Badlands National Park · South Dakota
Overview Surrounded by the vast, open prairie and featuring expansive views of the Badlands, Cedar Pass Campground is a great base camp from which to explore Badlands National Park. Featuring 96 sites, this seasonal campground is open from late March through mid-October, and is conveniently located within easy walking distance of Cedar Pass Lodge & Restaurant and the Ben Reifel Visitor Center. Recreation An evening program led by park rangers is held nightly at the Cedar Pass Amphitheater.
Sites at Cedar Pass Campground are reserved through Recreation.gov. Sites here can be reserved in advance through the official system, and they are claimed fast — cancellations then trickle back all season, unannounced, at any hour of the day or night.
| Total sites | 100 |
|---|---|
| Site types | Tent only, RV, Group |
| Hookups | Electric hookups at some sites |
| Location | Interior, SD |
| Book through | Recreation.gov |
| Official listing | Recreation.gov |
Because sites are booked months ahead, a steady share of reservations get cancelled as trips fall through. Each cancellation instantly returns that site and those nights to the official calendar — first-come, first-served, no waitlist, no announcement. Refreshing the booking page yourself, every few minutes for weeks, works in theory. In practice, the people who get these sites are the ones who hear about the opening first.
ItOpened scans the Recreation.gov calendar for Cedar Pass Campground around the clock. When a site matching your dates and your vehicle opens, you get a text with a direct link to it. You book it yourself, in your own account, at the normal price. We never book, hold, or resell — your fee pays for monitoring, and openings are first-come, so speed is the whole game.
Page data refreshed 2026-10-29. Site facts come from the official directory listing for Cedar Pass Campground; cancellation statistics come from our own scanning logs.