Short Itinerary: 15 Minutes in Theodore Roosevelt National Park – North Dakota

Do you want to know how to spend 15 minutes in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota? Well, you can. And I won’t shame you for wanting to spend only a few minutes in a National Park that I feel, doesn’t offer up a whole lot when compared to other gems out west. If you want to say you’ve seen Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, check it off your list, and say, “Fuck it, let’s get the hell out of here and go to the real mountains,” I say, more power to you.

I might get backlash from this post and I’m OK with that – National Park lovers who haunt online forums and Facebook groups get a bit nutty when it comes to spending time in National Parks. Many of them think you need to spend your entire summer at a National Park or else you “didn’t really experience it.”

I don’t agree with that line of thinking. It’s not realistic. Sure, lots of National Parks have “hundreds of miles of hiking trails” but you don’t need to hike every goddamn one of them to say you’ve seen the park. Unless you’re retired or independently wealthy, you don’t have that kind of time. I know I don’t. And even if I did have unlimited time, I wouldn’t want to spend it all in one spot. I want to see other shit.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is one of those places I wouldn’t want to waste a few days of precious PTO. But I still want to check it off my National Park bucket list – and I imagine you want to too, but you might be afraid to admit it in the Internet groups. I hear ya. So here is how you can say you’ve seen Theodore Roosevelt National Park and not have to use those precious PTO days.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park – Location and Details

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is located near the town of Medora, North Dakota, roughly 2 hours west of Bismark. Now, for this sake of this blog post, I’m going to focus on how to see this park in the shortest possible amount of time. 15 minutes.

Thankfully, for us short-timers, Interstate 94 runs right next to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Even better, there is a visitor center and a short hike literally right off the highway. And to add to it, they have the National Park entrance sign here too. Whoever designed this had all the elements I like in National Parks in mind – a gift shop, the sign for the obligatory picture and a short trail. Absolutely perfect for checking this park off the bucket list as efficiently as possible. Score.

How to spend 15 minutes in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Here is your itinerary for spending a very short time in Theodore Roosevelt National Park – 15 minutes to be exact:

• 8 minutes: Head into the gift shop and buy your obligatory National Park souvenir. (I have to suggest this. This blog’s name is BUT FIRST GIFT SHOP.) If you only plan on being here for 15 minutes, I assume you know what souvenirs you collect, whether it be magnets, coffee mugs, pens, patches, stuffed animals, t-shirts, stickers, hiking pins, cell phone covers, trucker hats, passport stamps, pressed pennies, pillow shams, tote bags, postcards…ok ok ok…I’ll stop. I’m getting carried away. But if you don’t need any gifts, obviously you can skip this and use this time to hit up the bathroom or spend more time taking photos or check out the exhibits in the visitor center.
• 5 minutes: The outdoor area around the visitor center and gift shop provides scenic views of the Painted Canyon. To be fair, the hills are pretty, but if you’ve seen Badlands National Park, it’ll look awfully similar. Walk around, snap some photos, pose for a family snapshot, take a selfie, whatever.
• 2 minutes: Run back to the car, and while you’re peeling out of the parking lot, snap a pic of the sign.
  
  There. Done and DONE.

So this is a little tongue-and-cheek, but my point is that you can say you saw Theodore Roosevelt National Park in a short period of time. If your goal was to see wildlife, keep on driving. You can see those bison in Yellowstone. In fact, you’ll see so many when you get to Yellowstone that you’ll just shrug your shoulders and keep driving after a day in the park. No need to go on a safari in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

If you have a little more time in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

This visitor center area also has a short nature trail – the Painted Canyon Trail, and it’ll take you roughly 30 minutes to hike the loop. The trailhead is right by the visitor center, and is very well-marked. So if your criteria of ‘having visited a national park’ includes hiking a trail, this lil’ spot off of I-94 makes it so easy for you!

Additionally, this is such an excellent, easy way for you to get out and stretch your legs. This stretch of I-94 is brutal – it numbs the ass. It’s likely that by the time you hit the exit for this stop, you’re ready for a break. And the short hike will do you wonders just to get out of the car and get the blood movin’ so you can have the energy to continue onward.

If you have even more time…

But you’re still just passing through, you can take the Medora exit for the park (7 miles west of the Painted Canyons visitor center mentioned above) and drive the scenic loop. This is a 36 mile loop that will take approximately 1 hour, if you’re not doing any hiking. Along the way, you’ll find a prairie dog town and many scenic roadside overlooks. Personally, I haven’t done this myself yet, but I may try this later this summer, depending on how anxious I am to get to my destination.

Final Thoughts

While I’m sure there are folks out there who are huge fans of this park, frankly, I’m not. I’ve seen a good majority of the US National Parks, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park ranks near the bottom. I just didn’t find it all that compelling or beautiful when compared to the other parks in the system. Most of us have limited vacation time, and if you’re planning a trip out west for the first time, it’s really best to focus on the gems of the park system that are (somewhat) in the area – namely Yellowstone and Glacier (which one or both of them are probably why you’re passing through Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the first place). Save your PTO days for those parks, and check this one off your National Park bucket list by using the convenient Painted Canyon rest stop and call it good. If you have unlimited time, by all means, park it here for a month or two. Don’t come crying to me when you are bored to tears after 3 days… 😉

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