It’s that time! Our 2017 Road Trip has been planned! I have spent months planning and replanning (due to my husband not having as much leave saved up as he tends to). I had to cut out a lot from this trip as we are also using part of the trip to head to West Virginia for a family reunion.
Needless to say, we had to cut out North Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado from my original travel plans! That is ok though because it turns out we will have a full itinerary in the Black Hills of South Dakota!
Our plan is to leave Texas, head to West Virginia to my family reunion, stay several days, then head to South Dakota and stay for 2 weeks just four short miles from Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest at Holy Smoke Resort. We will be hauling our 32ft travel trailer the entire 4000+ miles of our 2017 Road Trip!
So our main destination for our 2017 Road Trip is Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota!!!
2017 Road Trip Itinerary
Day 1: Leave Texas, stop for the night somewhere around Nashville.
Day 2: Leave Nashville and arrive in West Virginia
Day 3 & 4: Family Reunion & visit Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
Day 5: Leave West Virginia & make our way to South Dakota; Stay near Beloit Wisconsin
Day 6: Arrive near Valley Springs SD & Stay the night
Day 7: Arrive at Rapid City SD & stay the night / Site see
Day 8: Arrive at Holy Smoke Resort, set up camp, and get supplies
Day 9-21: Try and complete our Black Hills Bucket List
Day 22: Leave for Texas; Visit Wind Cave National Park; stay the night near Sidney, Nebraska
Day 23: Stay near Guthrie, Oklahoma
Day 24: Arrive Home.
Main Attractions We Will Visit
There are a lot of attractions that I will not list individually here due to having so many we plan to check out. The reason I decided to take 2 weeks and just stay in the Black Hills is due to the amount of things we want to see/do in the area. Due to this and us hauling a travel trailer, we will not be doing a lot of site-seeing along our route like we normally do.
As usual, once we have completed each one, I will link to that individual post.
South Dakota
For a complete list see our Black Hills Bucket List.
Mount Rushmore
Custer State Park
Jewel Cave
Travel Needles Highway
Travel Iron Mountain Road
Check out the Painted Buffalo’s in Custer
Take a Scenic Train Ride at the 1880 Train Ride
Visit Wind Cave National Park
Visit Mount Rushmore Cave
Black Hills Petrified Forest
Wonderland Cave
Bridal Veil Falls
Find the Rock used in National Treasure 2
Hike Some Trails!
West Virginia
Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to do this one).
What’s New
So new this year, we will be hauling our brand new travel trailer with us AND will have our two teenagers (typically they spend the summer with their Dad, so they don’t get to go on these road trips).
We are pretty excited about “camping” in a travel trailer. We took her out for the first time over Spring Break for a week and loved it (as did the kids). This also means we can stop at rest stops and catch some zzz’s instead of wasting money on a hotel while we are traveling.
I also have started vlogging and have a new YouTube channel where I will upload videos of our adventures. In fact, those videos will be uploaded before the actual blog post is made, so make sure you subscribe to my channel!
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