We are Ryan and Monica Hoffmann, proud parents of special needs children. It took a long time to get here, but we have been to 33 US states in the past 4 years and we are just warming up.
We love the Black Hills of South Dakota. We lived here for three months on a work assignment and spent every spare minute exploring the Black Hills towns and points of interest. Our home base was Hot Springs at the southern end of the hills. From there we explored northward to wonderful towns like Sturgis, Hill City, and Custer SD.
The purpose of this article is to help you decide which lodging and adventure options best fit your style.
Black Hills SD towns are not all the same. The balance between historical and tourism is delicate. Some project authenticity better than others, while others are more beautiful, offer a superior location, or house more abundant attractions.
A few of the towns we love, and a few we could live without.
The Black Hills Towns are: Deadwood, Sturgis, Rapid City, Hot Springs, Hill City, Custer, and Keystone.
When you are planning your Black Hills vacation it is good to understand the layout of the region. We have arranged the map below to show the seven towns (in red), as well as a few of the primary points of interest (in blue).
Related Article: Complete Guide to the Black Hills.
Which lends an advantage. However, many travelers will gather around Keystone, Custer, and Hill City, causing them to feel crowded in peak summer season. The other four towns dress the perimeter of the hills, each with a different vibe.
No matter which town you select for lodging or decide to explore, you will enjoy your vacation to the Black Hills SD. There is so much to see and do here that you just can’t lose. Nonetheless, we have our preferences and perhaps this guide will help you hone in on what matters most to you.
Many of the blurbs below have additional links (in blue) that connect to other articles we’ve written or helpful websites associated with the attraction. We hope you’ll enjoy reading!
This town was our favorite because of its beauty and authenticity. Hill City has a key location north-west of Mt. Rushmore, and we frequently found ourselves driving through here on our way to local attractions.
The town is nestled in a beautiful valley surrounded by hills. The highway winds through town, revealing the community one portion at a time.
Hill City doesn’t try to do too much. The only major attraction is the 1880 Keystone Train, but the street is lined with good shops and decent restaurants. You can walk the main strip in a couple of hours. If you’re like us you can spend a couple of hours in the beef jerky store alone!
Attractions like Mt. Rushmore, Sylvan Lake, Jewel Cave, Custer State Park, Wind Cave N.P., and others, are within a 30 minute drive.
We strongly recommend a steak dinner at the Alpine Inn for only $15.99! The hotel and restaurant is a Black Hills SD institution. Dinner starts at 5:00 pm, but folks line up around 4:00 pm to put their name on the list. If you stroll in all willy-nilly in the summer you’re going to wait two hours to be seated.
Location: 5
Activities: 4
Restaurants: 2
Vibe: 5
Beauty: 4
Total: 20/25
The town of Custer has a similar vibe to Hill City, with good shops and an assortment of eateries. One amusing aspect of the town is the sidewalks are decorated with artful buffalo statues that give a funky feel to the town. Very little about Custer is touristy and that goes a long way.
Custer gives easy access to the primary Black Hills points of interest. Sylvan Lake and the Needles Highway are just up the road. Jewel Cave is 15 minutes west. Wind Cave N.P. is 20 minutes south. Keystone, Hill City, Mt. Rushmore, etc., are all nearby. Custer might have the best access to natural beauty of all the Black Hills SD towns.
We recommend eating at Our Place for breakfast. It’s a dressed-down local’s diner with dynamite food. If you need a quick snack hit up the Dakota Mart deli for chicken strips — they are delicious and priced very well. We also like the clothing selection at High Mountain Outfitters. If you are a camper, an assortment of campgrounds are just outside of town.
Location: 5
Activities: 4
Restaurants: 2
Vibe: 4
Beauty: 3
Total: 18/25
Related Article: Battle of the Badlands: North Dakota vs. South.
Sort of the forgotten child of the South Dakota Black Hills, Hot Springs is the most authentic town in the region. We would recommend staying here if you want to avoid the crowd. The vibe is small town America. Because this is a working town with a few thousand residents, the typical tourist noise isn’t needed to keep the economy afloat.
The surrounding area is pretty. There are a handful of good restaurants. Access to tourist attractions is decent. The Mammoth Site, one of the best things to do in the Black Hills of SD, is located in-town. Fifteen minutes north is Wind Cave N.P. Custer is about a half-hour up the road. There are other fun, local things to do in and around Hot Springs.
Click here to learn more about what to do and where to eat in Hot Springs, SD.
Location: 3
Activities: 4
Restaurants: 3
Vibe: 3
Beauty: 3
Total: 16/20
The town of Sturgis has reached legendary status. This is the hallowed venue of the greatest motorcycle rally in the USA, where as many as 747,000 people have visited the August celebration.
We visited Sturgis in 2021 and it did not disappoint. Granted it was an AM visit on a Wednesday because we don’t drink or ride bikes, but we got the basic gist. Even in the off-season, Sturgis puts off a bad-a$$ vibe with motorcycles and vintage American characters hanging around.
After Rapid City, the town is the second largest of the Black Hills towns. There is an abundance of lodging, shopping, and restaurants, and it takes more than a few hours to visit.
