Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Badlands was our 9th national park and it felt like we were on Mars again! We had some serious storms on our drive into Badlands and actually got hit with another storm when we left. We drove in from 90 onto 240 towards the Ben Reifel Visitors Center. The visitors center was closed so we did the scenic drive through the park and got back on the highway to head to the Black Hills. The scenic drive is 38 miles one way or 58 miles for the loop. The park has many walking and hiking trails to stretch your legs and explore the spires further. I’d recommend wearing hiking shoes even on the short hikes as the dirt is loose and very slippery. We had tennis shoes on and had a few slips and slides. There’s a campground located beside the visitors center that has first come first served tent camping. There are also some RV sites but they were booked pretty far in advance so there were no spots for us to stay inside the park. The heat was no joke in the Badlands so be sure to bring plenty of water. There’s a small gift shop and food mart where camping guests can grab basic necessities if needed. You can hope to see bison, prairie dogs, big-horned sheep and deer within the park although we didn’t see any during our visit. On the way out you can visit the town of Wall where there is a massive store called Wall Drug that’s popular with tourists mainly due to the massive amount of billboards advertising it along the route. We bypassed this place because we’ve heard it’s chaotic and in Jeffery’s words “the juice isn’t worth the squeeze”!