St. Herman's Cave — Attraction in Cayo District

Knowing my son wouldn’t exactly jump for joy at the thought of visiting The Great Blue Hole (and let’s be real, neither would my wallet), we went for a more budget-friendly adventure—cave tubing! With our big move back to the US looming, I decided to take my son and a few of his friends for one final hurrah.

Living in Cayo made me a little too chill about logistics, so I didn’t bother with a reservation. BIG rookie mistake! Thankfully, the staff were total gems and worked some magic to fit us in. Note to self (and to you): always check prices beforehand—my eyebrows went a little higher than anticipated. On the bright side, they accept credit cards, so phew!

Fun fact: your cave tubing ticket also doubles as a pass to the Blue Hole. Hang on to it like it’s Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket, because replacing it? No thanks. You can buy a separate Blue Hole ticket, but keep in mind it’s a mile or two down the road from the cave tubing site.

All geared up and tubes in tow, we met our guide—who, by the way, was an absolute star and turned our little adventure into something unforgettable. Oh, and parking? Plenty of it, so no parallel parking nightmares.

Now, a heads-up for the adventurous souls out there: cave tubing isn’t for the faint of muscle. Be ready to lug your tube through the jungle for about half a mile—yes, THROUGH the jungle. Pro tip: BRING BUG SPRAY. The mosquitoes don’t mess around. Once you reach the cave, it gets real Indiana Jones-y with a wet, slippery trek down a dark, narrow staircase. The ropes were our saving grace here.

The moment you plop into the water and settle into your tube, though? Bliss. The calmness is pure magic. Our guide absolutely nailed it with fun history tidbits and little surprises along the way. There are a few points where you can hop out of your tube, and we even got to experience complete, pitch-black darkness. Spoiler: terrifying and awesome at the same time.

If you’re up for some adventure (and a bit of a workout), I can’t recommend this enough. Just consider yourself warned about the physicality—you’ll earn that post-tubing...

We signed up for caving tubing. It's about a 10 minutes walk with your tube to the entrance then scaling down then up the cave's entrance to the river. We all chained together, holding onto each other's tubes. What you wear is what you have on you the entire time. You don't bring water/snacks/extras on this trip because there isn't anywhere to leave it while you are floating. The cave experience is wonderful. At one point, our guide had us all turn off our headlamps so we could be in complete darkness within the cave. Such a cool experience.

We were a group of 8 with 4 children ranging from 2 - 9 years of age. All did well.

After the tubing portion of the experience, we drove a mile up and had the entrance tickets to Blue Pool. This was a great...

We drove over from the Blue Hole after taking a dip since the entry fee for the Blue Hole covered St. Herman's Cave. Since we already paid for one, we figured we might as well do the other. It was well worth it since it's a fun little experience. We had already done the ATM Cave previously and were looking for more caves to go into. St. Herman's Cave allows unguided tours up to a certain distance and then you'll have to turn back. We went in there by ourselves with only our cellphone lights to guide us. It was definitely pretty fun walking as far as we could, turning off our lights to be in complete darkness, then walking out and slowly seeing the entrance to the cave as a tiny speck of...