ATTRACTIONS

Historic Homes & Buildings

• Stavkirke Chapel in the Hills
  Chapel Valley • Rapid City, SD 57702
  605-342-8281
  This replica of an eight hundred fifty year old church in Norway features unique architecture and intricate carvings that create a world in which pagan Norse and Christian symbols are integrated to form a setting like no other, save for the original church in Norway.   map

Historic Sites & Monuments

• Mount Rushmore National Memorial
  25 miles southwest of Rapid City, Highway 16A
  Recognized the world round, this monumental achievement recognizes the history of the United States through its portrayal of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt carved into the solid granite of the mountainside.  more...  map

Museums & Galleries

• Children's Science Center
  515 West Boulevard • Rapid City, SD 57702
  605-394-6996
  This museum offers a variety of exhibits and activities to introduce children to the many areas of interest within the realm of science.   map

• Dahl Fine Arts Center
  713 Seventh Street • Rapid City, SD 57701
  605-394-4101
  Among the art on display at this fine arts center is a one-hundred-eighty-foot canvas with an oil painting panorama that spans two hundred years of American history; in addition there are other galleries on the site that exhibit and sell the contemporary works of artists from the area and elsewhere.  more...  map

• Journey Museum
  222 New York Street • Rapid City, SD 57701
  605-394-6923
  Located two blocks east of the Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn, this unique museum combines exhibits from the Museum of Geology, State Archaeological Research Museum, Sioux Indian Museum, Minnilusa Pioneer Museum, and the Duhamel Plains Indian Artifacts Museum to provide a truly educational and enlightening journey. more...  map

• Museum of Geology
  501 East Saint Joseph Street • Rapid City, SD 57701
  South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
  605-394-2467, 800-544-8162
  This museum explores the diverse and rich geology of the area through exhibitions that include minerals, rocks, gems, and fossils that include dinosaurs such as the Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus and Edmontosaurus; among the many other features is a Paleo-zoo that features exhibits of now extinct natives of the area, including saber-toothed cats, three-toed horses, turtles, rhinoceroses, giant pigs, camels, alligators, bird eggs, and more; there is also an extensive collection and exhibit of a great variety of minerals.  more...  map

• Prairie Edge Trading Company & Galleries
  6th & Main; P.O. Box 8303 • Rapid City, SD 57701
  Located in Historic Downtown Rapid City
  605-342-3086, 800-541-2388
  Prairie Edge features an amazing collection of authentic Plains Indian art, crafts and cultural artifacts from such tribes as the Lakota, Crow, Cheyenne, Shoshoni, Arapaho and Assiniboine. The artists represented use many of the same materials, including furs, feathers, shells, teeth, claws and buffalo parts, and techniques used by the aforementioned to handcraft beautiful pieces of art. The Trading Company offers glassware, pottery, Pendleton blankets, star quilts, jewelry, clothing, fountains, and candles. more...  map

• South Dakota Air and Space Museum
  2890 Davis Drive • Rapid City, SD 57719
  Ellsworth Air Force Base
  605-385-5188
  This museum features displays of historic bombers, fighter planes, and more.  more...  map

National Parks & Natural Wonders

• Badlands National Park
  25216 Ben Reifel Road • Rapid City, SD 57750
  Located 67 Miles East-Southeast in Interior
  605-433-5361
  More than 800 bison graze in the Badlands National Park, which is made up of "244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grass prairie in the United States." It also contains the world's richest Oligocene epoch fossil beds, 23 to 35 million years old. Be sure to check out the Ben Reifel Visitor Center. Visitors can enjoy hiking, biking, horse trails, camping, and the Cedar Pass Lodge while visiting. more...  map

• Black Hills Caverns
  2600 Cavern Road • Rapid City, SD 57702
  Four miles west of Rapid City on Highway 44
  605-343-0542
  This natural cavern features stalactites, stalagmites, and a great variety of cave formations, with two different tours and gemstone panning being offered, as well as other attractions on the site.  more...  map

• Cosmos of the Black Hills
  4021 West Chicago • Rapid City, SD 57702
  16 miles south of Rapid City on Highway 16
  605-343-9802
  This location offers a chance to step through the looking glass into a world where the very laws of nature and physics seem to have been forgotten or subverted, offering a “topsy-turvy” world that defies logic, and in which nothing, including the observer, seems to be in its “normal position.”  more...  map

• Crystal Cave Park
  7770 Cave Road • Rapid City, SD 57702
  605-342-8008
  This beautiful cavern offers one of the least strenuous tours of its type in the area that is nonetheless enrapturing and long on natural beauty and wonder, with a forty five minute “subterranean adventure” being offered.   map

• Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns
  13745 South Highway 16 • Rapid City, SD 57701
  9 Miles South of Rapid City in Rockerville Gulch
  605-342-2777
  Filled with subterranean, crystalline passages in Paha Sapa limestone, this site offers 45-minute tours of the world's most extensive display of dog-tooth spar crystal, including such special sites as the Chandelier Room, Crystal Palace, Rainbow Arch and the Diamond Lake that features clear, still water reflecting a grandiose crystal ceiling. more...

Parks, Gardens & Zoos

• Bear Country U.S.A.
  13820 South Highway 16 • Rapid City, SD 57701
  Rapid City
  605-343-2290
  This family owned, and operated drive-through wildlife park was established in 1972, and offers a three-mile drive on which one may view the world's largest private collection of North American Black Bear, as well as encountering wolves, mountain lions, elk, buffalo, deer, bighorn sheep, Rocky Mountain goats, and many other animals; the Wildlife Center features a variety of younger and smaller animals.  more...  map

• Reptile Gardens
  8955 South Highway 16 • Rapid City, SD 57709
  Six miles south of Rapid City
  605-342-5873
  There are four shows per day, providing entertainment as well as education, at this reptile center that boasts the world?s largest collection of reptiles.  more...

• Storybook Island
  1301 Sheridan Lake Road • Rapid City, SD 57702
  605-342-6357
  This fairytale land features live animals, depictions of scenes from one hundred twenty eight fairytales, special events, food concessions, and more.  more...  map