CAMUY RIVER CAVES NATIONAL PARK​

Location: Camuy, Parque Nacional de las Cavernas del Río Camuy

Getting there: Drive for 1 hour 15 minutes from San Juan to get to the main entrance to the caves. There’s a large parking lot near the facilities. Buy your ticket at the booth and wait for your tour time to be called by a guide who will show you where to go. The hike down takes around 20 minutes and you’ll go as a group. On the way up, your on your own and it will take longer than 20 minutes. Bringing water is a good idea.

General Info: Their hours are from 8:00am to 3:00pm. Tours leave every hour. If you show up during peak hours, especially during the high season and weekends, it’s likely the next available tour will be in a couple hours. This is the third largest cave system in the world, but very little of it is open to visitors, partially because of a lack of investment by the government and partially because of damage from Hurricane Maria. The longest part of the hike is simply walking down the road to get to the cave entrance. They do their best to make it a kind of “nature walk” but the truth is trams used to take you down the road, but a lack of funding has left the park without functioning trams to ferry visitors to and from the cave. The walk back up may be challenging for some visitors as there is a noticeable elevation change.

Heads up: The park is closed on Monday and Tuesday! Don’t make the same mistake I did and drive all the way over to find a closed gate. Some walkways inside the cave are extremely slippery, the tour guide will warn you, just know that it’s no joke. There are bannisters for you to hold onto in these sections.