Best Day Trips from Rapid City, South Dakota

Rapid City, the second-largest city in South Dakota, is best known as the gateway to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills. But a trip to the western edge of the state would be incomplete without a broader exploration of the region. From Rapid City, visitors can learn important facts about the Native American experience, tour the prairie with iconic buffalo, and even travel back to the ice age on an active archaeological dig. Here are the best day trips from Rapid City, South Dakota.

01
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Mount Rushmore National Memorial: A Wish List View

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You can’t go to South Dakota and skip Mount Rushmore. It’s true that the 60-foot-tall faces of four of America’s most influential presidents carved between 1927 and 1941 on Native American sacred land appear smaller than you would expect in person. But it’s hard to deny that walking the boardwalk with the state flag toward the sculpture’s “grand view” satisfies a popular bucket list item anyway. The site is home to a half-mile walking trail, the Presidential Trail, at the base of the sculpture, a gift shop, a dining room, and an amphitheater where evening performances include a ranger talk and a short film leading to the lighting of the sculpture. .

How to get there: Mount Rushmore is just a 30-minute drive from Rapid City, near the popular resort town of Keystone. Parking at the National Monument costs $ 10 per car, motorcycle, or RV ($ 5 for seniors) and is not covered by any National Park Service pass.

Travel Tip: The ice cream parlor at the base of the mountain serves Thomas Jefferson’s own vanilla ice cream recipe. It will cost you more than the other less historic options in the store, but it’s worth the splurge!

02
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Crazy Horse Memorial: a memorial to all Native Americans

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+1 605-673-4681

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Mount Rushmore is not the only mountain sculpture in the city, nor is it the most impressive. Just 40 minutes down the road is Crazy Horse, and its backstory (and massive size – the sculpture’s head is only 87 feet tall) is more than enough to make this sight worth visiting. The carving of this sculpture of the prominent chief Oglala Lakota in the sacred lands of the Black Hills was the brainchild of Chief Henry Standing Bear, who approached Korczak Ziolkowski, an assistant sculptor working on Mount Rushmore, with the plan in hopes of share to the natives. American History Ziolkowski began carving on his own in 1948 and worked on the monument until his death in 1982, turning down millions of dollars in government funding along the way. The sculpture today represents a work in progress led by two of Ziolkowski’s daughters, who took over the project after their father’s death in 1982.

Visitors to Crazy Horse can take a bus trip to get a closer view of the sculpture, and they can learn all about Native American history (and the history of the carving) at the site’s impressive museum. Admission fees support ongoing carving, museum, and education programs inside and outside the Foundation.

How to get there: The Crazy Horse Memorial is located less than an hour’s drive from Rapid City, in the heart of the Black Hills, between the cities of Hill City and Custer. Visitors should expect admission fees per car of around $ 12 per person or $ 30 per car with three or more people. Admission is $ 7 per person by motorcycle and does not apply to Native Americans, active members of the military, residents of Custer County, Girl and Boy Scouts (in uniform), and children 6 and under.

Travel Tip: Do n’t miss out on a chance to take home a piece of the mountain – head to the Rock Box near the scale model of the sculpture to grab a rock that the mountain team has taken off the carving.

03
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Custer State Park: Where the Buffalo Roam

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+1 605-255-4515

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No trip to South Dakota would be complete without a good look at where the buffalo roam. The 110-square-mile Custer State Park offers many opportunities to get up close and personal with the patriotic bovine, in addition to prairie dogs and the donkey, as they graze in the park’s grasslands under dramatic granite cliffs. Many park visitors choose to drive the Wildlife Loop Road, which winds through the heart of the park and takes around 45 minutes.

But once a year in late September, visitors can watch the park’s 1,300-person herd being herded by actual cowboys for testing, marking, and sorting. The annual Custer State Park Buffalo Rodeo draws around 20,000 spectators to the park and is an act of true American.

Getting there: Custer State Park is 40 minutes south of Rapid City. The best way to see the park is by car. Expect to pay $ 20 per car ($ 10 per motorcycle) for a temporary license upon entry.

Travel Tip: Drive north on Iron Mountain Road as you exit the park to encounter the narrow Scovel Johnson, CC Gideon and Doane Robinson tunnels, which perfectly frame Mount Rushmore.

04
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Pine Ridge Reservation: The Native American Experience, Past and Present

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The Oglala Lakota have faced challenges that many Americans cannot even comprehend, and a visit to Pine Ridge, one of the largest Native American reservations in the country, certainly confirms the difficulties of Native American life in many ways. . But the reservation also offers a glimmer of hope at its thriving schools: Oglala Lakota College and Red Cloud Indian School.

Established in 1971, Oglala Lakota College today enrolls about 1,500 students per semester and has awarded more than 3,000 degrees in in-demand fields on the reserve, such as teaching and nursing. The university is home to a historic center displaying photographs and artwork of the Oglala Lakota people from the early 1800s to the Knee Injury Massacre.

