CITY GUIDES | MIDWEST

12 Dakotas Hotels That Prove the Right Room Makes the Whole Trip

By Jamie Dutton | May 25, 2026

Custer State Park Resort

AUTHOR BIO: With family spread across the Midwest and a job that has her in airports near daily, Jamie Dutton finds herself across the Heartland regularly. She’s partial to BPTs a Bell's.

I’ve spent enough time driving across North and South Dakota for work to develop strong opinions about hotel lamps, lobby coffee, hallway carpeting, and the grim little desk chair that seems designed by someone who has never once opened a laptop in sorrow.

I’ve never had much use for big chain hotels when there’s another option. They have their purpose, I suppose, much like printer paper and dental forms, but they rarely explain where I am. In the Dakotas, the best stays do exactly that, putting me in an old Fargo building filled with regional art, a former Sioux Falls bank with a 16-ton vault door, a lodge inside the Badlands, or a Black Hills retreat where the day can begin with granite, pine, and the faint possibility of bison traffic.

These are my favorite hotels in North and South Dakota, chosen for history, setting, architecture, food, scenery, and that increasingly rare hotel quality: a reason to remember the stay after the folio hits the inbox.

The Hotel Alex Johnson Rapid City North and South Dakota Best Hotels

Alex Johnson Hotel, Rapid City

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The Alex Johnson opened in downtown Rapid City in 1928, which means it arrived just as the Black Hills were being carved into one of America’s quintessential monuments. Its first registered guest, Paddy O’Neill, now has the lobby pub named after him, and the hotel still leans into the old bones: original lobby bricks, Native American symbols worked into the floor, and a reputation that includes presidents, celebrities, and a few ghost stories. Upstairs, Juniper at Vertex Sky Bar gives the place its modern move, with a rooftop perch over Rapid City and the Black Hills beyond.

Best for: Historic Rapid City with a rooftop drink

Black Leg Ranch, McKenzie

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Black Leg is a fifth-generation working ranch near Bismarck with cattle, bison, lodging, events, hunting, and its own brewery. The ranch traces back to a 160-acre Dakota Territory homestead, and the modern operation now spreads across thousands of acres with guest lodges, home-cooked meals, and the Copper Jewell Barn for events. This is the place to book for prairie quiet, ranch roads, bison, beef, and the sense that the countryside is the main character.

Best for: A North Dakota ranch stay with real dirt on its boots

Cedar Pass Lodge, Interior

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Cedar Pass sits inside Badlands National Park, with cabins, a restaurant, a gift shop, and the kind of access that makes sunrise feel less like a scheduling achievement and more like an amenity. The restaurant is the only place to buy food inside the park, and it serves full sit-down meals, including Sioux Indian tacos made with fry bread prepared daily. The place dates back to 1926, when Ben Millard opened what would become the park’s first visitor establishment, a dance-hall-and-cabin operation where Lawrence Welk once played to weekend crowds.

Best for: Waking up inside the Badlands

Hotel Donaldson North and South Dakota Best Hotels

Hotel Donaldson, Fargo

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Hotel Donaldson has just 17 rooms, and each one is designed around the work of a different regional artist, which is how a hotel room in Fargo becomes less about beige efficiency and more about sleeping inside a tiny gallery. The property features work by more than 60 regional artists, and the rooms include artist biography folders, a detail that suggests someone understood that art gets more interesting when a human being is attached to it. In downtown Fargo, the HoDo still feels like the city’s most compact argument for staying somewhere with a point of view.

Best for: Fargo art, downtown walks, and a room full of creativity

Hotel on Phillips, Sioux Falls

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Hotel on Phillips began life in 1918 as the Sioux Falls National Bank, back when a bank lobby apparently required columns, chandeliers, and dentil tray ceilings. The restored boutique hotel has 90 rooms and suites, but the showpiece is still the original bank vault, with its 16-ton door and 24 bolts, now used as the walk-through entrance to The Treasury lounge. It’s the kind of adaptive reuse that gives downtown Sioux Falls a little glamour without pretending the building’s previous life never happened.

