Black Hills National Forest

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Reviews

Black Hills National Forest campgrounds are widely appreciated for their beautiful, spacious, and well-maintained sites set in peaceful, scenic environments with friendly and helpful hosts. They offer convenient proximity to major attractions such as Mount Rushmore, hiking trails, lakes, and various outdoor activities including fishing and kayaking. Visitors often praise the cleanliness of restrooms and facilities, although some campsites have primitive amenities like vault or pit toilets and a lack of showers and electrical hookups. Common concerns include noise from nearby highways, generators, helicopters, and other campers, limited water availability or quality, cell service limitations, site leveling challenges, and occasional issues with campground management or rule enforcement.

Beautiful and spacious campsites in scenic, peaceful settings

Friendly and helpful camp hosts enhancing the experience

Clean and well-maintained restroom and campground facilities

Convenient access to major attractions, lakes, and hiking trails

Opportunities for fishing, boating, kayaking, and wildlife viewing

Noise disturbances from highways, generators, helicopters, and other campers

Limited amenities including lack of electricity, showers, and dump stations

Occasional water outages and poor potable water quality

Site access and leveling can be difficult for larger RVs or tents

Variable cell service and spotty reception in many areas

2,415 reviews

5 stars

1,552

4 stars

524

3 stars

180

2 stars

106

1 stars

Charles F

Campground:Summit Ridge Lookout Cabin

Loop:Summit Ridge Lookout

Site:

Reviewed 11 days ago

I love the mat little cabin. Wood stove is the best part. Whoever did the update is a hack I hate to say, but that doesn’t affect my experience there. Great memories.

Bailie B

Campground:Black Hills Off-Season Campgrounds

Loop:Northern Hills

Site:

Reviewed 13 days ago

I loved how comfortable this campground felt! It’s just far enough off the main road and offers quiet and picturesque views. There are a lot of UTVs that go by because of the trails, but it’s honestly not that loud. We stayed at site 7 and it fit our almost 26 foot camper + truck comfortably. I’d say there are about 3-4 spots that could fit campers here (depending on the size). There is a vault toilet that is clean (and I believe it’s cleaned semi-regularly because it was cleaned while we stayed there; not the toilet but the area/trash). There is also a fire ring at each campsite. Only $15/night which is super cheap, and $7.50/night for qualifying senior card holders. There is a water spigot but it’s not on in the fall/winter. There are beautiful trails walking distance from here as well! My only complaint is they have the one-way sign going the wrong direction. It would be difficult to back up your camper into the spots if you follow the one-way, so you have to go the opposite direction.

Jeffrey F

Campground:Reuter Campground

Loop:Reut

Site:

Reviewed 16 days ago

the location was great, the campsite was perfect for us.

pam m

Campground:Horsethief Lake Campground

Loop:Hors

Site:

Reviewed 21 days ago

This is a nice campground. However they do not let people know on the website that there are approx 7 fcfs sites available. I would prefer that so I wouldn't have to pay that dang rec.gov res. fee! And there were spots available on the night I was there. It's very convenient to Mt Rushmore. I did love that about it, and the lake was beautiful and bathrooms were clean. The people on both sides on me ran generators starting at 7am ughh! And again, later into the evening. I would not stay here for very long because of that.

Merlin S

Campground:Whitetail

Loop:Whit

Site:

Reviewed a month ago

I am fully self contained so this campground had everything I needed. Price is reasonable. Not a lot of trees for privacy but nice spacing between campspots.

Kraig C

Campground:Comanche Park

Loop:Coma

Site:

Reviewed a month ago

Great camp host.

Keep your options open

Watch for a matching campsite across monitored campgrounds in Black Hills National Forest.

Popularity: Quiet

Busiest in November, when about 25% of guest capacity is reserved. Based on 4 years of reservations.