The accolades for Wind Cave are as extensive as the 150 miles of passageways: it’s one of the world’s longest caves, one of the few with honeycombed boxwork calcite, and one of the few federal lands with free-roaming buffalo. Wind Cave lives up to its billing. The candlelight cave tours are fascinating (and cool on a hot day), but the above-ground grasslands are also wonderful, and easy to explore thanks to several trails. You’re likely to see bison, deer and pronghorn. Elk and coyotes also share the 34,000 acres, though they are shyer. President Theodore Roosevelt made it a national park in 1903, the first cave in the USA to get such protection. You’ll agree he made a good decision. Find it just a few miles north of Hot Springs on Highway 385.