Badlands National Park is full of geological oddities, but the 1.5-mile-round-trip Notch Trail is one of the best treks in the South Dakota park. There's something distinctly eerie about the Badlands.

Nowhere on Earth is as rich in quantity and quality of the prehistoric creatures' remains as the Badlands' arid Dinosaur Provincial Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where digs are still under way.

The park consists of two main sections ... take the trail into the Blue Mesa badlands, and consider a hike in the Petrified Forest National Wilderness Area.