South Dakota Travel Guide

The first thing anyone thinks of when they hear the name South Dakota is Mount Rushmore, home to the 60 foot tall faces of four American presidents. And for most people, that's probably the only thing they know about the state. What most people fail to understand is that South Dakota offers a wide variety of activities for a wide variety of traveler types. From the Mount Rushmore National Memorial to places like Custer State Park, Crazy Horse Memorial, the town of Deadwood (made infamous in recent times by the HBO show), to places like the Badlands National Park, the childhood homestead of Ame… read morerican author Laura Ingalls Wilder (she of Little House on the Prairie fame), or The Mammoth Site in the southern Black Hills, where the largest collection of Columbian woolly mammoth fossils can be found, there’s simply so much to see and do that it almost defies imagination.

The state itself can be broken into four distinct regions. The southeast portion of the state is the most populated, and contains Sioux City, while the northeastern corner is largely agricultural, and contains the Coteau des Praries as well as various lakes and rivers. The Great Lakes area borders the Missouri River, and the Badlands and Black Hills section of the state is where all the national parks, forests, frontier towns, and Indian reservations can be found. So, depending on what you want to see and do, depends on which part of the state you go to.

The best time to visit the state is in late summer and early fall. Otherwise, temperatures are either too cold, or too blistering hot. However, there are various ski resorts in the mountains, so if you want to experience that aspect of South Dakota, then you definitely want to come here in the winter. Otherwise, the best time to come is when the weather is mild enough that you can experience the wonders of the state without sweating or freezing your toes off.