What airline to take into South Dakota?
 

We are planning a trip to South Dakato in late May to travel the area. Mostly plan on seeing Mt Rushmore, Badlands, Custer State Park, Crazy Horse and other things in the area. However, with the cost of flights from Bham, Al for 2 Adults and 2 Children, it is looking pretty expensive just to get there. Any suggestions on how we might can this accomplished as economically as possible??

If you haven't already, look at a few alternate airports. I'm guessing you are pricing flights to Rapid City. Some alternate airports might be Sioux Falls (3-4 hr drive), and Bismarck, ND (4-5 hrs), and Denver (6 hrs).

One small technicality - the "Badlands" are generally referred to as the North Dakota portion, and the "Black Hills" are the South Dakota portion. If the North Dakota Badlands are already part of your itinerary, then you should definately look into the smaller airports of Dickinson, ND or Bismarck.

You definately do NOT want to drive from Sioux Falls. For one thing, it's more like a 6 hours drive, AND it is one of the most boring road trips ever.

AND the Badlands are NOT the North Dakota portion. Most of the Badlands are about an hour - 1 1/2 hour east of Rapid City. Some exist in ND, but mostly people tour the are near the other attractions.

Seems all the regionals are just as high as Rapid City. I had thought perhaps if I planned six months in advance, I could get a better deal on flights. Now am trying to see where it might be feasible to drive from. I am taking your suggestions to start with. Thanks.

Seriously Mommybryant, you'll love your trip, but Rapid City is in the middle of no where. I know. I live in the middle of no where and have traveled this area extensively. Our airports are expensive, again because we are in the middle of no where. You'll save money on lodging... don't try to save on the flight or you'll spend most of your time in a car.

Have you checked out Denver yet? A few years ago we were going to go to Custer, Rushmore, etc. and the airfare from Chicago to Denver was 1/2 the price of going to Rapid City. Unfortunately 3 days before our trip, the area was closed to forest fires. We were going to cancel the whole trip and then figured since we were going to Denver anyway we would just throw together a trip to Colorado Springs & Winter Park. One of the best vacations we have taken.

Question? Right now I am wondering if it would be worth it to fly into Casper WY?? That appears to be central and might allow us to also visit some of Yellowstone. We have about 7 days so could see SD for three days and then travel over to Yellowstone for three days?? What do you think?? How far is it from Casper to Yellowstone?

Have you checked Billings, MT?

Smokey, Denver is definately doable, but how far is the drive in to Custer?? It looks like a whole day.

I will check Billings too. Thanks for the suggestion. I want to make this trip work, but will be the first time we have tried to fly my entire family for a vacation.

Kureiff, How far is Billings to Custer?? It looks reasonable with a fare of $308 if we drive to Atlanta for the connection??

Billings to Custer is approximately 300 miles so it's still a long drive.

If you go to website itasoftware.com you can pick alternate airports and see what options there are on various airlines at what cost and what inconvenience. You can not book on this site, but then must go to airline site to book - good site to check if you are trying to balance cost and convenience for areas that have high airfares. (We found similar sticker shock trying to fly from Boston to Yellowstone this summer - it would have cost us half the final cost to fly to California than it did to fly to Wyoming!)

Not wanting to spend the extra bucks, I flew into Denver and drove to Custer. Yes it's a long drive but not a terrible drive. On the round trip we broke the trip up by stopping Cheyenne. Denver has gotten cheaper with arrival of Southwest. As for cheap tickets to Yellowstone, I fly into Salt Lake City and drive up from there. Another long commute, but not a terrible drive once you leave the city. I make my commutes my site seeing escapades. Besides, what better way to see that part of the country.

I had thought about going into Denver, but decided I would be spending way too much time on the road for a seven day trip. We might have to change to a Yellowstone vacation, which would be nice too. I think the gas crisis has upped fuel enough to make the airlines charge about $100 more per RT than a year ago. Also, just realized we are planning a vacation during the long Memorial Day weekend. So that is another reason the flights are more expensive. Appreciate all your thoughts.

If you fly into Billings you could see Yellowstone instead, thats only about 3 hours and Way more to do then Mt Rushmore,
Mt Rushmore is Overrated IMO and it's very small

Yellowstone itself involves a fair amount of driving - there is not any airport that is right there either.

Closest choices we found were Jackson, Bozeman, Idaho Falls - but none of these had any deals. As someone else mentioned, you can get deals into Denver or SLC, but then you take the better part of a day on the drive each way - we did not have that amount of time so ended up paying more to fly into Jackson.

Even into Jackson, the trip to northern part of Yellowstone is a drive (a wonderful drive, but still a drive) of hours.

We have found at a number of western National Parks we saved some money by staying outside park. Park accomdations and dining costs were higher and we were able to find hotels that were close enough and non-tacky enough to not lose too much of the atmosphere. Had advantage of kitchenette or at least refrigerator and sometimes breakfast included - we saved a significant amount of money that way and then were able to tolerate the high airfares.

Brewcrew, we are seriously considering your suggestions. We have a flight from Atlanta that is doable, however, it is a 2 1/2 drive there, then we have to pay to park the car, etc. But we still might do it. I am thinking now we just need to watch the flights for a while and see if they move price wise. Otherwise, we might just end up in San Diego, which is much easier to get to.

THanks for your help. Oh, should be go ahead and reserve a place to stay in Yellowstone just in case?? (We really want to make this trip work). Anything else you can suggest that we need to do in advance??

How about flying a private plane to that landing strip near Mt. Rushmore on North By Northwest?

Regarding San Diego. Two years ago family wanted to go to Grand Canyon and I wanted San Diego (we had never been either place). In the end we flew into Las Vegas, drove to Bryce, Zion, GC and then onto San Diego.

Have a good trip wherever you decide to go - as the family trip planners, I think sometimes we try too hard to make everyone happy and can go nuts in the process.