Hermosa

“Hermosa” means “beautiful” in Spanish and the town lies in South Dakota’s Black Hills, a region truly deserving the epithet. The attractions of this famous range, whose name is a reference to the dark color of the mountains’ pine-covered slopes, are many and varied. Mount Rushmore, the state’s most visited tourist destination, needs no introduction while the nearby Crazy Horse Monument will be even more monumental once completed, surpassing Russia’s Stalingrad memorial as the largest sculpture in the world. Nature lovers will not be disappointed either, with Custer State Park offering wildlife from bison to prairie dogs, and Wind Cave National Park, containing one of the deepest caves in the world, also close. Finally, what visit to the Black Hills would be complete without a visit to Deadwood, a town whose list of former residents reads like a roll call of Wild West history?