Mammoth Cave National Park, KY
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Midwest surprisingly offers us many national parks to visit all year round. One of the national parks near Illinois is the Mammoth Cave National Park in Cave City, Kentucky. We rented a car from Champaign and drove around 5 hours, excluding small stops in Indiana. We had never been to Kentucky before, and we believe that not many international students had been there. Plus, this was the first time we visited a cave in the US, and we start with the world’s longest known cave system!
On the morning of July 20, 2024, we rented a car from Enterprise and began our journey. The first task of the day was to move our belongings to a friend’s apartment, as there was an interim period when we wouldn’t have a place to stay. After taking care of these chores, we officially started our trip with a visit to IKEA in Indiana. We enjoyed a leisurely stroll through the store and treated ourselves to a cheap yet delicious meal at the café.
From there, it took us about two more hours to reach Louisville, Kentucky. Once in town, we headed to the Great Lawn to admire the beautiful bridges connecting Indiana and Kentucky.
For dinner, we walked to a charming spot called Troll Pub Under the Bridge. The highlights of our meal included an incredible beer cheese served with pretzels, honey-sriracha wings, and flavorful ciders.
We ended our day at the Econo Lodge in town. Louisville struck us as a clean and modern city, and we’d love to visit again.
On the second day of our trip, we visited Mammoth Cave, located in Cave City. As always, we snapped some pictures with the national park sign before venturing into the cave.
For anyone planning a trip there, it’s important to note that you’ll need to reserve a tour and time slot in advance. The park offers a variety of tours to choose from, but we opted for the classic option: the Historic Tour.
The cave was surprisingly cold, even in the summer, so it’s a good idea to dress warmly. We entered with our group, led by an enthusiastic guide—an older man with a youthful spirit. He was a master storyteller and seemed to know every inch of the cave.
At one point, he wanted us to experience the total darkness of the cave. He extinguished his torch, and we were instantly plunged into complete darkness. It was an incredible and unforgettable moment.
Unfortunately, our trip ended abruptly as something came up after the cave tour, but we would love to return to the area and explore more someday.
Before this trip, I had never been to Texas or New Mexico. Initially, our plan was to visit only Big Bend National Park in southern Texas, near the border with Mexico. However, we stumbled upon a blog where the author mentioned that there are several other national parks not far from Big Bend. In fact, the area is home to four remarkable parks– Big Bend, Guadalupe Mountains, Carlsbad Caverns, and White Sands. Despite their proximity, these parks are incredibly distinct from one another. We thoroughly enjoyed exploring the unique natural beauty each had to offer.
After we found out that there are some flights from Willard (a regional airport in Champaign) that are inexpensive, we started flying out from here instaead of Chicago. We got a really good price of plane tickets to Seattle, so we decided to go to more national parks! The two parks that we visited were Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks. We thought about going to North Cascade as well, but the time was limited so we planned to visit there next time. Visiting these two popular national parks in the fall was such a good choice–less crowd, nice weather, and fall foliage!
We’d been thinking of visiting South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore and Badlands national park for almost a year. Then an opportunity came when one of our friends gave us a buy-one-get-one-free coupon from Delta. We did not hestitate even a bit in buying two tickets for a round trip from Chicago to Rapid City, SD. Although it was an impulsive trip, we had a lot of fun observing the wildlife in the great plains of South Dakota and North Dakota.
Although Poy graduated from the Scripps-Oxford joint Ph.D. program in Biochemistry for half a year and already started working at UIUC as a post-doctoral researcher, his graduation ceremony was held way later in May 2024. His family also came from Thailand to attend his graduation ceremony in San Diego. We then spent over a week afterward traveling around the west coast, including California, Arizona, and Nevada. It was my first time (and his family’s first time) doing a road trip in the west coast. We enjoyed a huge variety of natural wonders that the west coast has to offer.