How's my intinerary look?

We are driving from Wisconsin and I put together an itinerary. (suggestions always welcome - this is a budget trip, just two adults for an anniversary. We are nature lovers, and photography enthusiasts, and are REALLY hoping there is time to hike around the parks and monuments. Any suggestions on avg difficulty hiking trails in the area or park would be great!) We plan on doing picnics most of the trip.

Day 1:

Drive and stay overnight in Sioux Falls

Day 2:

Drive past the Corn Palace in Mitchell

Visit the badlands. (probably spend a bit of time here - photos and will drive through)

Then visit wall drug for cheesey photo ops.

Stay in Rapid City overnight. Possibly visit Mt Rushmore late afternoon, depending on our timeline

Day 3:

Drive through Spearfish Canyon towards Devil%26#39;s tower, staying in a hotel in Custer

Day 4:

Custer Park - all day. We plan on visiting all the sites, hopefully a little hiking

Day 5:

Spend early morning and afternoon either sleeping in, or in the custer park, maybe mammoth dig site, or Mt rushmore if we didn%26#39;t have time earlier.

Drive home (possibly stay overnight in Sioux Falls again)

We aren%26#39;t interested in the Cave, as we have been to Cave of the mounds in Wisconsin numerous times.

How's my intinerary look?

We drove from Wisconsin in 2007 but we had our 3 kids with us as well.

- We stayed in Sioux Falls overnight as well. We stayed at the Motel 6. Very basic but cheap. If it is an anniversary, I wouldn%26#39;t stay here. We did since we would be there less than 10 hours.

- We also stopped at the corn palace (if you are driving past you might as well as stop, it is free to get in and has more designs inside). We then stopped at Petrified Gardens which the kids thought was neat and then did the Badlands. We also stayed in Rapid City that night and arrived around 5 or 6. We skipped Wall Drug, I was there when I was a kid and had no desire to go back. You will probably arrive in Rapid City around 6 or 7 that night, depending on how much time you spend at Wall Drug. I don%26#39;t think you will have time for Mount Rushmore.

- We stayed at the HoJo in Rapid City. This was the best hotel of our stay. Very nice with a managers reception with free beer, wine, soda, and popcorn. There was also a nice pool, great rooms, and great breakfast.

- I would visit Mount Rushmore before heading to Devils Tower. We went first thing in the morning and found that by the time we were leaving it was getting very crowded. We also did Devils Tower, very neat. But then we headed off to Yellowstone.

- We were to the Cave of the Mounds this past summer as we did a couple small Wisconsin trips and it was nice but very dull and not very pretty. But if you really don%26#39;t want to do a cave then skip it. Thunderhead Falls is really neat. It is a short walk into a tunnel where minners hit an underground waterfall. We were the only ones in the tunnel when we went but it was really neat to see. We also did Crazy Horse (ok) and Bear Country. If you are into pictures this may give you some good pictures if you don%26#39;t see much wildlife in the park.

- Needles highway is also neat.

Have a good trip!

How's my intinerary look?

Day 2, you might have time for the Mt. Rushmore lighting ceremony at 9 pm. It%26#39;s an easy 4 lane highway, 20 mile drive from Rapid to Rushmore.

Sylvan Lake is beautiful for photographs %26amp; you can do an easy hike around the lake, or all or part of Harney Peak. The Little Devil%26#39;s Tower trailhead is a short distance east of Sylvan, going toward the Needles. It is a shorter hike, but a great view from the top, and you can see across to Harney Peak.

Unless you are very early risers...which would be good anyway going west with sunrise behind you...Day 2 deserves a very early start. Leave at 4am and have breakfast at Al%26#39;s Oasis in Chamberlain. Rushmore may be stretching it that day.

Also Day 3. Take freeway to Devils Tower from Rapid City and do Spearfish Canyon on the way back. Custer is the far opposite direction from DT. Make a big loop of it and avoid backtracking as well as getting benefit of freeway speed to DT. Exit freeway at WY mile 199 (WY-111) to get to DT but right after exiting turn right on the frontage road and go a mile or so to the Vore Buffalo Jump. Nice little leg stretch hike to the bottom of the pit where the buffalo bones are 30 feet deep. Free (donations accepted) and educational.

Day 5 - Mammoth Dig site is sort of the wrong direction but if you do it then use 79 from near Hot Springs to get back up to I-90 at Rapid City. Much faster than congested Black Hills tourist area roads. Or, being as how time is short possible trade-off of Mammoth Dig for exiting Black Hills via Rushmore and Rapid City.

Also, depending on where in Wisconsin it should be feasible to get farther than Sioux Falls on Day 1 and buy some time on Day 2 making Rusmore more of an option. Even Milwaukee is only 8.5 hours to Mitchell, SD. Go an hour more to Chamberlain and Wall is a breakfast option the next day then tour Badlands and go straight to Rushmore, then back to Rapid City hotel (let them know intended late check-in). If you can leave home by 7am Chamberlain would be 4:30pm + stops time along the way. Next day you get an extra hour too due to time zone change between Wall and Wasta (I believe).

We left at 6:30 (had the kids eating breakfast in the room while we packed the truck) and did The Corn Palace, Petrified gardens, the Badlands, and made it to Rapid city around 5-6 pm. We didn%26#39;t do a lot of hiking in the badlands. We did stop at a lot of places to let the kids out and look around. But we knew we would be spending a lot of time hiking in Yellowstone. Maybe you need more time in the Badlands??

As for the drive to Sioux Falls on the first day we left at 1:30 in the afternoon and arrived around 7 pm. But we did go in at a McDonalds to eat, do potty breaks, and diaper changes. We are in the central part of the state so you can base that off of where you are.

You%26#39;ve gotten some very good advice here. I agree that Day 2 has the potential to be a long one, so if you could go further on Day 1, I think it could be helpful so you can fit Mt. Rushmore in comfortably. If you do drive further on Day 1, you might even consider staying in Keystone rather than Rapid City. This way, if you go to the Lighting Ceremony, you will have a very short drive to your hotel. You might appreciate this after driving quite a bit.

I know you said you weren%26#39;t interested in seeing any caves, but to me, not all caves are created equal. I am not familiar with Cave of the Mounds, but I can tell you that Wind %26amp; Jewel Caves are some of the best I have visited. Wind Cave%26#39;s unique formation called Boxwork is not often seen in other caves, and Jewel Cave is an amazingly open cave with very interesting formations. You might want to consider seeing at least one of them.

For a description of tours and photos, visit nps.gov and click on Wind %26amp; Jewel Caves. You might change your mind.

Have a good trip.

Just wanted to thank everyone for the advice. We had a wonderful trip, and our itinerary was perfect. We especially LOVED driving Spearfish Canyon, best advice!

Glad you had a wonderful time and took the time to let us know. Spearfish Canyon is a beautiful drive. Thank you for sharing with us.