The Cave State

Jump in the car or fire up your motorcycle for a really fun ride. Grab a burger or some Texas-style BBQ. Find out why Missouri is called the Cave State. And end the day at a bed-and-breakfast or a hotel to rest up for the ride home.

When porous limestone and dolomite come together, they make the Cave State. With more than 7,000 caves in Missouri, there's probably a cave close to where you are now. Discover the depths of this natural phenomenon and its ancient connection to the Ozarks in this cave guide.

Spending the night in a 48-million-year-old cave in the Missouri Ozarks was everything you could imagine it would be. Except for the sounds.

Marble Cave gets national exposure on the cover of Scientific American magazine. Now called Marvel Cave, Missouri’s deepest known cave has a grand cavern so large that promoters inflated hot air balloons inside to showcase the size of the natural wonder.