Once I get a general idea of the states and the high-level activities, I start digging into specifically what we want to do each day. It helps understand driving time, where we need to stay and what we need to pack.

I don’t normally start with Google. I never seem to get actual good results from real people. It’s usually editorial pieces that don’t really give good info. I typically start with Pinterest. You still have some yuck in there, but you also can find some real gems.

Another great source, and I’ve started using it more and more recently, is TikTok and Instagram posts. TikTok is great for finding locals. We’re found a lot of fun “off the grid” things to do and places to eat this way. Instagram tends to be a mixed bag of professional travel services and real people posts. All great resources, but I tend to like real reviews from fellow travelers and locals.

We only had one night in Omaha, a week before the college world series so no baseball games. Which I’m not a baseball gal so my heart wasn’t broken. I’m going to make a confession. I thought Omaha would be hard to find something to do, but it’s actually a really interesting city. I’d go back! Ultimately, it came down to time. We weren’t arriving until early evening and leaving really early the next morning. We ended up deciding to stay in the Downtown area and just walk around. We’d determine a place to eat and such as we found them. I can be chill. Sometimes.

Next up: Badlands National Park in South Dakota. Before we decided on this trip, I’d never heard of this. Once we started looking more into it, we got really excited about it. I’ve mentioned that I’m not a hiker, but I can hike. I don’t want a whole trip centered around hiking, but I don’t mind to go on a hike on a trip. Pinterest was super helpful for this one. I found so many blog posts around the different hikes, ratings on difficulty and how long each hike would take. We learned that sunset was an awesome time to be there. I’ll link so of the posts I found most helpful!

• Cinders Travels
• One Girl, Whole World
• Travel on the Reg
• Adventures of A+K
• Park Ranger John

We decided we wanted to try to fit in Door Trail, Window Trail and Notch Trail. I’ll try to remember to add more about this in the post recap, but if I had to plan it all over again, I’d actually plan to spend more time here and do more of the hikes. Yep. You did read that correctly. It was so pretty and unique.

For our time in Keystone was a little less research intensive. We had a full day and morning to plan. Obviously the biggest, most common attraction is Mount Rushmore. We had heard from multiple people there was a lighting ceremony in the evening and it was very cool to see. I started with that and worked backwards and forwards from there.

Custer State Park wasn’t far and could be on our way out, so I planned that for the morning we headed to South Dakota. We also had heard that the Black Hills were beautiful, but I didn’t want to add another hiking day. I found the 1880 Train. It left from Keystone and went to Hill City and back (from our starting point). I figured we could catch the train and spend time in Hill City before retuning to Keystone. Then spend the rest of the afternoon in Keystone before heading to Mount Rushmore.

Let’s just say this – hindsight is 20/20. Would I do the train again? Nope. If I had to plan this portion of the trip over, I’d definitely cut out the train and spend all day at Custer State Park. We loved it and wish we had more time there.

I know I mentioned this in the planning post, but I searched high and low for something to do in North Dakota that was along our route. We ended up only visiting the World’s Largest Buffalo Statue in Jamestown, ND.

Side quest: Have any of you heard of Louis L’Amour? My dad was never a reader, but he told me he read his books prior to having kids. I had no idea before we arrived, but in order to get to the statue, you have to walk through a little miniature city that’s based on him. Apparently he was born there. They even have a walking tour you can do if you’re interested.

After leaving Jamestown, we were heading to Minnesota. We had originally planned just to head straight to Minneapolis, but after researching things to do, I came across a white water rafting opportunity. Every time we’ve been, we’ve loved it. We altered our plans and started researching cities closer to the white water rafting place. Duluth, MN popped up on that list. It looked beautiful, interesting and it would allow us to see Lake Superior. Check.

Adding that stop in meant, we had one full day in Minneapolis. We already knew what we were doing with that day, the Mall of America. On the way out of the city, I found several waterfalls that weren’t really hikes, but more of little walking trails around them. We added those to the list to do on the morning we headed to Wisconsin.

I know everyone travels and plans differently. We even travel differently within the same trip. While the 75% was fully planned, the last stop was not at all. Before Milwaukee, each stop was hours between each other so I felt we needed to have a solid plan to stay on schedule and not feel rushed while on the road. When we headed to Milwaukee, once we got there, it was the last stop. It was also a larger city that was walkable.

Taking all of that into consideration, we decided to wing it. We knew the area we were in, we knew we’d be able to walk to explore and just do what we felt like. I did find a few bookstores we wanted to visit, the public market and knew there were ice cream places that were musts, but other than that, it was a whatever we felt like in the moment. And some of those moments was sitting in the apartment, people watching and reading books.

Do I have any real tips for planning activities? Not really. Know your family. Know what you like to do. Know how much you can pack in realistically without imploding. Plan what you can, be flexible where needed. If you aren’t getting good vibes? Go do something else. It’s your trip. Enjoy it!

Until next time: Stay curious, stay caffeinated, and stay a little LindSwept.