We received admission to Discovery Center as part of a promotional blogger tour of Springfield, MO through the US Family Guide. All opinions are 100% my own.
On the drive from Texas to Missouri, it seemed liked every other billboard we passed was for Fantastic Caverns. I’m pretty sure they start in Oklahoma and don’t really stop until you are actually driving into the parking lot for the caverns. Needless to say, there was a lot of hype about the caverns. This was actually something we wanted to do last year when we visited Branson, but we didn’t have time.
For this trip, we made sure to visit Fantastic Caverns. We were not disappointed!
Here’s everything you need to know to plan your trip with kids to Fantastic Caverns in Springfield, Missouri.
There are lots and lots of caves in Missouri. But not all of them are this big!
America’s only drive-through cave, Fantastic Caverns is a HUGE cave that you’ll get to explore from the comfort of a Jeep-pulled tram.
When you arrive, you’ll park and buy your tickets inside the Visitor’s Center. They also sell snacks and drinks and have bathrooms here, which you’ll want to use – the tour is about an hour long and there are no potties inside the cave!
You can see specific hours of operation here, but tours depart every 20-30 minutes.
The cave maintains a temperature of about 60 degrees, making this a perfect all-weather attraction (you will ride in the tram for a very short distance exposed to the elements as you drive to the cave, so keep this in mind if it’s pouring rain!).
Your tour guide will give you the geological and social history of the caves, and this is so interesting. Just a couple of cool tidbits of information: the cave was first explored by teenage girls, and later housed a bar and live music as a local hotspot!
Our tour guide was great. He had tons of information, was able to answer all of our questions (even when Jack started asking what states emeralds and silver could be mined from…), and had lots of fun anecdotes to share about the cave.
The whole experience was educational, interesting, and awe-inspiring (do you SEE these pictures? It was about, oh, a million times cooler in real life).
Give yourself some time to get there – it was about twenty minutes from our hotel. Side note: we almost ran over a wild turkey who ran out in the road in front of us on our way to the cave!
There’s also a hike you can take before or after your tour that I am told is beautiful (we didn’t have time to go ourselves). The area is very hilly, so wear your walking shoes!
You can find ticket prices, hours, and more tour information here.
Want to know what else to do in Springfield with kids? You can see all of the posts from our Springfield adventure here.
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