SnapshotPlanning Your VisitWhen we visited the park We visited the park the last week of October. This allowed us some flexibility in available tours. We went to the visitor center early in the morning and book our tour for later that morning. The first tour was already sold out, so booking ahead of time during busier months would be smart! While we waited for our tour time, we drove around the park looking and listening for more wildlife. The prairies in the park are beautiful! Things to Consider 1. The first thing to know is, book a cave tour ahead of time if that is something your really want to do. You can book through recreation.gov after you create an account. Do a search for Wind Cave, and you will find the different types of tours available based on your trip date. 2. Dress in layers. The cave remains cool no matter what time of year. 3. Parts of this park are ceremonial to the Lakota Tribe. Be respectful of the land, customs, and traditions. 4. If you are going to be visiting multiple parks in this area, consider buying the annual National Parks Pass for $80. If you go to 3 or more parks a year, this pays for itself. 5. There is a good chance you will see wildlife in this park. Be mindful and give them space. How to Get There Follow Hwy 79 to get to Wind Cave National Park. It is about a 30 minute drive from Custer State Park, 1 hour drive from Rapid City, and a 20 minute drive from Hot Springs. Additional Maps offered by the park. Where to Stay Inside the Park Elk Mountain Campground This is the only place to stay inside the park. The 62 site campground is open year-round, however you can only reserve sites ahead of time from May-September. There are tent and RV sites available. Outside the Park Custer State Park Cabin There are plenty of hotels to stay nearby in Custer or Hot Springs. However, we stayed at Custer State Park in a cabin. I highly recommend this. We were close to lakes, hiking, and surrounded by wildlife. The park has multiple options for lodging. We were there in an off-season time, so had limited options for lodging, but found a cabin 2-bedroom, 1 bath cabin in the state game area of the park. I would love to go back in the summer and stay by Sylvan Lake or Legion Lake. ![]() What We Did Wind Cave was the second major stop on our Dakotas road trip. We only spent a morning here, with the focus being a Cave Tour. If you plan to do the tour, make a reservation ahead of time at recreation.gov. The only tour available on our visit was the Garden of Eden, and it was perfect. We stopped at the visitor center right away to see what would be available. We booked our tour and had about two hours to explore the park before it began. We drove through the Wind Cave Canyon area and saw more wildlife here than we did in the Badlands. It is a short drive through the prairies. When we were done, we headed back to the visitor center for our tour. It was about an hour long 0.3 mile guided walk through the cave system. There were many sites along the way that the ranger explained in an interesting way to keep my kids engaged. We also learned a lot about the history of the Lakota people and what the cave means to them, the family that discovered the cave, and how people used to explore it. There were steps at different parts of the tour, but it is all paved and easy to traverse. The tour begins and ends with an elevator ride below ground. This can take some time to get the whole group down, so be ready to wait, patience is key. After the cave tour, we explored the museum in the basement of the visitor center. There were many images and artifacts from early cave explorers that complemented what we had learned on the tour. It helped to picture what our guide had been referring to, and I am glad we stopped to see everything on display. After the visitor center, we decided to walk to the natural entrance of the cave. This is where the Lakota believe was the birthplace of their nation. There are ceremonies still conducted here and you can see the different symbols the Lakota use and keep in this part of the park. There are signs posted about being respectful of this ceremonial site. Where this fit in our Road Trip We visited Wind Cave after we went to Badlands National Park. It is close to Custer State Park, so we easily did this for part of a day and then explored more around Custer. NPS App and All Trails Maps I highly recommend using the National Park Service (NPS) App, as well as the All Trails App for hiking. There is limited service in the park, so planning ahead is helpful. These two apps allow you to download sights, maps, and trails so that you can access information anywhere. The NPS app also links to the full National Parks Website, with a plethora of information. Don't forget to follow along on Instagram @wanderlust_with_three
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