Here’s Our Best & Worst Things From South Dakota

From late April to late May, Shae, Truffles and I visited South Dakota – the 34th state on our 7 year, 50 state road trip.

Up until a couple of months before we visited, I can’t say I was overly interested in visiting South Dakota. I wasn’t dreading us spending time there, but my perception of it was that there wouldn’t be much to do there beyond Mount Rushmore.

How wrong was I?!

Our plan had been to spend a couple of weeks in South Dakota and then a couple of weeks in North Dakota. However, as I went through our spreadsheet of recommendations people had given us for SD and pinned them to a Google Map, I suddenly realized that there was a lot more to the state than just Mount Rushmore. As a result, I suggested to Shae that we should postpone North Dakota until next year and spend an entire month in South Dakota and she agreed.

That was a great decision because I loved our time there. It’s a shame that it’s so far north because the brutal winters mean we wouldn’t want to live there year round. However, visiting in April/May was the perfect time to explore the state. It’s no longer cold, but it’s before tourist season and so you can avoid the crowds.

Anyway, here’s a list of our best and worst things from South Dakota.

Favorite Accommodation We Stayed At

Stephen – Probably the Residence Inn Rapid City as it was the only hotel of four we stayed at there where we had a one bedroom suite, plus the service was excellent. Honorable mentions go to the Holiday Inn Sioux Falls-City Centre and Four Points by Sheraton Deadwood as they were both in great locations for exploring their respective cities by foot.

Shae – Immediately when I thought of this category for filling it out I thought of the Four Points in Deadwood because of its location, forgetting how great the Holiday Inn’s location was in Sioux Falls. Ack! How to choose? Despite the lack of cold water I think Deadwood edges it out for me. Simply because it was memorable enough to think of in the first place. But if I were picking which of the two I’d return to? The Holiday Inn in Sioux Falls since I enjoyed Sioux Falls more than Deadwood on the whole.

Favorite Meal

Stephen – I’d have to go for Minervas Restaurant in Sioux Falls. We got to meet up with some friends we’d not seen for almost 15 years, so that itself was great. The food was excellent too – they had the best salad bar I’ve ever had, while the chislic was delicious. Shae got steak and really enjoyed that too.

Shae – Yaaas! Minervas was amazing – such a nice break from hotel room eating and Grubhub! But I must give my favorite meal to… Mr. Wu’s in Deadwood. I’m not much one for “free stuff” (yes, I’m weird, I know) but free hot dogs, popcorn and wine!? Yes please!

Most Disappointing Meal

Stephen – Probably the raspberry jelly donut from Flyboy Donuts in Sioux Falls. To be fair to them, I didn’t eat mine until the following day and day-old donuts are never great. However, we’d had many amazing donuts on the road trip and even if this one had been fresh it didn’t seem like it would’ve joined the illustrious ranks of Round Rock Donuts, Hurts Donuts and Beiler’s.

Shae – I didn’t even remember these donuts so I guess it goes to them too!

Favorite Free Activity

Stephen – Probably hiking to a couple of waterfalls in Spearfish Canyon.

Shae – I love a good museum so the Adams Museum in Deadwood with its suggested donation of $5 is technically free and could count, but as I felt pressured into the donation (which I happily give at most places depending on the experience) I can’t rate it.

I think the most enjoyable free thing that I did was was a toss up between the seeing the falls in Falls Park at Sioux Falls or the day I spent driving around Pierre to see some of historic sites, like the school house.

No wait – technically it’s free to visit Mount Rushmore (but you pay for parking) so I’d list Mount Rushmore up here too with a proviso that you pay to park, not do the activity.

Favorite Paid Activity

Stephen – Visiting Custer State Park. It’s such an incredibly beautiful state park that I’d be more than happy to return multiple times.

Shae – Oooh, I was gonna say feeding the prairie dogs at the Badlands Ranch Store but I forgot all about Custer! Yes, Custer State Park for sure, with a very close second/honorable mention to the prairie dogs.

Favorite Pet-Friendly Activity

Stephen – I’m going to cheat here and say all of South Dakota. That’s because it was probably the most pet-friendly state that we’ve been to. While there were a few places they couldn’t go (hiking trails at Badlands National Park, inside the main area at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, etc.), they were allowed in far more places than most other states.

Shae – I think 1880 Town was my favorite since it was a really cool stop along our drive AND it was pet-friendly (with the exception – understandably so – of the upstairs area with the Dances with Wolves movie set memorabilia).

Least Favorite Activity

Stephen – This one is a tie. I was originally going to only say the Crazy Horse Memorial. I was really interested in visiting it, but their visitor center exhibit area wasn’t great as we were there probably 30 minutes before we encountered anything about Crazy Horse’s history and why the memorial was being built. It’s also been under construction for 75 years and there sadly isn’t much to show for this noble project.

However, I then remembered how utterly lame the Wall Drug Store was and figured that deserved a mention here too.

