Talk to Your Guide: (605) 252-9100
Talk to Your Guide: (605) 252-9100
Experience the Badlands from ground to sky with wildlife viewing, a sunset airplane tour, and a guided night sky experience inside Badlands National Park.
The Badlands sunset flight and night sky tour is a guided Badlands wildlife tour combined with a scenic airplane flight at sunset and a stargazing experience inside Badlands National Park.
This is one of the only Badlands tours that combines wildlife viewing, a Badlands airplane tour, and a Badlands stargazing tour into one seamless experience.
Most things to do in Badlands National Park focus on one part of the experience.
A standard Badlands wildlife tour shows you animals. A Badlands scenic flight shows you the landscape from above. A Badlands stargazing tour reveals the night sky.
This experience connects all three.
You begin with a Badlands wildlife tour during golden hour, when animals are most active. Then you transition into a Badlands airplane tour that reveals the scale and structure of the landscape at sunset. After dark, you return for a Badlands night sky experience in one of the darkest environments in South Dakota.
This is a complete Badlands sunset tour built around timing, light, and perspective.
Travelers who want to experience the Badlands in a single, deeply immersive day without missing its most important moments.
Those who prefer short, single-focus tours or are uncomfortable with small aircraft flights.
You’ll explore the park during one of the most active times of day for wildlife.
You may see:
This part of the Badlands sunset tour focuses on understanding the landscape, not just spotting animals.
As the light drops, you transition into a Badlands airplane tour for sunset.
This scenic flight reveals:
A Badlands scenic flight at sunset creates a completely different perspective than ground-level travel.
This is where the Badlands sunset flight becomes the centerpiece of the experience.
After dark, you return to the park for a Badlands Stargazing Tour.
You’ll learn:
The Badlands are designated for their exceptional night skies, making this one of the best places in the country to experience it.
This Badlands sunset flight and night sky tour is designed for travelers who want a complete experience without planning multiple tours.
It solves three common problems:
You don’t want to choose between experiences
This combines a Badlands wildlife tour, airplane tour, and stargazing tour.
You don’t want to manage multiple bookings
Everything is built into one seamless itinerary.
You don’t want to miss the best timing
This tour is structured around optimal wildlife activity, sunset lighting, and night sky conditions.
The Badlands change dramatically throughout the day.
Midday light tends to flatten the landscape. Wildlife becomes less active. The experience feels more observational than immersive.
This Badlands sunset flight and night sky tour is intentionally built around three critical windows of time.
Late Afternoon
This is when a Badlands wildlife tour becomes most productive. Temperatures drop, animals begin to move, and behavior becomes easier to observe.
Sunset
This is when a Badlands scenic flight becomes extraordinary. The angled light creates contrast across the formations, revealing depth, texture, and color that simply doesn’t exist earlier in the day.
After Dark
This is when the Badlands night sky experience comes to life. With minimal light pollution, the sky becomes a defining part of the landscape rather than a background element.
Most things to do in Badlands National Park only capture one of these moments.
This tour is designed to connect all three.
$2,295 for two guests plus tax and fees, for a private group of up to three guests. The full experience runs about 8 hours depending on the season, and it includes your guide, park entry fees and the scenic flight. Ask us about the price for a third guest.
From 15 June to 31 August every tour carries a 15% summer rate on top of these prices.
Every departure is private to your group, with pickup from your Rapid City area lodging. Rated 5.0 out of 5 on Google by 640 travelers.
Your guide will be one of the named, certified guides on our Meet Your Guides page, and if you want to know which one leads your date, ask us before you book and we will answer with a name.
Yes. The Badlands airplane tour is operated by certified pilots and follows all safety regulations.
If conditions are not safe for flying, the flight portion may be rescheduled or adjusted.
Yes. This Badlands sunset flight and night sky tour is one of the most complete introductions to Badlands National Park.
Badlands National Park is known for minimal light pollution, making it one of the best stargazing locations in South Dakota.
Layers for temperature changes, comfortable shoes, and a sense of curiosity.
Our clients love experiencing the best tours with us.
