How to travel to North Dakota and South Dakota for under $400

Four days. Two national parks. 2,000 miles. $400. And the World's Largest Holstein Cow.
Crazy, right? That much distance, that little time, and that low of a cost? And I thought it was going to be more money! As you can probably tell from my last blog post, I enjoy traveling. And I like to do it as low-cost as possible. It's a challenge, and I love a good challenge.
Earlier this year, a friend and fellow travel bug approached me asking if I wanted to do a trip with her. The trips we've done together have always been in larger groups overseas, so this would be a different trip for the two of us. From there, the planning began and we settled on camping in North and South Dakota.

Our Haul

For our trip, we purchased a lot of goods ahead of time/already had some goods we brought with us. My friend had a tent, cots for sleeping and some other camping gear. We worked together to purchase food to bring with on our trip . We prepped meals to bring with us, figured out some healthy (and unhealthy, let's me honest) snacks to bring with, prepped our playlists with the widest variety of music you can imagine, and set out on our adventure! The back of her car was so packed, you couldn't see out the back of it.

Day One - Somewhere in Minnesota

​So day one wasn't much of a trip. We left in the late afternoon and made a stop in Minnesota to stay the night. Oh, and we got pulled over on the way there. For going two miles/hour over the speed limit. For our first night, we learned how to work together at pitching the tent. I hadn't pitched a tent in probably 12 years, but we managed to get it down. We pretty much went to bed right away. This was the best night of sleep we would get the whole trip (and the warmest).

Day Two - Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Holy wow guys. Does anyone else think that North/South Dakota are mediocre states that you should visit just to visit? Because that was my premonition on this trip, and I was very mistaken. For much of the drive, North and South Dakota are boring. But the national parks are CRAZY gorgeous. And we saw the World's Largest Holstein Cow on our way to our first destination. Our first legitimate stop was in Teddy Roosevelt National Park. We picked a campsite with a small path to a large field FILLED with bison (oh, we were super obsessed with bison this whole trip). The campsite was picture perfect. After pitching our tent, we took a drive on the loop of the park, stopping several times along the way to grab more pictures of this beautiful place. I mean seriously, how could I ever think that North Dakota would be uninteresting?
The low temperature this night was 28 degrees Fahrenheit. It. Was. Freezing. While this was my favorite location of the whole trip, this was my least favorite night of sleeping. I eventually fell asleep, but it took a long time before I was able to.

Day Three - Deadwood Forest & Mount Rushmore

Don't worry everyone, we didn't freeze to death! Though it was a real concern of mine for a little bit. We had a few stops we were making that day, so we set out for South Dakota early in the morning. We were driving through the Deadwood forest along our way and made a stop at a waterfall. You could really feel the fall weather in the forest. The leaves were changing everywhere, there was a crispness in the air that only fall could present, everything felt so refreshing. After our drive through the Deadwood forest, we headed along to Mount Rushmore. Because did you really go to South Dakota if you didn't see Mount Rushmore?
Post Mount Rushmore, we took a trip to the Prairie Berry Winery. A lot of sources online said that there were a lot of great wineries in the area. We were able to find a favorite, Calamity Jane, that basically tastes like Welches Grape Juice. We managed to escape only purchasing two bottles of wine each.
After our stop at the winery, we began our drive to our next campsite in the Badlands National Park. It took us a long time to get there, and much of the driving was in the dark. We didn't get any photos of our campsite this night, but we were essentially sharing a large circular mound with other campers. The forecast for this evening contained rain, but we had NO CLUE how bad it would really be. Amanda had to go out and fix our tent three times in the middle of the night. Around 5:00am, we said screw it and packed up camp as quickly as we could, as the tent and all it's contents were wet, inside and outside. We sat in the car, muddy and cold, to come up with a game plan. We were supposed to camp another night yet, but none of our equipment was dry/would be dry by the time we reached our next destination. So we made the 14 hour trek back home.

All in All

Even though sleeping 2/3 nights was slightly miserable, this trip was unforgettable. I would do it again in a heartbeat, maybe just not in October. The Dakotas have so much to offer. The views are indescribable, the natural world is gorgeous, and they don't make bad wine either. If you ever have a chance to camp in the Dakotas, I highly recommend it. If you split costs with a friend, you can make a trip for as little as $200/person, including gas, camping fees, food, and souvenir shopping.

​Happy camping, friends!