Best Spots to Visit in the Black Hills of South Dakota
If you're going to visit western South Dakota, these are must-see places!
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We recently spent some time traveling all around the southwest corner of South Dakota. It wasn’t the first time we’d visited the area, but it was the first time we'd seen many of the things we visited. We drove through the area during our first year of traveling full-time and missed a lot of it for two reasons:
We had a pretty tight itinerary mapped out the first few months of our travels.
We didn’t even realize some of it was there!
So now that we’ve spent a lot more time in the area and traveled all around the Black Hills, I wanted to share our top recommendations if you head that way. Of course, whether or not this guide will help you with your travels depends on how you like to travel. We are always on the hunt for free (or at least low cost) things to see/do, we rarely go out to eat, and we look for the best (which means free if possible!) places to camp. So if that’s how you like to travel as well, this should be great for you!
So without further ado, these are the places we visited and the highlights of each area. If I’m being honest, I could probably write a whole post about each stop, so I’m going to try to keep it less wordy so it’s not too long. 😂
Hot Springs
Hot Springs is a cute little town. We had so much fun there! Centennial Park is a great spot to check out the Fall River Trail and the Hot Springs waterfall. There is a really nice path along the river where you can walk or maybe even ride your bike. If you hit it on the right day, you can also shop the local Farmers Market!
If you walk the downtown area, they have lots of cute little shops and boutiques to check out. My favorite are always the thrift shops, and we found several.
Wind Cave National Park
We are huge National Park nerds. In fact, we plan a lot of our travels around National Park locations. But the crazy thing is - when we first traveled to South Dakota, I had no idea this park even existed! And we practically drove right past it. 🤣 We didn’t make that error a second time.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if visiting this park would be all that beneficial this time because we didn’t have tickets for a cave tour and those sell out way in advance, which is one downside to traveling as we do and not having a set timeline where we know ahead of time exactly what date we might arrive somewhere. But by doing a little internet research, I discovered there’s quite a bit to see above ground too. So off we went to the park. Let me tell you - it was TOTALLY worth it!
This is a must-see park if you’re up in this region, and doing the scenic loop drive is also a must. The scenery is breathtaking, the wildlife is incredible, and you can explore all day long and never run out of things to see. There are even some great hikes along the way if you want to get out and stretch your legs a bit.
We stopped at the visitor center first to explore in there and get my passport book stamped (this is number 41 of the 63 official National Parks for us), and we spoke to a ranger to get information about the highlights of the park. She recommended doing the scenic loop in a clockwise direction, and that’s what we did. It’s absolutely beautiful!
Biggest thing to remember - leave the wildlife alone. Do not approach the bison, do not get close to them, and make sure you take your pictures from a distance.
Custer
This is such a fun town! We loved the vibe here and we think it’s a fantastic place. You can walk the downtown area and find tons of shops, art galleries, and restaurants, and you’ll also spot some bison statues and fun murals along the way. We even spotted a beautiful deer and her tiny little baby out our window one evening. And they were real - not statues! 😉😍
Something that was super popular here is ATV rental places. You can rent a side-by-side to explore the wilderness. We were tempted but decided to stay in our own vehicle. They have lots of options, plus it wasn’t a bad price either. Looked like tons of fun.
One stop you must make - especially if it’s the weekend - is the VFW. It’s open to anyone and they have a great vibe, great drinks, great staff, and (I think it’s Thursday through Saturday ) they have amazing meals you can order. The prices are incredible too!
We got steak tips and burnt ends, both with fries, and look at all the food we got! It was barely over $20! We visited with the bartender, Valerie, and she told us all about how she and her family make the food and the sauce, which they’re even bottling up to sell because it’s become so popular.
Custer State Park
It’s kind of funny because we didn’t even have this on our list of things to do, but after visiting with Valerie at the VFW for a while, she told us we must do the park. She said it’s an absolute must if you’re coming to South Dakota.
She wasn’t wrong. We were so glad we listened to her!
A word of advice: If you have an RV or camper van, you really need to know the exact height and width of your vehicle before going in due to height restrictions.
When you enter the park from Custer, you’ll start on Needles Highway, and you go through various tunnels along the drive. Some are smaller than others, and even the different maps you can find have different measurements. You should have seen us trying to make sure we’d fit before we got the first tunnel. 🤣 I even got out and walked through first to make sure all was good before James drove on through. Thankfully we cleared it with plenty of space.
Once you’re on the scenic loop, you’ll enjoy amazing views all the way around! There are lots of pull-offs where you can enjoy the view, there are hikes where you can get out and explore, and of course the road goes all around the park and all the way up to Mount Rushmore and back down into Custer.
If you haven’t visited Mount Rushmore, definitely add that to this list as well. We didn’t stop there on this trip because we’ve been there before, but it’s recommended.
