Badlands National Park
South Dakota
Tonight
🌗 46% moon
5.8 h fully dark
Hikes
Strenuous
🔴
Crowds
moderate
Open today
Open
Entrance
$30
Navigation
Do not rely on GPS digital navigation systems to find your way to Badlands National Park. Please note that the Visitor Center at 25216 Ben Reifel Road, Interior SD 57750 is located just off I-90.
Official NPS alert →The rugged beauty of the Badlands draws visitors from around the world. These striking geologic deposits contain one of the world’s richest fossil beds. Ancient horses and rhinos once roamed here. The park’s 244,000 acres protect an expanse of mixed-grass prairie where bison, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, and black-footed ferrets live today.
Activities
Topics
Entrance fees
$30.00 — Entrance - Private Vehicle
$25.00 — Entrance - Motorcycle
$15.00 — Entrance - Per Person
$25.00 — Commercial Entrance - Sedan
$50.00 — Commercial Entrance - Van
$60.00 — Commercial Entrance - Mini-bus
$150.00 — Commercial Entrance - Motor Coach
Hours & seasons
The park is open to visitors all year with the exception of weather closures.
Generally open:
winterspringsummerfallHours are reported by the park — verify before you go.
📞 6054335361
✉ badl_information@nps.govConditions
Quietest months (fewer crowds): Jan, Feb, Nov, Dec
Typical crowds: moderate
Weather now: ☀️ Clear, 68°F
☀️ 98°/66°
☁️ 88°/63°
⛅ 100°/68°
Typical monthly recreation visits · NPS avg 2023–2025 — orange months are the quietest by crowds.
Quietest months
Relative crowds by month — lighter is quieter; ringed months are the calmest by crowds.
Jan
4%
Feb
4%
Mar
10%
Apr
16%
May
47%
Jun
89%
Jul
100%
Aug
86%
Sep
59%
Oct
28%
Nov
8%
Dec
5%
Log a sky reading
Measured the sky with an SQM meter or app? Add your reading (16 = city glow … 22 = pristine). Opt in under “Travelers like you” to share it on the community leaderboard.
Things to do
Badlands Ranger Programs · 5 mi
Hiking the Badlands · 10 mi · 100 ft gain
Visit the Ben Reifel Visitor Center
Enjoy the Night Sky
Badlands Astronomy Festival
Become a Badlands Junior Ranger · You can take as much time as you'd like to complete your booklet, but it typically takes around a half hour to complete. If you haven't completed your booklet but you need to leave the park, no worries! You can mail in your booklet and the park will send a Junior Ranger badge to you.
Campgrounds
🔴 Backcountry Camping · 0.5 mi
Campgrounds
Cedar Pass Campground ↗ · 96 sites · hookups · dump station
Sage Creek Campground · 22 sites
Visitor centers
Ben Reifel Visitor Center
White River Visitor Center
Accessibility
2 accessible campground(s)
55 audio-described place(s)
Reported by the park — verify before you go.
Not an official safety source — always defer to NPS.gov and rangers for life-safety decisions.
By the numbers
A visual read on Badlands National Park — its character, trails, sky, and weather.
Park fingerprint
How this park scores across the dimensions travelers care about.
Trail difficulty
Difficulty mix across this park's trails.
Trail profile
Each dot is a trail — distance vs. elevation gain, by difficulty.
3-day forecast
Daily high and low temperatures (°F).
People & stories
Figures tied to Badlands National Park — each spans a cross-park journey.
Ben Reifel
— Great Plains, Midwest NPS, South DakotaPeter Norbeck
— Great Plains, South Dakota, Midwest NPSPassport stamps
Mark the stamps you've collected — they show in your memory and along your routes.
🎫 Ben Reifel Visitor Center
🎫 White River Visitor Center
Places to see
Amphitheater
audio
Ancient Hunters Overlook
audio
Badlands Bison Corral
audio
Badlands Gunnery Range
audio
Badlands Tunnels
audio
Badlands Wall
audio
Badlands Wilderness Overlook
audio
Big Badlands Overlook
audio
Bigfoot Pass Overlook
audio
Burns Basin Overlook
audio
Castle Trailhead
audio
Cedar Butte
audioAudio & media
🎧
🎬
🖼
Learn more
Congratulations to the national and regional recipients of the 2013 Freeman Tilden Award for Excellence in Interpretation and Education.
Hopa Mountain, in partnership with the National Park Service, is pleased to announce the 2019 awardees of the Connecting with our Homelands travel grants. Twenty-one Indigenous organizations, schools, and nonprofits have been awarded travel funds for trips to national park units across 12 states/territories within the United States.
Experiments with fipronil-laden prairie dog bait suggest the insecticide can be a powerful tool for reducing the "Black Death" in wildlife, especially if integrated with other methods.
Curious about why certain patches of prairie sit above the rest? Read this article to learn more about sod tables and why they're important in Badlands National Park today.
Although the Badlands seems like an unlikely home for amphibians, the park hosts eight species. Learn more about these critters and their lives in the Badlands in this article.
Learn more about the archaeological finds at Badlands National Park.
The US Air Force seized over 130,000 acres of Badlands National Monument (located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation) during World War II for use as a practice bombing range. Read more about the story in this article.
206 bird species have been documented in Badlands National Park. Read about the birds of the Badlands and access a species list for the park in this article.
Ranger School
Park-grounded courses you can learn with the Ranger.
How Badlands National Park connects
This park's activities, topics, location, and on-the-ground places — one hop in the graph. Drag to explore; click an activity, topic, or related park to follow it.
Park
Activity
Topic
State
Campground
VisitorCenter
PassportStamp
Trail
ThingToDo
Alert
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