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South Dakota vacation rentals

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Top-rated vacation rentals in South Dakota

Guests agree: these vacation rentals are highly rated for location, cleanliness, and more.

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Tower in Custer
New Fire Lookout Tower Next to Custer State Park
Enjoy this newly built 2023, modern Fire Lookout Tower. Suspended in the air over welded metal flared beams. Located just 5 minutes to Custer State Park. Experience some of the most unique views of rock formations while you drink your morning coffee. You will have access to the entire house, open floor plan with 1.5 bathrooms all to yourself. Great area to hike, bike, see the fluffy buffalo. Just a 2 minute drive to downtown Custer. Feel refreshed when you stay in style at this cozy rustic gem.
$238 per night
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Cabin in Lead
Scenic Lead Cabin: Steps to Terry Peak Ski Area!
Nestled among towering Spruce and Aspens on a private half-acre sits an unimposing cabin, nicknamed 'Deep Snow.' This 2-bedroom, 1-bath vacation rental is newly renovated and furnished with modern conveniences, providing a top-notch getaway to lucky travelers. Sit in the bubbling hot tub as you admire the gently sloping mountainside, venture into Black Hills National Forest, and head into Deadwood for gambling and historic sites. Or, pack your camera and head to Mount Rushmore for a day trip!
$183 per night
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Tiny home in Spearfish
Peaceful Tiny House with Great Views and Wildlife!
New listing! New hot tub! We invite you to come check out our tiny home! Located in beautiful Spearfish near the creek. Walking distance to restaurants and a brewery and yet facing open fields with plentiful wildlife. This house has everything you would need to stay for a night or a month. We can't wait to share it with you! *WE ALLOW UP TO TWO DOGS ONLY. PET FEE APPLICABLE. NO CATS. PLEASE MESSAGE ME FOR DETAILS.*
$112 per night

Home rentals in South Dakota

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Home in Spearfish
Private Farmhouse Studio
$105 per night
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Home in Spearfish
Downtown Modern-Farmhouse Studio
$139 per night
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Home in Spearfish
Modern 2-Bedroom Getaway
$139 per night
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Home in Custer
New Beautiful Bungalow Next to Custer State Park
$243 per night
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Home in South Lawrence
Buckskin Lodge
$230 per night
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Home in Sturgis
Entire Home in the Black Hills
$132 per night
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Home in Lead
Cozy Woods Cabin Retreat w/ private Hot tub
$128 per night
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Home in Hill City
Cabin on 20 acre horse ranch w/goats & mini donkey
$285 per night
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Home in Custer
The Dens at Bear Rock #2 - Studio with stairs
$182 per night
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Home in Custer
Bear Rock Bungalow-King Bed & 2 Twin Cots
$218 per night
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Home in Rapid City
Cozy 1-Bedroom Home
$82 per night
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Home in Watertown
4 bedroom Pelican lake home on large 2 acre lot
$230 per night

Your guide to South Dakota

Welcome to South Dakota

The landscape shocks and awes in Mount Rushmore State, nicknamed for one of the country’s most iconic monuments. Bighorn sheep inch among brightly banded rock pinnacles in Badlands National Park. Some 70 miles west sprawls Custer State Park, offering twisty drives, cool mountain lakes, and some of the best wildlife viewing on the continent. Long to experience the prairie? Turn to Wind Cave National Park, one of America’s oldest preserves. Bison and elk roam the ancient grasslands blanketing one of the most complex cavern systems in the world.


The best time to stay in a vacation rental in South Dakota

Heat-seekers should aim to book one of the state’s cabins during summer, when daytime highs reach 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, with night temperatures dropping abruptly to the 50s and 60s. Fall gets chillier before the severely cold winter conditions set in. Think substantial snow and average lows of 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Brrr! For shoulder-season deals and sparser crowds, opt for fall over spring, which serves up more thunderstorms. However, February does bring the quirky Nemo 500 Outhouse Race, where fundraising contestants rally in human-powered shacks with at least one seat hole.

Late June kicks off with the FinnFest in Frederick, celebrating Nordic traditions including a wife-carrying championship in which the prize is the rider’s weight in beer! Also notable: the Fourth of July celebrations at patriotic Mount Rushmore, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in August, and September’s Buffalo Roundup (part of the state park’s herd management). For Indigenous history and culture, there’s October’s three-day He Sapa Wacipi Na Oskate (Black Hills Pow Wow), which includes grass dancing.


Top things to do in South Dakota

Badlands National Park

Around 75 million years ago, a shallow inland sea covered what is now Badlands National Park. After this salty basin drained into the Arctic Ocean, erosion helped sculpt the terrain into an otherworldly riot of pinnacles, buttes, and gorges. One of the world’s richest fossil beds remains, capturing traces of the ancient horses, rhinos, and catlike animals with saber teeth who once roamed the grasslands. Today visitors are more likely to spot bison, bighorn sheep, and black-footed ferrets. If you need a little extra animal excitement, stop just outside the park. A 12-foot-tall concrete prairie dog looms there, near an enclosure with a colony of its live cousins.

Skeleton Man Walking Skeleton Dinosaur

The family behind 1880 Town inexplicably built this landmark nearby. A human figure leads his bony T-Rex buddy on a leash: a sight best viewed (carefully) from the roadside. Stretch your legs in earnest 16 miles east at Okaton, a prairie ghost town originally settled by railroad workers. Today you’ll see ramshackle houses, rickety fences, and rusting farm equipment, alongside traces of a failed attempt to monetize the haunting, picturesque spot.

Wall Drug

Eight miles north of Badlands National Park stands a humble 1931 pharmacy that transformed modern tourism. The Hustead family erected signs offering free ice water to drivers on Route 16. Soon their kitschy hand-painted billboards marched across the prairie and even further afield, cropping up in London, Morocco, and even Easter Island. Stop in to see the jackalopes and giant dinosaurs.