Hi,
We are planning a road trip with our teenage sons to see Mt Rushmore this summer. Would welcome any input on stops, sights and activities to do on our way there and back. We are planning on trying to do loops, avoiding covering the same route where possible. We are planning on bringing our camping gear along so camping will be an options as well as hotels/motels. We are planning on going at the end of July/beginning of August. The trip will be around a week-long more or less depending what it is to do/see.
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Badlands, Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, Custer State Park, Crazy Horse, Mammoth Site.

All the things above are found once you actually get out there.

Are you interested in seeing things in, say, Chicago? On the WAY to Chicago?

I think it would help if you were a bit more specific since there are about a jillion routes you can take from Washington to Rapid City

DC to Mt Rushmore is a 25 hour drive, so realistically you are talking about 4 days of driving round trip. With only a week altogether, you won't have a lot of time to stop along the way. 3 days for the Black Hills area is barely enough time so if you want to see anything on the way out there and back you are going to have to add several days to your trip.

Yes, I didn’t realize the trip will take that long. We might just focus on our stay at Mt Rushmore then. We’ll try to see a few of the places that spirobulldog mentioned. Thanks for the input I really appreciated.

25 hours is a long hard 4 days of driving. If you want just one stop each way for a couple hours and I had teen boys I would stop in Canton, Ohio for the Football Hall of Fame going one way and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Oh going the other. Have to warn you it will be frustrating to only stop in both of these places for a couple hours.

Interesting to see this post as we were just entertaining the idea of doing this in Aug. from Richmond. It was seeming so long of a road trip that I started to explore airfares, but they are $500+... still thinking.

There's noting wrong with this as the basis of a road trip - you just need to allow a lot more time if you want to see much of anything.

We are doing the same trip from dc in august but spending 2 or 3 weeks on the road. Going to include yellowstone and Tetons. Really looking forward to it.