Retire in South Dakota

Insiders' Guide to South Dakota's Black Hills & Badlands, 2nd (Insiders' Guide Series)

Description

Insiders' Guide to South Dakota's Black Hills and Badlands offers travelers, newcomers, and locals the best, most comprehensive information on what's happening in the region. The Black Hills - home to Mount Rushmore, the burial place of Wild Bill Hickok, and the site of Custer's last stand - and its Badlands are filled with natural and historic wonders. Trendy restaurants and rustic bars, sophisticated art galleries and annual powwows, and ghost towns and modern cities are just a few of the highlights of what this area has to offer. Use this guide to discover century-old wagon trail ruts or places to hike or climb, as well as opportunities for fun, shopping, and adventure. (6 x 9, 448 pages, b&w photos, maps)

Reviews

Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2004-07-16
Summary: "Mediocre guidebook. Better than nothing, but poorly done."

My family just got back from South Dakota, where we used this book. I can't begin to tell you how far this book falls short. Want info. on hiking the Badlands? Forget it. Want to know about activities and food in Rapid City? You're pretty much out of luck.

The book's organization is atrocious. Restaurants in one place, lodging in another, attractions in another. So when you pull into a place, you have to flip all over the book just to figure things out.

Basics are missing. For example, say you want to know the best things to do in the Black Hills--it's very difficult to excavate from this book. Instead you learn about real estate, shopping, and many unneeded details. Hikes in the Black Hills? Forget it? How to tackle Wind Cave National Park? Little help.

After travelling around the world with opinionated and helpful Lonely Planet guides, I am sorely disappointed with this book. This book is definately better than nothing, but look elsewhere for help with your trip to beautiful South Dakota.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2003-09-11
Summary: "WHAT A COMPANION!"

This book was absolutely amazing! Everything we wanted to do and everything we didn't know we wanted to do was EASY TO FIND. I spent a bit of time marking the attractions we wanted to see and the routes we wanted to take and NOT ONCE did we get lost. I recommend the trip. However, I recommend it more with this book as a travel companion. For our next trip we plan on touring the South East, don't think I haven't looked to the Insiders' Guide books to help. Have a great time!

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Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2003-08-25
Summary: "Don't buy this book for vacation planning!"

We bought this book only because the Moon Handbook was unavailable. We hoped to use this as a vacation planner. The book appears to have lots of information, but for us, interested in tent camping and hiking, with some in-town activities, the information was largely irrelevant. Things worth dwelling on--such as Spearfish Canyon--are mentioned with much less emphasis than the exhaustive coverage of shopping facilities, for example. The text is incessantly cheery and reads like a school newsletter. We would have preferred the intelligent critical evaluation that makes the Moon books such great reading--and such great resources.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2002-04-28
Summary: "Valuable Tool"

We took a South Dakota vacation and found this book to be great reading in our preparation and planning. It covers everything from lodging to attractions to activities to history and on and on.

This book, in combination with "Exploring the Black Hills and Badlands: A Guide for..." helped us have a better vacation than I ever expected.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2002-01-16
Summary: "Great informational guide!"

This is a GREAT book if you are visiting this area. It gives all sorts of information to make your trip more complete. It also gives background information and little insiders tips here and there. The only thing I would look elsewhere for is accomodations. It has good camping and B&B info but not nearly enough hotel and resort listings but you can get that anywhere. This book is worth it just for the INFORMATION included.