We provide detailed itineraries for 4 days, with additional suggestions for up to 7 days. You can re-order days as needed to fit your plans.
Our guide takes you to Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and 5 more national park sights.
You can’t fail with our easy to follow instructions including destinations, arrival times and over 80 images and maps to keep you on course.
Don’t miss the best scenic drives of the Black Hills. Added bonus: listen to our audio guide you drive!
Visit the gold rush town of Deadwood to gamble, see shootouts, and learn about Wild Bill.
Our guide eliminates 10 to 20 hours of planning and costs a fraction of what a tour costs.
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You can easily turn your visit to Mt Rushmore and Black Hills into an Epic Black and Yellow Road Trip! In just 7-10 days, you can experience the history and fun of the Black Hills and Yellowstone National Park with its geysers, wildlife, canyons, and waterfalls!
If you are really ambitious, Grand Teton is just 2 hours south of Yellowstone and has incredible mountains (add 2-3 days to see this incredible park)
We have guides available for each of these locations that not only include great itineraries and audio guides, but also include the best routes and things to do along the way. Planning a big road trip couldn’t be more simple.
If you travel using our guides and don’t love them so much that you would tell your best friend about us, we’ll give you your money back. Read more.
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Hey, We’re Matt and Cheryl and we are on a mission to help people have amazing vacations. Not only do we write easy-to-follow itineraries, but we love to share interesting stories in our audio guides about all of our favorite places!
We live in Utah, just four hours away from awesome national parks like Zion and Yellowstone, and have spent our lives exploring the West and the Rocky Mountains. We often travel with both sets of our retired parents (they like each other!) and our four teenagers (who like to travel…sometimes).
We met in a history of Utah class at Weber State University and tied the knot 22 years ago. Matt worked for Social Security and taught adjunct history classes at our alma mater. Cheryl taught special education for 28 years and continues to volunteer by teaching a weekly dance fitness class.
We took a shot at our dream in 2020 and started making YouTube videos about the national parks we know so well. We now have over 10,000,000 views and have sold over 12,000 guides. We are delighted to help travelers fulfill dreams of their own!
We love trying out all the activities and working with local experts to give the best, most up-to-date travel advice out there.
At We’re in the Rockies, we believe in preservation and donate 5% of the proceeds of your purchase to Mt Rushmore and Custer State Park to ensure access and enjoyment to future generations.
Sure. If you have extra time, additional activities are listed in the guide. But, we do recommend visiting other parks like Theodore Roosevelt or Yellowstone National Park instead of just staying in the Black Hills if you have 6-10 days.
You do not have to do the days in any particular order. Some of the days in the itinerary are good transition days that will get you to other places you may interested in visiting.
We love to visit in September because the crowds are clearing out and it isn’t too hot.
Although the Black Hills is not immune to crowds, it handles them better than most places because there is so much to do and it’s so spread out.
The Black Hills is one of our favorite vacations because it offers so much variety! We have done practically everything in this area.
We travel with both sets of our retired parents and our 4 kids (who are now teens) so we have a pretty good radar on the interests of most types of travelers.
We recommend what we believe are the absolute best spots to vist and give backup options for longer hikes or things that cost.
We give star ratings and approximate prices to help you decide which activities are the best value for you!
We are of the mindset that you have a plan so you can be flexible.
We lay out what we believe are the best activities for your time and money but we all have different preferences.
Because each activity listed has a star rating, approximate time frame, and cost, you’ll easily be able to adjust to best suit your group’s interests.
We surveyed our customers and they reported that our guides saved them 10-20 hours of trip planning research, on average.
Although much of the information included in this guide can be found with significant research, this guide combines what you need to know into one place and it is from a source committed to giving you the best information.
This guide cost us over $12,422 to create when you combine travel expenses, consulting, map creation, and formatting. In addition, we have spent hundreds of hours visiting this area and doing additional research. The audio guide alone was over 80 hours of labor (but of course, a labor of love!)
Many of our travelers enjoy the confirmation that they have already created a good plan and may even find a thing or two to add to it.
Other travelers may find that our plan is similar to what they had already pieced together on their own.
If you’ve already spent hours planning, you may not find maximum value in this guide.
Yes! We travel with our 4 children and both sets of our parents. Although not every activity is for everyone, there are always backup suggestions.
We write these guides so all the work you should need to do is obtain your lodging and reservations. We include maps, the time needed to complete drives and activities, and lodging recommendations (areas to stay-not actual hotels). We put boxes throughout the guide indicating it’s an item that you will need to take care of before you leave. We also give links to websites we think you should check before your leave.
Yes. You’ll be doing a bit of driving on this trip between all the national parks and monuments. Plus, the Black Hills are famous for their beautiful drives.
The roads are paved and easily passable in a regular car.
Yes. We give approximate time frames that are needed to complete an activity. The schedule is generally not so packed that you have to be a quick traveler. But, if you know you generally need more time, you can make adjustments. If you are quick, there are suggestions for additional activities
This is a digital download so it will be EMAILED to you. That way you can have access immediately and have the option to download it to any device you want.
Many travelers, including us, prefer to print the itinerary and take it with us as we travel.
The itinerary and audio guide are available immediately upon purchase, right on this webpage. You will also receive an email within 30 minutes with download links in case you need to revisit the links and download the items later. If you don’t receive your email, check your junk mail folder. If it’s not there, contact mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com and we’ll be in touch with you within 1 business day. Also, the guides will be available in your account, if you choose to establish one (we highly encourage it).
