Lonely Planet Best Road Trips USA by Lonely Planet

Author:Lonely Planet
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: best-road-trips-usa-5
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Published: 2023-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Link Your Trip

27 The Mighty Mo

Follow North America’s longest river through magnificent wilderness and great cities. Join the route in Pierre, SD, a 170-mile trip east of Rapid City via I-90 plus a scenic leg on US 14.

28 Grand Teton to Yellowstone

More great American parks are west through Montana.

01 Rapid City

A worthy capital to the region, ‘Rapid’ has an intriguing, lively and walkable downtown. Well-preserved brick buildings, filled with quality shops and places to dine, make it a good urban base and hub for your looping tour. Get a walking-tour brochure of Rapid’s historic buildings and public art from the visitor center. Check out the watery fun on Main St Square.

While strolling, don’t miss the Statues of Presidents (presidentsrc.com) on downtown street corners. From a shifty-eyed Nixon in repose to a triumphant Harry Truman, lifelike statues dot corners throughout the center. Collect all 43.

Learn about how dramatic natural underground events over the eons have produced some spectacular rocks. See these plus dinosaur bones and some stellar fossils at the Museum of Geology (museum.sdsmt.edu), located at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.

THE DRIVE

Choose from the commercial charms on Hwys 16 and 16A on the 21-mile drive to Keystone.

DETOUR

Badlands National Park & More

Start: 01 Rapid City

More than 600 buffalo, also known as North American bison, roam Badlands National Park (nps.gov/badl). The name originated with French trappers and the Lakota Sioux, who described the park’s jagged spires and crumbling buttes as ‘bad lands.’ Today, this crumbling former floodplain is visually compelling, its corrugated hillsides enlivened by an ever-changing palette of reds and pinks.

You can see the eroding rocks up close on the Notch Trail, a 1.5-mile (round-trip) leg stretcher that twists through a canyon, scampers up a wooden ladder then curves along a crumbly ridgeline to an expansive view of grasslands and more serrated walls. At the Ben Reifel Visitor Center just down the road, a visually stunning film captures the park’s natural diversity with jaw-dropping close-ups of the plants and animals that thrive in the mixed-grass prairie.

From Rapid City, head about 50 miles east on I-90, where Badlands Loop Rd (Hwy 240) links with I-90 at exits 131 and 110. The loop stretches west from the visitor center into the park’s north unit, curving along a narrow ridge of buttes known as the Badlands Wall. It can be driven in an hour, but stopping at the numerous overlooks can easily fill a morning. Exit 110 off I-90 also serves Wall, home to the eponymous Wall Drug Store (walldrug.com), one of the world’s great – and unmissable – tourist traps.

To avoid I-90 back to Rapid City, pick up Hwy 44, which can be accessed at several points from the Badlands. Jagged bluffs give way to rolling prairie on this made-for-convertibles byway that swings through the Buffalo Gap National Grassland on its way west.

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