3 Best Sights in Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Covering about a quarter of the park, this 100-square-mile area is part of the country's largest prairie wilderness. About two-thirds of the Sage Creek region is mixed-grass prairie, making it the ideal grazing grounds for bison, pronghorn, and other native animals. The Hay Butte Overlook (2 miles northwest on Sage Creek Rim Road) and the Badlands Wilderness Overlook (1 mile south of the Pinnacles entrance) are the best places to get an overview of the wilderness area. Feel free to park at an overlook and hike your own route into the untamed, unmarked prairie.

Until 2008, paleontologists dug for fossils at this site near the Conata Picnic Area. It was named for a large fossil with a pig-like appearance (it turned out to be a small, hornless rhinoceros). Wayside signs and exhibits, including a mural, provide context on the area and its fossils.

Once a homestead, the site today contains one of the country's largest (if not the largest) colonies of black-tailed prairie dogs.