South Dakota as a travel destination is all about the stunning Black Hills and the hostile Badlands. After spending 8 days exploring this underrated family friendly region over separate road trips, we can tell you from experience it really is a fantastic place to visit. We wouldn’t have gone back for a second trip otherwise!
In this South Dakota travel guide we show you the most popular vacation spots, along with an example road trip itinerary and when to visit.
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South Dakota Road Trip Itinerary
The best way to spend 4 or 7 days exploring South Dakota’s Black Hills.
Black Hills
We love the sprawling and rugged Black Hills for hiking, photography and scenic drives. It’s also home to genuinely unique attractions like Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse, plus the granite hills are covered entirely in birch, spruce, aspen and oak trees which glow a golden yellow in the fall.
What we like most is that there’s something for everyone. Families can drive the Custer wildlife loop, the less mobile can drive along Iron Mountain Highway and Needles Highway, everyone can take a tour of Wind Cave or Jewel Cave, and keen hikers like us can take on Black Elk Peak.
We’ve done all those things, as well as hiking more trails, driving up to see the old Wild West town of Deadwood, driving through Spearfish Canyon and popping over the border into Wyoming to see Devils Tower. It’s all worth doing, so make sure you have enough days free!
Planning a Rushmore to Yellowstone road trip?
Our popular travel guidebook helps you with planning every aspect of this amazing road trip, including where to visit, restaurants, hotels and our 10-day itinerary with daily route maps!
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Badlands
We liked the Wind Cave tour, but Badlands is the national park we’d prioritize in South Dakota. It’s very close to the Black Hills and Rapid City, which is the major transport hub for the region, and it’s a unique landscape that’s really easy to visit in just a few hours.
The main thing to do is drive a scenic road through the park and stop at all the overlooks, so anyone can do it. We also hiked a few trails like the Door Trail, Castle Trail and the adventurous Notch Trail, but you absolutely don’t have to hike to enjoy this photogenic park.
The sky above Badlands is enormous. It’s like a never-ending ocean of blue on a clear day. One thing we’d love to do is photograph sunrise and sunset over the rainbow-hued Badlands formations. When we visited in April, the park was covered in snow but heavy dark clouds covered the sky.
I-90
We drove to the Black Hills on I-90 from the east, stopping in Sioux Falls to see the picturesque waterfalls and Mitchell to see the world’s only corn palace. Both are worth a quick visit if you’ll be driving the same way.
Near Badlands, we highly recommend allowing a few hours to visit the Minuteman Missile historic site, which we didn’t know existed until we stumbled across it the second time we were in South Dakota. It turned to be such a cool and interesting museum, plus you can book tickets to see nuclear warheads in underground bunkers.
Also near Badlands is the tiny town of Wall, SD which is home to the Wall Drug Store. If you drive across I-90 you’ll see Wall Drug billboards for what feels like forever, trust us, we know! It’s not as good as we expected inside, but it’s a fun place for a quick stop to grab breakfast.
10 Fun Facts About South Dakota
- Sturgis, SD hosts the largest motorbike rally in the world each year.
- The state’s nickname is the Mount Rushmore State.
- Black Elk Peak is the highest peak east of the Rockies.
- South Dakota was once covered by Sea.
- Agriculture is South Dakota’s top industry.
- Custer State Park is home to more than 1,000 bison.
- Jewel Cave is considered the third longest cave in the world.
- The most complete fossils of a T-rex were found in South Dakota in 1990.
- Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves was filmed in SD.
- South Dakota is the 46th most populous US state.
Road Trip Itinerary
We think 4 days is the perfect amount of time to see the highlights of South Dakota’s Black Hills, so here’s how we’d plan our 4-day road trip itinerary with the knowledge we’ve gained from two trips to the region:
Badlands – Day 1
- Go to Wall Drug for breakfast and coffee
- Enter Badlands from the west
- Stop at the overlooks and hike the trails
- Go to Minuteman Missile historic site
- Drive to Keystone
- Watch Mt Rushmore evening lighting ceremony
Keystone and Custer – Day 2
- See sunrise at Mount Rushmore
- Walk the Presidential Trail
- Drive Iron Mountain Road
- Drive the Custer wildlife loop
Custer and Wind Cave – Day 3
- Drive the wildlife loop again
- Take a Wind Cave or Jewel Cave tour
- Drive Needles Highway
- Hike Cathedral Spires Trail
Black Elk Peak and Spearfish – Day 4
- Early start to hike Black Elk Peak
- Drive up to Deadwood
- Drive through Spearfish Canyon
- Visit Devils Tower in Wyoming
This is exactly how we’d do a Black Hills road trip if we had 4 days available. On day 4 if we weren’t feeling up to a long hike, we’d take out Black Elk Peak and take more time in Deadwood, Spearfish Canyon and Devils Tower, before going out for dinner and drinks in Rapid City.
When To Visit
South Dakota’s busiest tourist season runs from May-September. That’s when all the hotels, restaurants and attractions are open in places like Keystone, Custer and Deadwood.
We visited the Black Hills in early October and mid-April:
October – We had beautiful weather that was perfect for hiking and we hit the peak golden leaves perfectly. Most things were still open but it was clearly getting to the end of the season. The trails were empty and Badlands was quiet.
April – We had snowy and cold weather, so there were very few people around. Black Elk Peak was closed, but we were able to get a same day tour at Wind Cave and the northern Black Hills spots like Deadwood and Devils Tower were very quiet.
If we were to go again, we’d probably do either June or September when the weather is better and more is open, but it’s not as crowded as July or August. In terms of hotels, this region is affordable year round, even in summer, when compared to other popular US travel destinations.
Keep Exploring
Are you planning a longer trip with stops in more states? Once you’re finished reading our travel guides for South Dakota, keep exploring nearby areas by heading over to the following pages:
We hope our South Dakota travel guide helps with planning your vacation to the America’s northern plains!
Happy Travels,
Mark and Kristen
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