★★★★★2 months agoIf you are visiting the Black Hills, the Devils Tower and Spearfish Canyon Adventure is an absolute can’t-miss!
Our guide, Logan, did a true yeoman’s effort to make the day exceptional for the five of us. His depth of knowledge was remarkable—he effortlessly wove together the local history, geology, and fascinating backstories of every site along our route. He even tailored the experience to our group, sharing an incredible amount of insight about the local wildlife, including spot-on identification and facts about local birds for the birders in our group!
The trip itself is brilliantly designed, balancing scenic drives, stunning overlooks, and short walks with a wonderfully flexible pace. There was never any rush, and we had plenty of time to take photos and absorb the breathtaking landscapes of the Northern Black Hills.
Logan made every single moment enjoyable, informative, and fun. We loved every minute of this fabulous tour and cannot recommend Logan and this adventure enough!
★★★★★2 months agoMy husband and I enjoyed TWO tours (Wildlife Biologist’s Field Expedition: The Badlands Uncovered & Spirit of the West: Devil’s Tower & Spearfish Canyon) with our guide Logan who was unbelievably knowledgable and made conversation so easy! Logan made our first experience in South Dakota & Wyoming so memorable and special. Logan tailored to all our interests and assisted us with making choices that suited our curiosity. Logan did a great job communicating with us prior to our tour, which eased all my stress. During the tour Logan was so invested in giving us the best experience possible, it was evident Logan takes pride in the job he does! I absolutely recommend these tours, in fact, I wish I could have Logan as a guide for every tour going forward. Thank you Logan for an absolutely incredible experience! You made our trip out here extra special.
★★★★★3 months agoWe came up to do a star gazing tour for my sons birthday but the weather didn’t cooperate. What could have been a disappointment certainly was not. Great communication from the team letting us know our options and the guide Logan was a true standout. We ended up on a golden hour tour and the park really did show off her beauty. He showed us an abundance of wildlife and some of the stops were stunning that we would not have gotten without a guide. He made it fun and informative. His passion for the area and the local wildlife and community were obvious. I highly recommend both him and this tour company. Really can turn your badlands trip from really good to really great! The photos posted I took - the photos he took were even better. The surprise of the badlands was the variety and amount of wildlife which he was gel to stop and point out to us.
★★★★★2 weeks agoI can’t recommend this company and its wonderful guides enough. The experience from beginning to end was seamless and stress free. Having never been to this part of the country, we booked back to back days to make sure we got the chance to really see/experience all that this beautiful land had to offer and to learn more about the Lakota. The tour guides were knowledgeable, friendly, helpful and fun! If you’re lucky enough to get a Dan - there are two and we had both, you’ll have an amazing tour. The tour was not a scripted presentation - it was a thoughtful, customized and engaging experience that exceeded our expectations! Dan brought in a Native American educator named Jake who joined us for the trip and shared with us his perspective. Don’t think twice about booking with My XO Adventures, an awesome adventure awaits you!
★★★★★2 months agoAn unparalleled experience for wildlife professionals and enthusiasts alike!
My son and I, both biologists, recently joined Logan for the Wildlife Biologist’s Field Expedition in the Badlands and outer prairie lands of South Dakota. To put it simply, we had an amazing time.
This tour is truly one-of-a-kind; it is the only one in the region that provides such deep access to both the Badlands and the surrounding prairie ecosystems. What really set this experience apart was how Logan customized the entire day to match our specific interests. It was immediately evident that Logan isn’t just a guide—he has genuine, extensive field experience in tracking and working with wildlife, and his knowledge of both biology and local history is top-notch.
The logistics were perfect. We traveled comfortably in his roomy, air-conditioned van, which allowed us to navigate between optimal wildlife viewing locations with ease. He even provided extra sets of high-quality binoculars, which were a great touch. Throughout the trip, he took professional-grade photos of the wildlife and shared them with us, providing a fantastic memento of the day.
We had incredible sightings, including prairie dogs, burrowing owls, bison, a bald eagle, several pronghorns, and mule deer. If you are a wildlife enthusiast looking for a professional, expert-led expedition, I cannot recommend Logan’s tour enough.