Self-Guided Audio Driving Tour in Black Hills and Mt Rushmore in Wyoming booking from $12.99

Self-Guided Audio Driving Tour in Black Hills and Mt Rushmore

Overview

Don't miss a thing as our Audio Driving Tour takes you on 3 incredible self-guided routes through the Black Hills mountains, canyons and forests, unique rock formations in Badlands National Park, the gigantic carvings at Mount Rushmore and wildlife spotting in Custer State Park.

You'll hear fascinating behind-the-scenes stories, local tips and directions that plays automatically as you drive along the routes.

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
✅ No time limits or expiry, free updates

Purchase one tour per vehicle.

City: Wyoming

Sun 23 Feb

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Starting at $12.99

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Sun 23 Feb

Starting at $12.99

Make a reservation

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What's Included

Freedom to explore at your own pace

Email, chat and call support

Ability to design your own itinerary based on your time and interests

In-App travel tips, tour planning advice and suggested itineraries

Guide App & Black Hills, Rushmore & Badlands Audio Tours

Stories, tips and directions that play automatically based on your location

Additional Info

Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Please follow current State and National Park guidelines.

What To Expect

The Black Hills

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;

Mount Rushmore National Memorial

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.

Custer State Park

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 National Monument

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.

Badlands National Park

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.

Crazy Horse Memorial

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.

Keystone

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.

Rapid City

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.

Sylvan Lake

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.

Iron Mountain Road

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.

Bridal Veil Falls

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.

Deadwood

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.

Roughlock Falls State Nature Area

From the tiny ex-sawmill town of Savoy on the Spearfish Canyon Road, Roughlock Falls is an easy and popular spot to visit with an attractive waterfall easily accessed by boardwalk. Extend your visit with a 1 mile stream-side walking trail to the falls from the Spearfish Lodge.

Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway

Spearfish Canyon is a superb 19 mile stretch of road with stunning waterfalls and 1000 foot high limestone walls. This scenic drive connects the town of Spearfish with Savoy and Cheyenne Crossing, following the Spearfish Creek all the way.

Badlands Wall

At different times during the drive through the Badlands, we will pass through the Upper and Lower Prairie. The barrier that separates these 2 levels is known as the Wall.

Door Trail

The 3/4 mile Door Trail is the most popular as you follow a boardwalk until reaching a notch in the rock - the Door. Through the Door, hikers can venture into the amazing rock formations, characteristic of the Badlands. The shorter option is known as the Window Trail, just 1/4 mile long.

Fossil Exhibit Trail

This easy 0.25 mile boardwalk is dedicated to the stories of fossils that have been found throughout the park. During its history, what is now the park has experienced perfect conditions leading to animal, plant and insect life forms to be quickly buried in silt of mud. When these events are timed just right, bones, teeth and shells especially are preserved to provide us a window to past times. Fossil finds are active to this day.

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

For a complete change of theme in the Badlands, there is an opportunity to experience an important location from the Cold War arms race era. The Minuteman Missile Visitor Center serves as a museum and an opportunity to visit now decommissioned nuclear missile silos and control centers.

Roberts Prairie Dog Town

The Roberts Prairie Dog Town on Sagecreek Rim Rd at the western end of Badlands is the perfect place to watch a whole community of these fun creatures doing their thing. As we approach, there are many stories and tips of unique behavior to watch out for. The more time you have available to simply stay and watch, the more you will enjoy how the town works together.

Yellow Mounds Overlook

One of the best vistas in Badlands National Park, the view from this overlook reveals classic buttes and erosion. The unique coloring in bands across these mounds, ranges from yellow and beige through to pink. The formation originated as black, ocean mud which has weathered through exposure to air into this highly photographic yellow display.

Needles Highway

A fantastic section of the Black Hills driving loop takes us on an enjoyable winding route through beautiful terrain and impressive rock formations.

Wind Cave National Park

These 2 cave systems are incredible and if you have time in your itinerary, should not be missed. Both locations require driving on side trips off the Black Hills Loop tour route. If you follow the loop, the commentary will include descriptions of where to turn off for these these places, and details of how to visit. Simply return to the tour route when you are done.

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Cancellation Policy

All sales are final. No refund is available for cancellations.

Traveler Photos

Reviews (33)

elliottq

Oct 2022

I loved Gypsy guide. It made our trip so much more enjoyable. It worked perfectly and as advertised. The variety and depth of stories was excellent as was the guidance on the routes. The website was also helpful, as was a call I made during my trip planning, to one of their staff. We used the Black Hills, Rushmore, Devils Tower & Badlands National Park Tour version. The guide knows via GPS where you are on the route and starts guidance/story telling as appropriate. It does it in bite-size chunks so that every few minutes or so it is quiet, allowing us to think and or discuss together what was said. Very well planned indeed. At only $13 it is an amazing buy. I would have paid 2x or 3x for what it provided. That being said, there were 1 or 2 minor glitches and the one improvement I would like to have made, namely to have it interface with Apple Car Play. The audio itself worked great with my 2022 car’s interface, and picked up whenever it was supposed to and play thru the car’s audio. However, there were times we wanted to look at a map or be sure where we were relative to your talk points, especially for the Custer Park part of the tour. What would have made the product better is if the map it threw up on the iPhone was more clear AND if that came up on the Car Play display. Then I would never have to touch the iPhone. Besides that one enhancement request, we were exceedingly happy with our purchase. This is a great product.

Response from Host

Nov 2022

Hi Elliott, thanks for taking the time to share how much you enjoyed our audio tours through the Black Hills, Badlands, Mt Rushmore and Devils Tower. We appreciate your suggested improvements! We've been working towards implementing Car Play for some time, however this requires approval from Apple as it's a closed system. And the maps are deliberately simplified to help keep the file sizes low, so we recommend using a different map program if you're looking to navigate somewhere in particular. Hopefully as technology continues to improve, we can implement both of these suggestions! We hope to join you on the road again soon.

Nancy M

Oct 2022

Easy to put on my phone and easy to follow. So much information from the speaker! Wonderful way to see the Badlands and Custer Park area!!

Response from Host

Oct 2022

Hi Nancy, thanks for taking the time to share how much you enjoyed our audio tour! We're delighted that you found it easy to use and informative, and hope to join you on the road again soon.

Howard K

Oct 2022

We had booked an all day tour of Mount Rushmore and adjacent attractions with a local bus tour company who called and canceled our reservation because “they were short a driver”. More likely, being late in the season they were likely under booked and decided to cancel. The alternative tour companies they recommended were twice the price. I saw the option of the self guided tour and since we were comfortable driving and the reviews were quite good, we decided we would go for the $12.95 price. I had a little difficulty with the sound setup and called for support and was called back in a very few minutes. We ended up using the basic setup with sound coming from my iPhone which was just fine. As it happened, the tour to Mt. Rushmore following the Needles Highway was amazing and could never be experienced on a bus because of the several very small tunnels. It was a highlight of trip through Custer State Park, the Crazy Horse Monument and Mt. Rushmore. The GPS base narrative was incredibly informative and worked flawlessly. We highly recommend this tour choice.

Response from Host

Oct 2022

Hi Howard, thanks for choosing our audio tour to help you explore the areas around Mt Rushmore! We're delighted to hear how much you enjoyed the tour and we hope to join you on more road trips in the future.

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Self-Guided Audio Driving Tour in Black Hills and Mt Rushmore

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