Family Fun in the Rocky Mountains

Bavarian Inn Black Hills

Custer, SD

Founded by Bavarian immigrants in 1973, with cookie happy hour and a morning breakfast spread that has run unchanged for decades. Five-and-a-half forested acres and the kind of hospitality that is easier to feel than describe.

Historic Log Cabin Motel

Hot Springs, SD

A cluster of true 1920s log cabins on the National Register, each freestanding with its own door and its own deck, where the fire smells like the Black Hills and the hosts greet you like family. Wake to a homemade breakfast, then walk out onto your own porch with coffee and the pines.

Lantern Inn

Hill City, SD

A family-owned Black Hills motel where the rooms have been lovingly refreshed and the grounds hold a pool, a fire pit, and a trout stream you can hear from your door. You park right outside your room, walk to Main Street in a couple of minutes, and fall asleep to running water instead of a highway.

The Carter Inn

Ten Sleep, WY

Home-cooked breakfast every morning and limestone climbing five miles up the canyon on a main street in Wyoming. Western hospitality worth making the drive for.

Alpaca Inn

Lava Hot Springs, ID

Eighteen rooms around a colorful private garden courtyard in the heart of Lava Hot Springs, two blocks from the World Famous geothermal pools that draw visitors from across the Intermountain West. The wraparound deck, BBQ grill, and walkable position between the pools and the town's restaurants make arrival here feel easy.

Yellowstone Gateway Inn

Gardiner, MT

Fifteen apartment-style suites in cabin buildings 1 mile from the Roosevelt Arch and Yellowstone's north entrance, each with a full kitchen for early park departures and a patio facing the Absaroka Mountains. The lodging is practical and comfortable rather than design-forward, and the location does what a Yellowstone base camp actually needs to do.