Twenty miles northeast of the Carlsbad Caverns, the town of Carlsbad (pop. 25,000) makes its living from the 750,000 tourists who visit the caves every year. Lining Canal Street (aka US-180, the “National Parks Highway”), the main road through Carlsbad, you’ll find most national motel chains and funkier local counterparts like the Stagecoach Inn ($35–45; 505/887-1148) at 1819 S. Canal Street. There’s also one very good Mexican restaurant, the Casa de Cortez (505/885-4747), at 506 S. Canal Street, a plain brown-brick building where locals come for heaping helpings of frijoles refritos and chiles rellenos; no booze, no credit cards, but great fresh sopapillas.
Apart from the caverns, the one other thing to see in the Carlsbad area is the Living Desert State Park (daily; $5; 505/887-5516), four miles northwest off US-285, which shows off the plant and animal life of the arid Chihuahuan Desert region. Foxes, wolves, hawks, and eagles are kept in re-creations of their natural environments, and can be seen along a 1.5-mile nature trail.
