Mount Rushmore is one of those places that manages to be both exactly what you expect and more impressive than you imagined. The four presidential faces — Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln — carved into the granite of the Black Hills by Gutzon Borglum and his son are enormous up close, and the setting in the South Dakota wilderness adds to the impact.
The memorial itself takes a couple of hours. Entry is free but parking is not. A short trail gets you closer to the sculpture, and the evening lighting ceremony in summer is worth staying for. But the real reason to come to this part of South Dakota is the surrounding area.
The Crazy Horse Memorial, eight miles away, has been under construction since 1948 — when finished it will be the world's largest sculpture. Badlands National Park, about an hour's drive east, has an otherworldly landscape of eroded buttes and fossil-rich prairies. Deadwood, a Victorian gold-mining town turned historic preservation project, is about an hour north and livelier than its name suggests. Rapid City, 20 miles away, has Reptile Gardens and makes a practical base for exploring the region.