Best for: Downtown Sioux Falls with a cocktail in a bank vault

Jasper Hotel, Fargo

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Jasper Hotel brings Fargo’s modern hotel moment to Broadway, with 125 rooms, Rosewild on the first level, and a location built for walking to downtown restaurants, bars, shops, and music. The restaurant describes itself around the Red River Valley’s seasonal bounty, with an all-day menu and in-room dining that can mean tagliatelle with beef bolognese, a Rosewild burger, or parmesan fries delivered upstairs in to-go boxes. Book one of the corner panoramic studio suites for Sferra linens, 325 to 385 square feet of space, and the sense that Fargo’s downtown has stopped asking for permission to look polished.

Best for: Modern Fargo with dinner downstairs

Lodge at Deadwood North and South Dakota Best Hotels

The Lodge at Deadwood

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The Lodge at Deadwood is a Black Hills base camp with the useful parts handled: rooms ranging from deluxe kings and double queens to spa suites and a Presidential Suite, plus a casino, restaurants, a coffee bar, and a 24-hour fitness room. The property sits above Deadwood with views of the Black Hills and western South Dakota high plains, which gives the stay a little distance from the town’s main drag while keeping the historic district within easy reach. It also has the area’s largest indoor water play land, which makes the hotel practical for families trying to mix Deadwood, hiking, gaming, and one exhausted child in wet socks.

Best for: Deadwood with Black Hills views and family backup

The Olive Ann Hotel, Grand Forks

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This Tribute Portfolio property is Grand Forks’ only boutique hotel, set inside a century-old former bank and named for aviation pioneer Olive Ann Beech. The design nods to aviation, and the hotel keeps the practical comforts close: downtown access, complimentary bikes for the Greenway trails, and Skies 322 for dinner and weekend brunch. It’s the best argument for staying in downtown Grand Forks.

Best for: A polished downtown Grand Forks stay

Rough Riders Hotel, Medora

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Rough Riders is Medora’s historic lodging option, named for the volunteer cavalry led by Theodore Roosevelt. It’s built around the kind of lobby that knows exactly where it is: a grand hearth, tin-tiled ceiling, and one of the largest private libraries of books by and about Roosevelt. The rooms lean Western without going full costume party, with walk-in showers marked by Roosevelt brands and historic rooms that keep the 1880s thread running through the building. It’s the right stay for Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the Medora Musical, and anyone who wants the day to end with a book, a fireplace, and a little presidential mythology.

Best for: Medora history near Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Spearfish Canyon Lodge North and South Dakota Best Hotels

Spearfish Canyon Lodge, Lead

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Spearfish Canyon Lodge sits on the Scenic Byway in the heart of the canyon, with 44 rooms, 10 suites, and one private cabin wrapped in heavy log walls with canyon views. Roughlock Falls is nearby, Spearfish Creek runs through the landscape, and the lodge rents ATVs, UTVs, snowmobiles, and Polaris Slingshots for people who prefer their sightseeing with a motor and a helmet. The Latchstring Restaurant keeps meals on-site, which matters after a day of hiking, fishing, biking, or simply gazing at canyon walls until dinner feels earned.

Best for: Black Hills canyon scenery without leaving the lodge grounds

State Game Lodge, Custer

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The State Game Lodge is the grand old anchor of Custer State Park Resort, with lodge rooms, cabins, dining, meeting space, and a history that includes serving as President Calvin Coolidge’s “Summer White House” in 1927 and hosting President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. The lodge is the primary resort hub inside Custer State Park, which means bison drives, wildlife loops, and Black Hills mornings are all part of the stay.

Best for: Historic Custer State Park with presidential baggage

Sylvan Lake Lodge, Custer

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Sylvan Lake Lodge sits at 6,145 feet in the northwestern corner of Custer State Park, in a spot selected by Frank Lloyd Wright for its stunning views. The stone-and-timber lodge looks over the sloping hills and Sylvan Lake, with a double-peaked wooden ceiling, hardwood floors, a stone fireplace, lodge rooms, cabins, and a veranda built for lingering over dinner. This is the prettiest stay in the park for hikers, lake people, Needles Highway drivers, and anyone who prefers the Black Hills with granite, spruce, and a little architectural drama.

Best for: The most scenic Custer State Park stay