The bowels of the Earth are not great places to discover that you’re claustrophobic, tbh.

So, my Handsome Assistant and I took a bit of a staycation. Our original plan was to stay in a lovely (and haunted) bed and breakfast in Cape May, but we decided to put that trip off until next year and do more local activities.

One of those was visiting Luray Caverns.

I’ve wanted to check it out for a while. I like the idea of exploring caves. We didn’t really have them around where I grew up, so my friends and I compensated by finding unguarded drainage culverts and having many adventures in the glorious sewers of Long Island. I covered miles upon miles of that place, completely underground.

I had some reservations about Luray at first — not because I’m scared of caves (how much worse than a sewer can they be?) but because a lot of the reviews pointed out that the owners seemed to be more concerned with making money by packing as many people into the place as possible versus protecting and presenting the natural features of the caverns.

Still, we were planning on going in the middle of the week. It seemed kind of doubtful that we’d have massive throngs of people to contend with, so the crowd thing didn’t really worry me.

I did not, however, realize that my biggest problem would be air.

Let me be totally upfront with you — still, heavy air is an enormous panic trigger for me. It makes me feel like I can’t breathe. Like my lungs are working to pull air in, but not enough is actually moving. A lot of caves still have air flow patterns, governed by changes in air pressure and temperature. Caves with multiple entrances can even have breezes as fresh air enters and pushes old air out. I figured it’d be okay. Can’t be worse than a storm sewer, right?

We were somewhere on the banks of Dream Lake when the adrenaline began to take hold.

The closeness of the space, the thick, humid air, and the lack of any kind of movement got to me. It got to me bad. I felt a hot flush in my cheeks, tingling down both my arms, and a heavy feeling in my chest. Sweat prickled over every inch of my skin. I turned to my Handsome Assistant.

“OkayIneedtogooutside.“

We turned around and started heading back in the wrong direction. Luray is arranged so that, once you’re in, the only way out is through. Fortunately, we weren’t super deep in and there weren’t large crowds. The walk back felt like it took forever, but we made it back out to breezes, space, and sunlight.

As far as the caverns themselves, they’re strange and beautiful. A lot of the formations have been damaged by irresponsible patrons, but many of them are still “living.” You can see water dripping. You can see the patterns of growth and erosion forming in real time. You can see the bright orange of deposited iron oxides, the white of calcite, the greens and blues of algae blooming from the lights in the cave.

I do agree with a lot of the reviews that criticize the ownership, however. For example, you enter and exit through the gift shop. While this may have been a matter of practicality in the beginning, they’ve recently excavated a new entrance and probably could have done so in a way that would’ve made the shop’s traffic patterns a bit easier to manage.

There are also a lot of very tight areas. People mentioned having to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and shuffle along the entire length of the caverns, which can be tough to manage with small, antsy children. One reviewer’s daughter experienced an asthma attack, and still had to go through the entire length of the caverns because there was no way to get her out otherwise. Things weren’t nearly as crowded when we went, but, again, we were able to go on a weekday. Scheduling a trip for an off-peak time seems like it makes everything a lot easier.

Would I go again? I don’t think so. Even though we weren’t there for very long, I feel like we got enough out of the experience. I also wouldn’t want to chance being there with a large crowd. Has this experience turned me off of caves in general? Also no. If anything, it’s made me more interested.

I just need to have a good escape plan. You know, just in case.