Hannibal, Missouri: Mark Twain Cave: Jimmy Carter Guest Book

Huck Finn hid here, as does the population of Hannibal if they happen to be nearby when a tornado passes through. President Carter visited, and you can still see where he signed the guest book.

I've been to a few other caves, but this was the best. It has a unique story of how it was formed, and since it is no longer growing you can touch the walls. It has thousands of signatures on the walls from the last century, even Jesse James. We stopped in the off-season, so there were no crowds, and we had a small tour group and an awesome tour guide, which was perfect.

There is now a very nice campground at the Mark Twain Cave. In the event of a tornado, campers are evacuated into the Mark Twain Cave. During our stay, the sirens began sounding in the middle of the night. We were all taken into the cave to wait out the storm. It was a unique experience, and very exciting for the kids. We would highly recommend the Cave tour as well as the campground.

Cameron Cave is billed as the "newest Show Cave" (guided tours since 1978) and it shares the same grounds as Mark Twain Cave. It is fun because the visitors are issued LED flood light lanterns to light their own way, and it works very well. There are no handrails, but the going is not all that tough. You do have to be able to make two steps under a 4-ft. overhang, and there are some small inclines -- but no big deal. The hardest part might well be the climb up the hill from the office to the entrance.

The tour is fairly long at 1:20, and it's very narrow, so it's hard to hear much of what the guide is saying. He has a flashlight to point things out. Your LED Lanterns will light the area well, but we let others carry those and brought good flashlights for deeper peeks. There are any number of actively growing formations -- one of which, unfortunately, is in your path, necessitating the touching of it to make it by. This is one of the few such cave experiences available to the general public.

This is a great cave. I remember going here as a kid on family vacation. I returned to take my now-fiance there. There's a great story on the tour relating to Huck Finn. It's also cool that there's so many signatures inside from so long ago. We found this one with a cool last name.