Badlands National Park is about 75 miles east of Rapid City, roughly an hour and fifteen minutes on I-90. The driving is easy. The two decisions that shape your day are which entrance you use and whether you take the gravel road, and most visitors make both by accident.
The two entrances
The Badlands Loop Road, Highway 240, is a loop off I-90. It leaves the interstate at one exit and rejoins at another, so you never double back.
- Exit 131, Northeast Entrance. The far end from Rapid City. Nearest the Ben Reifel Visitor Center, Big Badlands Overlook, and the Door, Window and Notch trailheads.
- Exit 110, Wall, then the Pinnacles Entrance. Closer to Rapid City. The Pinnacles Entrance sits about 11 miles south of the town of Wall.
Both are legitimate. They put you at opposite ends of the same road.
Which way round should you drive it?
Most guides will hand you a confident rule here. We are not going to, because there isn’t one.
The best direction depends on the time of day you arrive, the weather, where the light is, what the cloud is doing, and where the animals have been that week. Those change daily. A rule that is right in June at 8am is wrong in October at 4pm.
What we can give you is the trade-off, so you can make the call yourself:
- Entering at 131 (Northeast) puts the visitor center, the fossil trail and the short walks at the start, while it is cooler and quieter. You finish at the western end, which is generally where the better late light is.
- Entering at 110 (Wall and Pinnacles) is the shorter commitment and gets you to the high western overlooks fastest, including Pinnacles, the most reliable place in the park to see bighorn sheep. It is good if you have two hours rather than a day.
- Arriving mid-afternoon in summer changes everything, because the middle of the day is the worst window in the park for both light and wildlife.
This is one of the clearest arguments for going with someone who was in the park yesterday, not because the road is difficult, but because the right answer is different every day and there is no way to look it up.
The gravel road: read this before you turn
Sage Creek Rim Road leaves the paved loop and runs west on gravel. It is where the bison are, and where Roberts Prairie Dog Town is. It is also the reason plenty of visitors leave the Badlands convinced there is no wildlife, they never turned onto it.
But we do not recommend it for everyone, and we would rather say so than send you down it:
- Not in a rental car. Many rental agreements exclude unpaved roads. Check yours before you assume you are covered.
- Not without four-wheel drive, and not if you are an inexperienced driver.
- Significant washboard, the corrugated surface that shakes a vehicle hard and makes steering vague at speed.
- The berms at the edges can be soft. Drifting wide is how people end up stuck.
- It turns slick when wet, and the Badlands clay stays that way for anything from a few hours to several days depending on rain, sun and heat.
If that rules you out, it rules you out, it does not mean skipping the bison. It means going with a vehicle and a driver equipped for that road.
Practical notes for the drive
- Fuel up in Rapid City or Wall. Services inside the park are minimal.
- Wall is the last real stop, food, fuel, restrooms, and Wall Drug if you want the detour.
- Restrooms in the park are vault toilets, apart from the Ben Reifel Visitor Center, which has running water. It is worth knowing before you commit to a long loop with children.
- Phone signal is patchy. Download your map before you leave.
- Entry is $30 per vehicle, valid seven days.
- Budget a full day. 75 minutes each way plus four to five hours inside is not a morning trip. If you are wondering whether that is time well spent, we answered whether the Badlands are worth visiting honestly.
- Dress for wind and sun. Our guide to what to wear in Badlands National Park covers each season, and the wet-clay warning most visitors never hear.
Or let someone else drive
Two and a half hours of your day disappears into the round trip before you have looked at anything. On a tour that time is part of the day rather than a commute, and the two decisions above stop being your problem, someone who was out there this week picks the direction, and the gravel road is part of the route.
We pick up from accommodation in Rapid City and around the Black Hills. The Sunset and Golden Hour Tour is timed around the light, the Wildlife Tour takes Sage Creek as a matter of course, and the Stargazing Tour means nobody drives 75 miles home tired in the dark.
Water, snacks and binoculars are provided on every trip. Call 605-252-9100 if you want to talk through which one fits your day.