For centuries, the Lakota people have called this area “mako sica,” literally “bad lands.” The French fur trappers were similarly uncomplimentary about this landscape, calling it les mauvaises terres a traveser (‘bad lands to travel across’). True, it’s arid-looking and desolate and dangerous to the unprepared, but there’s life within this lonely landscape. And beauty. And history.

Badlands National Park in South Dakota is a 244,000-acre (98,743.3-hectare) land of extremes, from fantastic rock formations created by wind and water, to a vast “ocean” of mixed-grass prairie. The park is also home to one of the world’s richest fossil mammal beds from the late Eocene (56-33.9 million years) and early Oligocene (33.9-23 million years) epochs, when brontotheres (huge rhino-like mammals), cat-like nimravids, and oreodonts (hoofed mammals like bison and bighorn sheep) roamed the changing landscape. A new genus of small, hornless deer was even recently discovered in the park. Hike in this park and you might even find a fossil or two yourself. Just remember to leave it where you found it.

There’s history in this national park, too, from hunters traveling 12,000 years ago through Badlands, to homesteaders trying to make a go of farming or ranching in the Badlands, all due to the Homestead Act of 1862, the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, and the Dawes Act of 1887, which provided at least 90 million acres of tribal land to the homesteaders by stripping it away from the Native Americans already living on that land.

You could be excused if you only chose to spend a couple of hours touring this national park from your car, since there aren’t many trails, and most of what you can see is from the road and overlooks. However, to really get a feel for this national park and surrounding area, you should spend more than just a day. Visit this national park today, and you are likely to see not homesteads, but freely-roaming bison, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, and prairie dogs. You might even spy a black-footed ferret, if you stay up past your bedtime, since they are nocturnal hunters.

Drive the park road and you’ll pass between surreal rock formations of dry, crumbly, layered strata colorfully painted yellow, beige, terracotta, and pink. You’ll also encounter a wide stretch of mixed-grass prairie, where you are most likely to spot the wildlife mentioned above.

There are two visitor centers at Badlands. The Ben Reifel Visitor Center along the eastern portion of the park houses a working paleontology laboratory where you can watch park paleontologists and interns perform fossil preparation. Southwest, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, is the White River Visitor Center where visitors can learn the cultural significance of the national park through the stories of the Lakota People.

Badlands National Park is a photographer’s dream. Sunrises, sunsets, and starry night skies over the colorful Badlands offer anybody with a camera the chance to return home with amazing landscape imagery. The aforementioned wildlife provides photo ops, as well, for your telephoto lens or smartphone’s telephoto setting.

After a full day exploring the area, there is an in-park campground as well as a cabin resort where you can rest and prepare for the next full day of adventure.

Although it may feel like you are out in the middle of nowhere when visiting this national park, you are never too very far from modern civilization, be it the historic and entertaining town of Wall, South Dakota, 11 miles (17.7 km) north from the Pinnacles Entrance, or the more populous Rapid City to the northwest, 62 miles (~100 km) from the Pinnacles Entrance.

Fun Fact: When this piece of South Dakota was first proposed as a national park back in 1922, the suggested name was Wonderland National Park. Whatever season you visit, you’ll experience a good time in these Badlands.

Traveler's Choice For: photography, geology, stargazing, history