Not far from the university, but outdated by almost 100 years, the Red Indian Indian School was founded in 1888 by Jesuits and today plays an important role in the preservation of the Lakota language. Visitors can tour the site’s Lakota Catholic Church, rebuilt in 1998 in an impressive fusion of Indian and Catholic architectural styles and symbolism, and can walk to the grave site of Red Cloud himself, one of the tribe’s most important leaders. The school hosts an annual art show, the Red Cloud Indian Art Show, and is home to a good gift shop that only works with Lakota artisans.

The site of the Wounded Knee Massacre is also within Pine Ridge. The site, today marked by a cemetery and mass grave, offers a grim look at just one of the struggles the Oglala Lakota have faced. Lakota leaders have addressed reports of vendor harassment in the site’s parking area, but they cannot be ignored: Visitors should be prepared to politely but sharply decline if vendors approach selling dream catchers and crafts.

How to get there: Red Cloud Indian School, the southernmost point of the reservation mentioned here, is located 90 miles southeast of Rapid City. Allot a full day for a complete visit to the reserve.

Travel Tip: Tatanka Rez Tourz, run by Oglala Lakota College student Tianna Yellowhair and her father Warren Guss Yellowhair, is the only licensed tour guide business on the reserve. The couple can organize tailor-made tours and experiences, including traditional presentations, sensitivity training, and lessons on medicinal plants and herbs.

05
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Wall Drug: Knickknacks y Nostalgia

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+1 605-279-2175

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If you haven’t spent your entire life indoors, you’ve probably seen a sign for Wall Drug. The roadside attraction’s namesake decals adorn dive bar restrooms and RV bumpers around the world, not to mention the dozens of billboards lining the road between Rapid City and Wall. Wall Drug was started by the Hustead family in 1931, who grew their business by offering free ice water to all passersby. Today, the third-generation Husteads still offer free ice water, but they preside over a much larger empire: The tiny pharmacy has expanded into a 76,000-square-foot amusement behemoth, with a western mall selling everything from boots to cowboy up to Black Hills gold. . In the back, sit on a huge, mythical jackalope, or pose in front of a Mount Rushmore mural. Who needs the real?

Wall Drug’s black walnut paneled cafe is decorated with the largest collection of Western art in the country and is a great place to enjoy the family’s famous hot meat sandwich (topped with thick gravy) and homemade maple donuts.

How to get there: Wall Drug is 49 minutes east of Rapid City on I90, and it may be the most well-marked pit stop on the planet. You can not lose this.

Travel Tip: Do n’t Drive? The Wall Drug Cafe serves what is arguably the best ice cream Bud Light project in the world.

06
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Parque Nacional Badlands: Pinnacles & Prairie Dogs

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+1 605-433-5361

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Badlands National Park, where nearly 380 square miles of windswept grasslands spontaneously drop into pinnacles and jagged red hills, can be approached in two ways. The park’s eroded landscape takes on different moods as the sun takes its daily path over the park, and the characteristics of the land vary according to the extent of the park.

Enter the park at the Badlands Pinnacles entrance and head to the Pinnacles panorama to see one of the most colorful sunset scenes on offer. Or, after spending a day at Pine Ridge, head back to Rapid City via the stunning Red Table Table Lookout – the sudden drop from green grass to red sand there seems like it could be the limit of the world.

How to get there: The Badlands Pinnacles entrance is located 56 minutes from Rapid City in Wall, South Dakota, not far from Wall Drug. The Red Shirt Table Overlook is located 49 minutes southeast of Rapid City.

Travel Tip: Don’t want to head back to Rapid City after sunset? Reserve at the park’s Cedar Pass Lodge, where a series of cabins and a more casual campground offer sustainable accommodations, a stunning sunrise, and a delicious breakfast for dinner.

07
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Hot Springs, Dakota del Sur: mamuts y mustangs

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The laid-back town of Hot Springs offers much more than just the hot springs for which it is named. A chance discovery in 1975 by a land developer uncovered the sinkhole grave of more than 60 mammoths, making the site the largest concentration of mammoth fossils in the world. Today, the Mammoth Site offers visitors the opportunity to tour an active paleontological excavation and see the fossils of two types of mammoths, as well as other species found in the sinkhole, including camels, wolves, and bears. Summer digging programs even allow kids to join the dig themselves! The site is completely closed – entrance fees range from $ 7 to $ 10 and visiting hours vary by season.

After an Ice Age encounter, head to the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, a private ranch that is home to more than 500 wild horses that the Bureau of Land Management released to rancher Dayton O. Hyde, where mustangs have been under Federal custody since 1971. Today, these lucky horses span more than 6000 acres of land on the banks of the Cheyenne River, where they live largely undisturbed, only occasionally sharing the land with Native American ceremonies and Hollywood sets. Visitors can join various types of tours, from 2-hour guided bus tours ($ 50 per adult) to those intended for the more serious photographers, or even sponsor and name a Mustang with a donation of $ 400 per year. The sanctuary is fully funded by donations and tourism.

How to get there: The city of Hot Springs is 57 minutes south of Rapid City by car.

Travel Tip: At the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, don’t miss the 8,000 to 10,000-year-old petroglyphs carved into the edge of a cliff.