No Bad Views in the Badlands

We made it to the Badlands area for the first stop in our trip and managed to get all setup at our KOA (Badlands / White River KOA) without incident. The manager even stopped by on his golf cart and said I did a good parking job 😁. The KOA is right outside of the Badlands National Park and gives you quick access for hiking and exploring.

National Park #1 of our RV Adventure checked off ✅

Once we got setup and packed a picnic for dinner we headed out to explore. Note that the National Park requires an entrance fee of $30 and is also included in the National Park Pass which we opted to buy ($80) since we will be visiting many parks on this trip. The views throughout the park were incredible, and better yet since it’s early May there were only a few groups of people that we saw when out exploring. Our main focus of the park was the scenic loop that takes you throughout many of the main scenic locations. Dogs aren’t allowed to actually hike on the trails, but they can get out and see the scenic overlooks and there is a back road (Old NE Road) where you can walk them down – this provided plenty of photo opportunities and dog walking time.

One of the highlights of our journey through the loop was an encounter with 3 bighorn sheep 🐑. They walked right up to our vehicle and the Corgis were quite intrigued! Along with the bighorn sheep, we also saw prairie dogs and pronghorn deer.

I had many camping trips to the Badlands as a kid and always enjoyed it, but I don’t remember the scenery being as spectacular as what we went through last night. A must stop if you’re traveling in the area and also a nice National Park that you can see a lot of in a single day.

We hope this helps you plan your next trip! Check out more of our outdoor adventures here.