Best time to visit Deadwood

United States · North America

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Deadwood

Tap a month for its page

Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Go in May, Aug or Sep — these months score within a whisker of each other; 22C max, 6 rainy days. Jul is the next best.

Plan this trip

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Flights

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Where to stay

Things to do

Car hire

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Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.

Things to do in Deadwood

Mount Rushmore Mountain in South Dakota featuring a sculpture of four US presidents
Black Elk Peak Tallest mountain in the US state of South Dakota, and the tallest mountain in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains
Mount Moriah Cemetery Cemetery in Deadwood, South Dakota
Old Style Saloon No. 10's Named for the establishment where Wild Bill was murdered.
Black Hills Central Railroad Heritage railroad in South Dakota
Vore Buffalo Jump Archaeological site in Wyoming, United States of America
Terry Peak Mountain in the Black Hills in Lawrence County, South Dakota, United States

Tours and tickets in Deadwood

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Deadwood), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.

Month by month

Month	Max °C	Rain days	Humidity	Sun h/day	Verdict	Why
Jan	2°	5d	62%	6.7h	avoid	bitter cold: 2C daily max
Feb	1°	5d	61%	8.0h	avoid	bitter cold: 1C daily max
Mar	7°	6d	60%	9.1h	ok	7C max, 6 rainy days
Apr	10°	9d	61%	9.7h	ok	10C max, 9 rainy days
May	16°	11d	62%	10.9h	sweet spot	16C max, 11 rainy days
Jun	23°	9d	58%	13.0h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Jul	27°	6d	55%	13.4h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Aug	26°	4d	55%	12.6h	sweet spot busy	busier than usual
Sep	22°	6d	54%	10.6h	sweet spot	22C max, 6 rainy days
Oct	13°	7d	58%	8.5h	good	13C max, 7 rainy days
Nov	7°	4d	56%	7.5h	ok	7C max, 4 rainy days
Dec	4°	5d	59%	6.2h	avoid	bitter cold: 4C daily max

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at Main Street: ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.

A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.

How busy it gets

Busiest from June to August; quietest in April, October, November and December.

Then and now

Deadwood's December days now average 3.6°C, 4.5°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 2 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	1.2°	1.1°	5.1°	11.1°	16.3°	22.2°	26.4°	25.5°	19.4°	12.7°	5.1°	-0.9°
2017–26	1.6°	0.7°	6.6°	9.8°	16.2°	22.9°	27.2°	25.7°	22.0°	12.7°	7.5°	3.6°
Change	+0.4°	-0.4°	+1.5°	-1.3°	-0.1°	+0.8°	+0.8°	+0.2°	+2.6°	-0.1°	+2.3°	+4.5°

The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.

Getting there

Fly into Rapid City (RAP), then drive. The flights under Where to book are to Rapid City.

The drive from each airport is the road's, from openrouteservice.org by HeiGIT: typical, not a schedule.

How far Deadwood is depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Type A and B plugs at 120 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the United states dollar. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Everything for United States: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — Cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay work almost everywhere, though a few small places take cash only. Keep some $1 and $5 notes for tips; Venmo and PayPal are for locals.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — Expected: 15–20% in sit-down restaurants (18–20% is standard in New York) and 10–20% for taxi, Uber and Lyft drivers. Large groups may find it already on the bill.

Getting around Deadwood

Apps — Rides: Lyft, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: Text messages (SMS), WhatsApp. In San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and some other cities you can also book a driverless Waymo in its own app.

Most of the restaurants, hotels, shops and sights are located on Main Street, within easy reach of each other on foot (save for snowstorms). More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Deadwood, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Help

Emergency — 911 (any emergency).
TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.

Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (50)

Deadwood in pictures

View of Deadwood South Dakota 2008 — i

Louisvillejg, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Main street deadwood south dakota 2009 — i

Richie Diesterheft from Chicago, IL, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Deadwood, South Dakota panoramio trukdotcom (9) — i

trukdotcom, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Creek in Deadwood, South Dakota — i

Tabun1015, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

What Deadwood is like

Deadwood is a town in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It is rivaled only by Tombstone, Arizona as America's most storied town from the wild frontier days. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: Adams House Museum, Van Buren Ave. Built by the Franklins, this Queen-Anne styled mansion is nearly perfectly preserved since being purchased by W.E. Adams. Tours are about half an hour. $5. More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing: Historic Ghost Tour (Historic Bullock Hotel), 633 Main St. Participate in this famous historic Ghost Tour hosted by costumed reenactors portraying Sheriff Seth Bullock or his wife, Martha. $5. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: Deadwood lies 42 miles northwest of Rapid City on US Route 14A. If you're driving from Rapid City you'll need to follow I-90 to Sturgis and merge onto US Route 14A West and drive for 12 miles before arriving in Deadwood. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Deadwood, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.

Around Deadwood

Also in United States

Nearby

Kind of place

Deadwood is in United States, North America. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

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