Tourism, how busy? (Rapid City, Spearfish, Sturgis: college, casinos, campgrounds)

[loveslabradors]

From several other threads I understand tourism is a big deal in the Hills but I am moving from an area that was once a sleepy little coastal town in the Panhandle of Florida. The tourists have become a year round headache for this reclusive artist...so I am hoping that I don't encounter the same situation in the Hills. Looking for input as to which areas to avoid.

[WyoNewk]

The Black Hills area is a major tourist destination in the summer, from mid-June through mid-August, so many of the small towns IN the Black Hills depend on the tourist dollar. In some of them, Such as Keystone, most restaurants will even shut down in the winter due to a lack of business.

Rapid City, the only "city" in the area (70K pop) isn't affected that much as it can absorb the tourists, so only a few specific tourist attractions close for the winter. As an outsider I don't notice an abundance of tourists in Rapid. I'm sure those who live there do, but I don't think it changes the town that much. Spearfish, on the northern edge of the Hills, also does well enough without tourism. It has a state college which helps balance tourism and seems to be a thriving community year-round without a deluge of summer traffic.

Sturgis Bike Week draws hundreds of thousands of bikers to the Hills around the first week of August, but that's only for a week or so.

I've been to a few of the coastal towns and know what you mean about crowds of tourists (me being one of them). For the most part, aside from the small towns near Mount Rushmore, you don't see that kind of crowds in the Hills. The Black Hills takes in a large area, so even though it attracts millions of tourists each year, they're dispersed enough that they're not a major problem for most of us.

[uncleharley]

Avoid the campgrounds, casinos, Mt Rushmore, & the Parks. The southern hills around Edgemont and Hot Springs get fewer tourists than Custer etc.

uh