South Dakota Fly Drive Destination
Badlands

Area navigation				Map of location The map to the right is interactive. Hold your mouse pointer over the highlighted places and they will be identified. Some of the places shown have a web page and can be accessed by clicking on them.

This is a remarkable landscape. The name came from the early French explorers who said these were Mauvais terre a traverse (or something like that - my French is poor) i.e. bad lands to cross. Pause at one of the many spectacular overlooks and imagine crossing the endless prarie with a horse and wagon and then seeing this lot rising from the plains - without the road that you've been driving on ! Badlands to cross indeed !

The area reminded me somewhat of the painted desert and parts of petrified forest - both in Arizona. If you haven't seen these, prepare to be shocked by how alien a part of the earth can look. There are times when you look out of the car window as you drive along, that you'd swear the landscape was a series of cardboard cutouts because reality cant look like that.