Black Hills, SD

We stayed at Rafter J Bar Campground in Hill City. Nice, spacious place and convenient to all the important spots in the southern Black Hills. There are other very good campgrounds in the area and I am sure will recommend those.

You should plan on more days to see the Hills. Request a guide from Black Hills Badlands & Lakes. There is so much more than Mt Rushmore!

We really liked the Black Hills. We stayed at Horse Thief Campgroundjust outside Hill city. You will want at least 3 Days to see some attractions. We did Glacier NP years ago and stayed in Custer SD at Flintstones Bedrock City on the way for 2 Days then on to Glacier. On the way home we stayed at HorseThief for 3 Days. We were in Kalispell MT at my cousins for 4 Days.

Rafter J Bar is great. Not cheap it good location. I agree with the other posters. Plan several days.

When I was out there a couple years ago we stayed at "Fort WeLikeIt"
located in Custer www.blackhillsrv.com, Its a great park worth checking out.

we stayed at the KOA on the East side of town and took the toad around for sight seeing. didn't want to maneuver the motorhome on the back roads.
bumpy

Rafter J. Close to MT Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Custer State Park, Wind Cave and more.

I highly recommend Custer State Park. Either the Game lodge or Grace Coolidge Campground which is smaller. There are also others within the park. ;)

We have been camping in the Grace Coolidge campground every Fall for the last 14 or so years. It is our annual get-together with friends we have made from all over the state of SD. :)

There is so much to see and do in the Black Hills as others have pointed out. If you have limited time, pick and choose a few. You can't do them all. :@

We stayed at Buffalo Ridge for 10 days (Custer, SD). Campsites are all parallel to each other, but no problem for any size rig. Comparing to other campgrounds in the area, they are all about the same. We saw several that were nothing but parking lots with nothing to do but park. The location is VERY good for accessing almost everything in the area. We did a LOT of driving too. Mt. Rushmore, Keystone, Deadwood, Wind Cave National Park, Sturges (Full Throttle Saloon) and even stopped in (twice) at the Sturges Camping World), and traveled through the badlands one day. (now that was absolutely awesome and a bit intimidating at the same time). We stopped a couple hours at Stockdale Lake, Crazy Horse, visited a couple wineries and brought home some souvenirs from (Red Ass winery), the Reptile Gardens (That's a full day too), and a bunch more.

We didn't get to explore any of the caves, museums, or some of the really interesting things at Deadwood. Sturges is nothing but saloons, and any of them are worth going in for a few minutes, ordering a drink (even a soft drink), and just absorb the atmosphere. It's truly awesome. Really.... YOU CAN MAKE YOUR ENTIRE VACATION RIGHT THERE, AND ANCHOR THAT CAMPER DOWN IN ONE SPOT AND STILL NOT EXHAUST EVERYTHING. When we started returning home, we were so exhausted, it was a pleasure to simply drive and relax finally.

Back to Buffalo Ridge. This campground had Tee Pee's and cabins you could rent, and lots of space for the kids to play. It has individual bathroom/showers, a a very decent laundry facility. My daughter and family camped in a tent, and one night we rented one of the Tee Pee's for them so kids could add to their experiences. They also own the Buffalo Ridge theater (at the bottom of the hill). We wanted to catch a play there, but simply never had the time.

They also have a miniature train that runs in the evening the entire family can ride, swimming pool, nice playground and free popcorn in the office and entrance to the pool.

There's enough at this campground by itself, the kids could have a great time for a couple days by itself.

We spend a day with the kids at the campground, so they could go swimming and play in the playground and ride the train. The rest of the time, we were all over everywhere and came back to the camper just to crash and burn for the night. Of course, the grand kids had to sleep with grandman and grandpa, so their parents stayed in their tent, until the night it rained, and then everyone was in the camper. They have 4 kids, so we had a "housefull" of bodies laying everywhere, and 2 kids sleeping with us in bed that night!

I highly recommed this campground, however, they are booked solid almost all the time. The entire time we were there, we saw campers go, but by evening, those sites were filled up again. Never saw an empty site the whole time we were there. (of course, we were there over July 4 week too this last summer too).

Check it out, make reservations early, and they are a Good Sam campground, so you'll get a discount if you a GS member.

Buffalo Ridge, click here.

Be aware of the Sturgis motorcycle rally dates. 500,000+ motorcycles change everything about the Black Hills late July to mid August.