Shae – Yeah, I think for all the hype from the road signs, Wall Drug was definitely my least favorite activity. But I agree with Stephen about his thoughts on the Crazy Horse Memorial too.

Favorite Hike

Stephen – This is a tricky one. Although I loved Custer State Park, I can’t really say we hiked there so much as went for a really nice walk around the beautiful Sylvan Lake. I’ll therefore give the award to our hikes to Roughlock Falls and Spearfish Falls; they weren’t strenuous, but were more hike-y.

Shae – I think I’d still pick the “walk” around Sylvan Lake. Stephen enjoyed it so much that it made me enjoy it even more. He talked about how beautiful it was for days (and weeks) afterwards, so it brings back really sweet memories for me. The falls hikes he mentioned are very nice, but all I can think of is how we walked for like 1.5 miles the wrong way when trying to get to Spearfish Falls!

Favorite Quirky Thing We Did

Stephen – My favorite somewhat quirky thing was going sculpture hunting in downtown Rapid City as they have life-size bronze statues of presidents 1-44. The true quirky award though goes to Dahl’s Chainsaw Art as there are some incredible works of art there.

Honorable mentions go to 1880 Town and the Prairie Dog Town / World’s Largest Prairie Dog.

Shae – Stephen must be forgetting that the best of all quirky sites was in South Dakota… THE CORN PALACE! It gets my vote easily and it was really interesting and cool!

Favorite Memory

Stephen – Our night out at Glacial Lakes Distillery & Brewhouse in Sioux Falls. We went in for a quick tasting in the afternoon and didn’t leave until closing as we had such a great time. To say it was our favorite memory is pushing it a bit because it’s more of a blurred memory 😉

Shae – For me it was our night out at Minervas with friends from our time in California when we were group home parents. Jay, Karmyn and their very cool kids live in Sioux Falls and I was so glad to spend the evening with them. Our night out at Glacial Lakes and the day we stopped in for Stephen’s birthday was a very close second.

Funniest Moment

Stephen – Waking up the morning after our night out at Glacial Lakes to find a half-eaten cheeseburger in the bed right next to where our dog Truffles had been sleeping all night and realizing that she’d withstood the temptation to eat it.

Shae – 10000% agree with Stephen. There’s also a picture of drunk me with said cheeseburger after I fell asleep sitting up with my face in the McDonald’s bag that rivals it. Sorry, that picture is just for our memories, not public consumption.

Thing We Most Regretted

Stephen – Visiting the Corn Palace on the one day that it was closed before it would be open every single day for six months.

Shae – Stopping at Wall Drug. It wasn’t all that great in the end. But, if you like free, ice cold water, it’s the place for you!

Something We Missed And Want To See

Stephen – Quite a lot – there’s the Corn Palace (we saw the outside, but didn’t get to tour inside), several things in Sioux Falls and several things in Rapid City.

Shae – I’m VERY sad that I missed all the indigenous history and museums in the state, particularly the Wounded Knee Museum.

Our Biggest Surprise

Stephen – How much I enjoyed South Dakota – I think I’d put it in my top third of states we’ve visited so far on the road trip. Incredibly pet-friendly, some great breweries and distilleries, some stunning scenery and hiking and more.

Shae – Agreed. I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. I’d very much like to go back for the Bison Roundup (we’re hoping to sneak in for it next fall) at Custer State Park. I’d go back to Sioux Falls in a minute. As long as it’s not the winter – I’m not here for that hip-deep snow Jay told us about at dinner.

My South Dakota Drinking Game Would Be…

Stephen – Take a drink every time you see a sign for Wall Drug. And then have even more drinks when you arrive as that would hopefully make it a little more enjoyable.

Shae – Take a drink when you see anything about Mount Rushmore.

Summary Of South Dakota In 10 Words Or Less

Stephen – Move it further south and I could live there.

Shae – Surprisingly, there’s more to South Dakota than Mount Rushmore.

South Dakota Cities We Visited In Order From Favorite To Least Favorite

Stephen – Ugh, this one’s actually really tough as it depends on which perspective you’re looking at this. If I was recommending it in terms of where people should visit, I’d say Rapid City, Deadwood, Sioux Falls, Pierre because the western side of South Dakota is where all the most interesting places to visit are.

However, if I was to live in South Dakota, I’d rate it as Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Deadwood, Pierre. That’s because Sioux Falls seemed like a more fun place to live on a daily basis and had much better stores and amenities than the western side of South Dakota, not to mention all the great pet-friendly breweries and distilleries. Rapid City and Sioux Falls are also only five hours apart, so if you lived in Sioux Falls you could somewhat easily visit the western side of the state for a long weekend to take advantage of the outdoor activities there.

Shae – Stephen put it so perfectly I’d have to agree with him on this one. But if I could only go back one time the order in which I’d rate where I’d go would be Sioux Falls, Pierre (there’s a lot of indigenous history in this region of SD even if it’s not all that special), Rapid City and Deadwood.