You need cell reception to download the audio guides. Once they are downloaded, no cell reception is needed.
Most people download the audio guides to their phone before they leave.
Just in case you are wondering, an average audio guide takes 150 MB of storage space.
Guides are automatically updated to the latest version when you create an account.
In addition to that, we also send an email notification out when a guide is updated. Just make sure to stay subscribed to our email list so we can reach you.
Because the download is a PDF file, you can do it on any device: computer, iPhone, Android, tablet, etc.
Stuff like this happens. We get it. When you purchase a guide, you have access to 18 months of free updates.
If you created an account, just log in again and download your guides.
If you didn’t create an account or forgot your password, just email us and we can resend your links.
For step-by-step instructions (including pictures) check out our Help With Downloads page.
If you still need help, reach out to us at mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com We’ll get back to you as soon as possible to help. We’re even happy to jump on a phone call with you if needed.
This guide is meant be used May through October. Some of the more touristy attractions begin to close down in October so be warned if you visit during that time.
All the national parks remain open in the winter with limited accessibility on certain roads and hikes.
Yes!! We update our guides as needed, but write the concepts to intentionally be as timeless as possible. We encourage you to purchase the guide as soon as you know you will be traveling. It will help you determine which areas to stay and how many days to obtain lodging. Upon purchase, you’ll be guided to create an account on our website. If we update the guide, it will automatically show in your account for up to 18 months after purchase.
It is not required but is HIGHLY recommended. We encourage you to create an account when purchasing the guides because you’ll have access to the links at any time.
You will have access to the updated guide through your account (another reason to create an account) for up to 18 months. We generally send an email announcement when we do an update as well.
We put approximate price ranges on all our activities so you know what to expect. There are plenty of inexpensive and free activities in the Black Hills.
Although we do suggest some hikes, we offer plenty of alternatives if hiking is not desirable including viewpoints and drives.
When the audio guide is available, here’s what you’ll need:
If you need technical support, check out our help with downloads page. If you are still struggling, you can email us at mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com
$49.00
This itinerary works whether you’re visiting for two days or seven days! It provides four detailed days of activities to see the BEST of the Black Hills. For those who have extra time, it provides ideas for 3 additional days, depending on your interests.
We found the itineraries very helpful and informative. We took your advice about staying in Custer. We spent time taking the scenic trips around Custer State Park and Wind Cave. Enjoyed the Nettles Highway and the Iron Mountain Highway. Took the train ride from Hill City and found it enjoyable and well narrated. Rushmore was not crowded and enjoyable. We didn’t like the Wind Cave scenic drive on the dirt roads. The ranger said the roads were fine but they were not well maintained especially the route five. The Badlands were great with all the pullouts. Unfortunately we saw Deadwood on a rainy day. We stopped at the Devil’s Tower on the way to Yellowstone. Your itinerary mentioned about getting there early. That was so true. We arrived about 10:30am and were able to get a parking spot. This was before Memorial Day. We took the itineraries and altered them to include items we wanted to see in our order. One note, be sure to buy a bag of carrots before seeing the begging burros.
Excellent guide! We just came back from the Black Hills. We followed your itinerary. We went there to see Mt. Rushmore but fell inlove with the Black Hills. We love the little towns. Thank you so much!
We loved this guide of the Black Hills. It took all of the guess work out of our vacation and made our vacation more relaxing. I really liked the audio guides. They really made the historical sites come to life. I will definitely use the other guides for our next trip west.
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I purchased your Black Hills guide last year and are currently on our way home to Michigan after a quick trip to the Black Hills. We loved the guide and found it very useful. My husband being a bit of a history buff, we appreciated the audio guide. Thanks so much!!
Our family of four (+the dog!) traveled from Wisconsin to the Black hills area and had such a wonderful time because of this guide. It was so much easier especially for such a huge area that everything was already curated for us. We could not have planned a better trip and we were able to spend each evening having fun instead of stressing about the next day. If you have kids definitely spend a few hours at Wall Drug. The locals call it a tourist trap but our kids really had a great time and yes it’s cheesy but in a fun way. We even picked up
some cowboy boots there! Thank you so much for all of your hard work putting all this info together and we wish you guys much success and happiness in your travel planning endeavors.
I have purchased four of Matt and Cheryl’s itineraries. They are invaluable! Today, I’ll review the Black Hills . Although we didn’t go to all of the spots , the information provided gave exactly what was needed. The audios are excellent and provide great info while traveling. Matt’s passion for history makes you smile . We’re hikers so I most appreciated the trail suggestions and all trails recommended were terrific. Info on the presidents was most interesting and I grew to highly respect Teddy Roosevelt . Although we don’t eat out much the dining suggestions were helpful. The review of Custer State Park was just what we needed and it was a great place to visit. Specific information was provided for the Black Hills, Badlands, Wind Cave, Mount Rushmore , Deadwood, Crazy Horse, and always additional activities!
The Black Hills Package 100% made not just “our” vacation enjoyable, it made “my” vacation enjoyable. As Mom, it is my job to make sure our vacation is planned, and everything runs smoothly. Matt & Cheryl made that happen for me and it took a much-needed load off my shoulders. I highly recommend their service and will continue to purchase their guides every summer. Thanks y’all!
My family of four travelled from the Seattle area with another family of four in July 2024. This guide was the #1 reason we had a wonderful time. On most vacations there’s always something you wish you hadn’t wasted time on, but not so with this one. Plus, the included audio guide was an amazing way to pass time in the car – our kids really enjoyed hearing about the presidential and western history.