Jewel Cave National Monument
This was another place that I wasn’t sure about ahead of time because we didn’t have tour tickets, but thankfully we risked it and showed up because they keep some in reserve to sell to walk-ups each day, and we got some!
There are a couple of different tours you can take. We just chose the short one that goes to the first main part of the cave. I think the longer one would be super cool, but we just didn’t have the time to wait until the time slots that were open and then also take a longer tour since we were moving on that day.
Even the short tour was fun and really cool. You get to go down about 200-300 feet to the “Target Room” where a ranger will explain all the things about Jewel Cave. It’s a fascinating place and it’s amazing to hear all about how the caves were discovered and how extensive they are. Seeing the “jewels” is pretty cool too!
Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway
On our travels through the area, we went up to Rapid City to take care of a few things (bigger city) and then up to Sturgis. We did hang out in Sturgis a couple of days - mostly to wait for the wind to die down before continuing on. Sturgis isn’t really our thing, but if you’re super into motorcycles, you would probably enjoy it. We did have a good time and checked it off the list now. haha!
Anyway, we wanted to do the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway, so we started from Sturgis, took Highway 14A to Deadwood, and started the journey around. There are several places along the loop that are worth a stop. These are the ones we enjoyed!
Deadwood
Deadwood is a super fun little town that is a throwback to the Old West. Here you’ll find great shops to browse, lots of restaurants and even saloons to have a bite or a drink; there’s a reenactment of a shootout each day, and you can even see where Wild Bill Hickock was shot and then where Jack McCall was captured after shooting him. There are some local museums that have tons of amazing things to see, like the 76 Museum and the Adams Museum, and for those who like to gamble, there are plenty of casinos in town; plus, make sure to check out Dahl’s Chainsaw Art because there are some incredible pieces there.
This town is worth the stop even if you’re just passing through and don’t spend a ton of time here. It’s quite a bit of fun and pretty lively.
Lead
Lead (pronounced “leed”) is home to the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center where you can learn all about the Homestake gold mine. I wasn’t sure how interesting this might be, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this. The visitor center has all kinds of information about the mine, and it’s fascinating to read, but looking out at the mine from the viewing platform - that’s pretty incredible! It looks so cool!
One of the most amazing stats about this place - “Until it ceased operations in 2001, the Homestake Mine was the largest and deepest gold mine in North America, yielding 41 million ounces of gold and 9 million ounces of silver over 126 years.” 😳
This is a free place to visit and definitely worth the stop.
Spearfish Canyon
Of course, the canyon itself is the biggest draw of the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway, and it did not disappoint. It was beautiful at every turn!
We stopped at a few places like Old Spearfish Creek Dam, Roughlock Falls, and Bridal Veil Falls. We even found a filming location for the movie “Dances With Wolves” - one of James’s favorite movies of all time. That was awesome. This scenic byway is definitely gorgeous and worth the time to drive the loop.
Spearfish
We didn’t do a lot in the town of Spearfish itself, but we did camp at the Spearfish City Campground, and it was a lovely stop. We really enjoyed our time there. If you are in the area, this is a campground we’d highly recommend.
Belle Fourche
When you’re looking at a map, this one is technically not in the Black Hills area, but it’s nearby, and it was amazing enough I have to mention it. Especially if you’re a van lifer or RVer and you like dispersed camping.
I had this town on my list of places to visit for two reasons: it has a monument marking the geographical center of the US, and it was on the way to Devils Tower for us, and that’s where we were headed next.
Since we were checking out the monument, we figured we’d see if there was somewhere nearby to camp for the night. I found some dispersed camping near Belle Fourche Reservoir, so we figured we’d go check it out. Oh my goodness, was it amazing! This place was incredible! I mean, look at the size of the space we had. And the next closest space was probably 100 yards or more away.
If you’re in the area and you like dispersed camping, this needs to be on the list.
That’s a wrap.
That completes our suggested list of places to visit when you’re visiting the Black Hills of South Dakota. There are SO many amazing things to do throughout this region. It just totally depends on what kinds of things you’re into. We love things that are nature-oriented and free, so that’s how we came up with this list. Not everything was free, but it was pretty low cost for all that we got to do and see.
Is there something that you’ve done in the area that you would recommend and should be added to the list? We’d love to hear it!
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South Dakota is one of the handful of states (all in the north) that I haven't been to yet. But seeing some of your notes, and now this post, I know that it definitely needs to be on the list. That said, I don't think it's going to happen anytime too soon (pretty sure Kelly prioritize Oregon/Washington as our first stops. But I've already added this to my "saved" items, or even better I'll just ask you directly when we reach the point where we're ready to head that way.
Love this! Brought back many great memories of traveling there with our children.