Can you visit the Cave of the Crystals? No, and it is not a “maybe with the right permit” no. The Naica mine flooded shut in October 2015, and nobody, not a tourist, not a scientist, has set foot in that chamber since. Here is why that is still one of the wildest things you can read about this year: three hundred meters under the Chihuahuan desert sits a room lined with selenite beams up to 11 to 12 meters long and an estimated 12 tonnes apiece, among the largest natural crystals ever documented on Earth, grown over as long as a million years in water a magma body kept simmering near 58C.

Here is the honest answer up front: you cannot visit the Cave of the Crystals , and no travel hack changes that. The chamber sits roughly 300m down inside the Naica mine in Chihuahua state, Mexico, packed with selenite beams up to 11-12m long, some of the largest natural crystals ever documented. Industrias Peñoles , the company that owns Naica, stopped pumping water out of the mine in October 2015, and the chamber has been flooded and sealed ever since.