Far from the beating heart of the Black Hills, there is no direct route to the famous attractions. The fastest way to Mt. Rushmore, Sylvan Lake, etc., is to drive through Rapid City. This can make the vacation feel like day after day of lapping the freeways of South Dakota rather than immersing one’s self in the beautiful region.
Location: 1
Activities: 2
Restaurants: 4
Vibe: 4
Beauty: 4
Total: 15/20
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This is my least favorite town in the Black Hills of South Dakota and I’ll tell you why. Keystone is an example of when tourism goes wrong and becomes an inauthentic schlepp-fest. The food is bad. The vibe is keychain and shot glass marketplace. The only thing missing is the time share salesman, and it’s possible he was on his meth-break when we passed by.
But what Keystone lacks in character it makes up in location. If what you want is killer access to all the big attractions it doesn’t get better than here. In addition to the major stuff, Keystone is home to Rush Mountain, Big Thunder Gold Mine, the Cosmos Mystery Area, Rushmore Tramway Adventures, Dahl’s Chainsaw Art, Iron Mountain Road, the Rushmore Borglum story, and the 1880 Keystone Train.
Granted, you could have good access to all these things and stay somewhere else.
Location: 5
Activities: 5
Restaurants: 1
Vibe: 1
Beauty: 3
Total: 15/20
Deadwood is the most beautiful of the towns in the Black Hills of SD. It also has the most interesting history. Once upon a time, the town of Deadwood was a frontier, gold mining town full of rugged, unsavory characters.
Over the years the town has been sanitized of it’s less appropriate elements, and we’re pretty sure it had a sweet spot in history where it was rough yet safe for public consumption. Sadly, these days the town has tipped past safe into the realm of gift-shop schmucky.
The vibe is cool, but it should be cooler. Lodging is casino-esque. There are some good attractions in town, but the drive to Mt. Rushmore is a winding 50 mile highway, and even further to Jewel Cave, Wind Cave, Sylvan Lake, etc. To learn more about the things to do in Deadwood, check out our article, An Honest Review of Deadwood, SD.
Location: 1
Activities: 2
Restaurants: 3
Vibe: 3
Beauty: 5
Total: 14/20
Related Article: The 9 Best Things to do in the Black Hills with Kids.
Honestly, why would you stay here if you were visiting the Black Hills of South Dakota? That isn’t a knock against Rapid City either, because it is a pleasant town. Simply sated, there is a stark contrast between the vibe of a mid-sized city and the gorgeous, historical landscape of the Black Hills.
All that said, Rapid City has reasonable access to every point of interest in the region because it sits on a network of highways. Mt. Rushmore is 30 minutes away, and anywhere else can be reached in an hour or less. Places like Deadwood and Spearfish Canyon are far, far away from Hot Springs or Custer, but from Rapid City they are reachable in 45 minutes. It is also the closest town to Badlands N.P. and the Minuteman Missile Site, and there are some cool points of interest in town, like the Press Start arcade and the Skyline Wilderness Area Dinosaur Park.
Rapid City also has the best food in the region. South Dakota’s Black Hills region isn’t known for its food, but this is as good as you will find. We recommend the Firehouse Brewing Co. because they have an incredible menu.
Location: 2
Activities: 3
Restaurants: 4
Vibe: 2
Beauty: 3
Total: 14/20
It is hard to go wrong in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Every town has elements that make it a worthwhile stop on your vacation (as offensive as Keystone is to our good taste). Because time is limited, we would recommend choosing a central location like Hill City or Custer.
We would avoid Deadwood and Sturgis due to their location and limited attractions. Obviously if you ride motorcycles then Sturgis is the Mecca.
We strongly recommend Rafter J Bar Ranch. It is a large, clean RV park / campground with a perfect location between Hill City and Custer. As great as the J Bar Ranch is, though, you will have no trouble finding a good campground in and around Mt. Rushmore.
We hope you have enjoyed reading about the towns of the Black Hills of SD. And moreover, we hope you love your South Dakota Black Hills experience every bit as much as we did!
Thank you for stopping by our website! We are the Hoffmann family, a full-time RV family that has split residence in Seattle, Washington and San Antonio, Texas. We have special needs children that we homeschool, and work travel assignments for the Veteran Affairs Hospital. If you would like to learn more about us, check out our Start Here and Biography pages. In the meantime, God bless and travel happy!
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Needles Hy looks very interesting. What the best way to get there from the Badlands? We are going on to Salt Lake City to visit family
Hey, Tom. Thanks for reaching out. We’re in SLC right now. From Badlands to Sylvan Lake the cleanest, easiest way from there would be I-90 West toward Rapid City, the 16 bypass S. before you hit Rapid, then to the 16 South, left on the 385, which becomes the 87 South, then Sylvan Lake. Here’s a link on Googlemaps: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Badlands+National+Park,+South+Dakota/Sylvan+Lake,+East+Custer,+SD/@43.8491845,-103.2372451,10.25z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x877e870c18052023:0x69685e31dae677f0!2m2!1d-102.3396912!2d43.8553804!1m5!1m1!1s0x8762cb23a9fcb373:0x6fbb900eca43d7f8!2m2!1d-103.5642992!2d43.8461838!5i1
Hope you have a good time!