Self-Guided Audio Driving Tour in Black Hills and Mt Rushmore
- 4–12 hours
- Free cancellation up to 24h before
- Guided in English
- Instant confirmation
Highlights
Download GuideAlong's Black Hills, Badlands, Mount Rushmore, & Custer State Park audio tour to explore a surprising mix of big-name icons and wild landscapes, crowned by one of America's largest and most famous monuments. See Rushmore up close, swap the Badlands’ grasslands and wrinkled buttes for the forested peaks of the Black Hills, spot wildlife in Custer State Park, and soak up Old West stories in Deadwood. If you have extra time, Devils Tower makes a perfect bonus stop just across the Wyoming line. Now with brand new stories on the walking trail around Mount Rushmore! And enjoy the freedom to explore offline at your own pace; spending more time at places that interest you, and bypass any that don’t. ✅ Stories, tips and directions play automatically based on your location ✅ Travel at your own pace ✅ Tours work offline using GPS, no cell service or WiFi needed ✅ Suggested itineraries for half, full or multi day use ✅ Buy once, use forever! No expiry, includes free updates
Inclusions
What's included
- Support: Toll free phone, chat and email
- Easy To Use: Pre-download and tour offline
- Trip Planners: In-app, web and PDF
- Location Based: Stories, tips & directions that autoplay
- Buy once, use forever! No expiry, includes free updates
- GuideAlong (GyPSy Guide) Audio Tour: 535+ Points
- Includes an app based self-guided experience, so you do not need any in-person guide.
- Flexible Routes: Suggested itineraries or create your own
What's not
- Entry Fees, National Park Passes, Reservations
Itinerary
As the audio guides play commentary based on your gps location, you can create your own itinerary along the tour route(s) to match your interests and schedule. Or you can use our trip planners for our suggestions on half, full or multi day itineraries. Some of the many highlights are listed below;
The most famous and recognizable memorial celebrating the nationhood of the USA must be the 4 presidential faces that look out from Mount Rushmore. Though you will have seen it many times depicted on TV, movies and photos, there is no equivalent to seeing it with your own eyes and feeling the scale and depth of the sculpture.
Take a leisurely drive through an enormous area of natural habitat of rolling prairie hills with open grasslands and some pine forest. Though the drive is officially only 18-miles long, expect to spend at least 1 hour, but if you enjoy spotting wildlife, its easy to spend 3 or more hours watching. Also explore some of the side roads that branch off the main route.
Devils Tower was always a place of intrigue and fascination since it became the nation's first National Monument. For a multitude of generations before that, and continuing to this day, Native Americans celebrate the site for its spiritual importance. The Tower was thrust into pop culture in the 1970's sci-fi classic as the geographical star of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Western South Dakota delivers a wide variety of spectacular landscapes ranging from the prairies grassland and rock formations of the Badlands National Park, through to the mountains, canyons and forests of the Black Hills for you to explore.
In 1948, Sioux Chief Henry Standing Bear approached a Polish sculptor about creating another larger than life sculpture on Thunderhead Mountain - this time celebrating Sioux and other Northern Plains native groups through a depiction of Crazy Horse.
Once a mining boom town, Keystone today is the nearest community to Mount Rushmore. It is filled with hotels, restaurants, cafes and stores to find your perfect Mount Rushmore souvenir.
The hub of the three best scenic drives in this part of South Dakota is Rapid City and it is the ideal place to base your accommodations, and to do some exploring in this lively town.
Located along route 87, Sylvan Lake is described as the Jewel of Custer State Park. If time allows, it's very worthwhile to allocate 45 minutes or so to enjoy the relatively easy 1.1 mile trail around the lake. The combination of grassy shores, still lake water and granite formations rising from the water are truly scenic. For more dedicated and prepared hikers, this is also the starting point for the Black Elk Peak trail, a 7 mile loop that rises 1100 feet to South Dakota's highest point.
The final 45 minute approach of the recommended direction to Mount Rushmore follows the amazing Iron Mountain Road. We'll encounter tunnels, pigtail bridges, superb lookouts and 314 curves. It is a scenic delight! The most magical moment of the drive is the view through the Scovel Tunnel where 4 presidential faces greet you at the other end, like a postcard.
This 60 foot, narrow, wispy spray of water sits right beside the road in Spearfish Canyon. It's easy to capture that perfect photo right from the viewing platform.
One of the most famous wild-west towns in the entire country - Deadwood became legendary for it's gold rush boom and the multitude of characters who we recognize to this day.
Cancellation
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the experience starts, for a full refund.
Reviews
4.3
- 5137
- 414
- 39
- 23
- 121
Ratings come from 184 reviews collected by our booking partner. They are travellers' own words, in the order they were written — never reordered to flatter the experience.
Know before you go
- Meeting point
- From the east on I-90, watch the exit numbers as there are no major towns before the start. Commentary begins soon after Exit 143 at Route 73 and directs you toward the Badlands. From downtown Rapid City, you can start any of the 3 scenic loops or join anywhere along the route, with audio included.
- Pickup
- Everyone meets at the starting point; there is no pickup.
- Ticket type
- Mobile or paper ticket accepted
- Operated by
- GuideAlong (GyPSy Guide)
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- How to Access: After booking you’ll receive an email and text with instructions (search “Download Audio Tour”). Click the link in the email/text to sign in with your preferred Apple or Google account and redeem your voucher code ahead of time.
- Download The GuideAlong App: Download the free app over WiFi or cellular data and sign in with the same Apple or Google account.
- Download The Tour: Download the tour in the GuideAlong app under 'My Tours' over WiFi or cellular data.
- Start The Tour: Open the tour in the GuideAlong app to preview the start locations, tour route and trip planner, or start the tour.
- Location-Based Stories: Audio commentary plays automatically as you drive using your phone’s GPS chip. Wherever you are and whichever direction you’re going, you’ll hear the best stories and tips.
- Flexible Travel Date: Tours are a one-time purchase with no expiry or date/time limit. If your plans change to a different day, there’s no need to change your travel date.
- Tour at Your Leisure: With GuideAlong, you control the pace. Start, stop, and resume the tour any day, anytime, adapting it to your schedule.
How it compares in Rapid City
- Its from-price is 92% below the median of the 38 day trips we list in Rapid City.
- Its length is typical for the group.
- By number of reviews it ranks 5 of 38.
- The operator lists free cancellation on it.
About Rapid City
Rapid City is the gateway to South Dakota's Black Hills, close to Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park and the Badlands.
Rapid City sits where the Black Hills meet the Great Plains in western South Dakota, on the banks of Rapid Creek. Life-size bronze statues of American presidents stand on the street corners of the downtown, and Dinosaur Park, a hilltop with concrete dinosaurs built in the 1930s, looks over the city. The Black Hills, called Paha Sapa by the Lakota, are sacred to them and rise as dark, pine-covered uplands.
Top-ranked sights in Rapid City: Cosmos Mystery Area.
Special offers in Rapid City
Was/now prices come from the operator, never from us.
