Maquoketa Caves State Park

Located in Eastern Iowa, Maquoketa Caves offer a very unique experience of hiking a trail of caves. Plenty of parking and no charge. Some caves require crawling into, but most do not. A flashlight or headlight would be helpful at times. There are 15 caves with intertwining paths to see each one. It took us about 3 hours and just 2.5 miles to visit nearly every one. Pick up a map at the Park Store once you've parked. I suggest going on to the first stairs down to middle Dancehall (l) and go underground, emerging across the street at Natural Bridge. Get across the Creek and go the opposite direction on the Woodland Tr. As it loops you will visit 5 caves.. The trail will bring you back to the parking lot & the store. Come over to the other side and descend the same set of stairs. This time go right. Trails on this side will take you all the remaining caves.

A truly beautiful hike filled with caves to explore! There are a total of nine caves, ranging in size from massive walk-through caverns to smaller, single-person passages. Two of the largest caves let you walk straight from one entrance to another, while one of the smaller ones requires squeezing through two tight openings before you can barely stand inside—definitely an adventure! The full hike took us about three hours at a steady pace. I’d recommend bringing a flashlight for exploring, though it’s not absolutely necessary. Between the unique caves and the gorgeous trails, this park is a gem. I’ll definitely be returning to Maquoketa Caves in the future!

This was a stop on an all day drive to get out to see interesting geology and get in a short walk. We did the end to end walk of the Dance Hall Cave. Afterward, we did a short hike around the park to take in all the other smaller caves. No Spelunking for us this time.

Bucket list! Must see! I consider this a moderate hike...Be prepared for a lot of steps...but it is so worth it! I only had 1 hour so it was a bit of a speed hike for me. Lol. The caves were so beautiful! You could definitely spend all day hiking the trails! Well maintained and marked trails/stairs/paths. I went during the day on Friday with a decent amount of parking, but I feel this would be packed on a weekend.

Really cool hiking trails and caves you can walk through but for those who like to get dirty and crawl through caves, lots of those too. They have a park here, decent showers and restrooms. They have some picnic and grills next to the park and a waste management and water pump for rvs. We camped at site 16 which was secluded which we loved..until around 7pm when we had raccoons that wouldnt leave us alone. We had all of our food in the car but I think from cooking dinner on the fire they wanted to try to get some food. We tried shooing them off for hours. Literally non stop with 3 different raccoons. Even though we wanted to stay out and enjoy the weather and fire we were getting exhausted trying to run them off so we went into the tent. The whole time they were scratching at our tent, trying to get under the tent and this lasted for hours too before we got so tired that we decided to sleep in our car. When we came back in the morning. We had a big rip in the tent and it looks like the racoons with through our bags. No food in there they were just very persistent. So happy we ending up sleeping in the car, that would have been stressful. We ended up leaving 2 days earlier and so did the other nearby camp sites in my area for the same problem. We tried to get a refund but they wouldnt. Such a nice hiking day spot but will never come again because of the terrible racoon problem. Even in the non secluded area there were raccoons. Next to the bathrooms, park and dumpsters. We kept it clean and kept everything in the car and the bathroom and dumpster area were clean too and they were still everywhere. We would go back to go day hiking if it wasn't so far of a drive. The only reason it would be worth to come back is if we could camp but we definitely wont be doing that again here.

8-23-25 Wife wanted to visit this place after seeing videos online. From Rochester MN, it’s about 4 hour drive. We got here about 11 am and the parking lot was already full. Beautiful park. The big main attraction cave is very close by the parking lot. Easily accessible as the park is nicely maintain with stairs and pathway. We did not hike all the whole park as we did not have time. We did hike to see about 4 of the smaller caves. The hikes are easy. Some spots might be a bit steep for some people. Overall great experience. Must visit at least once. Great for kids to explore and hike around.

Caves: Easily accessible, however there are a lot of stairs. There were a few access you had to walk over rocks that were a tiny slipperly. Starting at the trail head, we walked down the steps, and immediately our eyes were amazed by what we saw. Then we watched a family disappear under the rocks, so we followed them. To our amazement there was a whole path to follow to other caves. 10/10 recommend. Camping: nice, quiet, dog friendly camp ground. Bathrooms and showers were nice. Showers were inside the bathroom, use was free. They even have the weather channel playing. Bring cash for firewood.

I love this park! It is the coolest cave system I have been too! (I live in Illinois so not too many in the area) So many well maintained trails. Easy trails and challenging ones. Not sure if there are any water refill stations. I cant remember as its been 2+ years since I've been there. Always bring 2 or more sources of light when traveling into caves. Oh, bring knee pads if you wanna get spelunky.