets of cave bacon, and chandeliers and columns that climb past 40 feet, with an underground stream still feeding the formations grain by grain. Book the 9am Lantern Tour to walk it the way the discoverers did, lit only by the swing of a handheld flame.
Caves
Canyons & deserts
MountainsOthers worth the drive in Texas.