North Dakota

North Dakota's main draw for visitors is Theodore Roosevelt National Park, 70,447 acres of buttes, bison and wild horses in the west of the state. The park had 729,893 recreation visits in 2025, and the state's two other Park Service sites had fewer than 10,000 each.

Medora, the park's gateway town, is 133 miles west of Bismarck and about 326 road miles from Fargo. We read the figures below on 27 October 2026 on the National Park Service's pages, the State Tax Commissioner's, the airports' and the Presidential Library's own sites, the federal time-zone rules and NOAA's normals.

What does the Park Service run in North Dakota besides Theodore Roosevelt?

North Dakota has two small Park Service sites besides Theodore Roosevelt: Knife River Indian Villages and Fort Union Trading Post, and both are free. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and the International Peace Garden are not federal and sell their own tickets.

Theodore Roosevelt first came to the area in 1883, aged 24, to hunt bison. The park was set up as a national memorial park in 1947 and became a national park in 1978. The Park Service also lists two national trails in the state, the Lewis and Clark and the North Country.

Is the South Unit Scenic Loop open again?

The South Unit Scenic Loop, a 36-mile paved road from Medora, is open again in full. Slides caused by severe rain in 2019 damaged more than six miles of it. The Park Service reopened the whole loop on 25 November 2025, after a rebuild of about $51 million.

The loop is a two-way road for cars and cyclists, and the park suggests at least two hours for it. A later alert closed mile 6.5 to mile 15.5 from 11 to 15 May 2026 for repairs, and those dates have passed. On 27 October 2026 the park published no current road status: its road-closures page was an empty template.

The 0.6-mile Ridgeline Nature Trail is still listed as "currently inaccessible due to road collapse" on the South Unit page. Wind Canyon, 0.4 miles, and Coal Vein, 0.8 miles, are other short trails in the South Unit. Parts of the loop and of the North Unit road may close in winter for snow and ice.

Why do the South and North Units keep different clocks?

The South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park runs on Mountain Time and the North Unit on Central Time, in the Park Service's own words. The federal boundary between the two zones runs along the Little Missouri River through McKenzie County.

The drive from Medora to the North Unit therefore loses an hour on the clock. The units are about 70 miles apart. The Park Service puts the drive at 1 hour 10 minutes, and our own routing at closer to 1 hour 20. Bismarck, Fargo, Minot, Williston, Knife River and Fort Union are all on Central Time.

The North Unit's 14-mile scenic drive is an out-and-back road of 28 miles in all, paved except for one gravel stretch. It climbs to River Bend Overlook and ends at Oxbow Overlook, and the park suggests at least 1 hour 15 minutes. A temporary contact station serves as its visitor centre.

Watford City, about 15 miles north of the North Unit entrance, has lodging, food, fuel and groceries. Neither unit has any services, restaurants or lodging inside the park. Clocks in both zones went back an hour on 1 November 2026.

Where do bison and wild horses graze in Theodore Roosevelt National Park?

Bison roam both the North and South units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and most visitors see them from the park roads. The Park Service keeps the North Unit herd at 100 to 300 animals and the South Unit herd at 200 to 500.

Feral horses live in the South Unit only. They descend from domestic stock and are kept "as a cultural resource", and are often visible from the Scenic Loop and from I-94. Elk also live only in the South Unit, which has three prairie-dog towns along its road. A small demonstration herd of longhorns is kept in the North Unit.

The park's rule is to keep at least 25 yards from all wildlife. In the North Unit, bison are often visible from the scenic drive at all hours of the day. A helicopter roundup there, set for 18 to 23 October 2026, was to transfer up to 100 bison live to Tribes.

How do you reach the Elkhorn Ranch, Roosevelt's home ranch?

The Elkhorn Ranch Unit, where Theodore Roosevelt made his home ranch after the deaths of his wife and mother, is reached only by unpaved roads. The last three miles sometimes need four-wheel drive or a high-clearance vehicle, and much of the route has no phone signal.

From the South Unit, the Park Service's route takes I-94 west to exit 10, then about 30 miles of unpaved county roads. A 0.7-mile mowed path leads to the cabin site, where only the foundation stones remain. The unit has no visitor centre, facilities or scenic road, and the park asks visitors to check road conditions at a visitor centre first.

Can you pay cash at Theodore Roosevelt National Park?

Theodore Roosevelt National Park has taken no cash since 1 May 2026. Entrance fees are paid by credit card, debit card or mobile payment. Visitors with only cash can buy a pass from one of two local vendors, which the park does not name. An older park page still mentions self-pay stations and a drop box; the newer fee page and the park's March 2026 notice replace it.

The fee applies all year. Entrance stations collect it from May to September, and the visitor centres the rest of the year. When they are closed, the pass is sold online at Recreation.gov. The park issues no timed-entry permits, and it is open 24 hours a day.

The park is not on the 2026 list of eleven parks that charge visitors from abroad an extra $100. Two adults from abroad in one car pay $30 for all three units of the park, and nothing at Knife River or Fort Union. The $250 non-resident annual pass therefore does not pay off in North Dakota alone. Theodore Roosevelt's birthday, 27 October, is a fee-free day, but only for US residents from 2026.

Campsites at Cottonwood and Juniper campgrounds must be booked on Recreation.gov from 1 May 2026, up to six months ahead, though Recreation.gov's notices still mention self-registration in winter, so confirm before arriving. Cottonwood fills every night in summer, and the park has no hotels or cabins. Our guide to national park fees for international visitors explains how the passes work.

What are the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library's autumn hours?

The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora opens Tuesday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and at weekends from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. until 30 November, and its schedule lists no Monday hours. From 1 December to 1 March it opens Wednesday to Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The library opened to the public for the first time on 4 July 2026, in a building designed by Snøhetta. Adults aged 13 and over pay $26, children aged 3 to 12 pay $16, and under-3s go free. General admission is by timed ticket, and walk-ups are let in as space allows.

The library suggests allowing about three and a half hours, and the last timed entry is 90 minutes before closing. It closes on Thanksgiving, 25 December and 1 January. The roof, grounds, boardwalk, restaurant and shop need no ticket. The hours page names no time zone; Medora is on Mountain Time.

What is left of the earthlodge villages at Knife River?

Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site keeps the sites of villages where earthlodge people lived as farmers along the Missouri, and hunted bison too. The Park Service calls the place a major trade centre for hundreds of years, before it became a market for fur traders after 1750.

Knife River charges no entrance fee for its visitor centre, museum, earthlodge or trails. The visitor centre and earthlodge open all year from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central, except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. The site is half a mile north of Stanton, an hour north-west of Bismarck by the Park Service's reckoning.

Fort Union Trading Post, also free, stands on ND 1804 on the Montana line, 25 miles south-west of Williston. Its 2026 hours load by script and could not be read; its past alerts give them in Central Time. The fort closed at short notice for winter weather on 16 January 2026, so check before a winter visit. Our guide to Montana covers the state on the other side.

The International Peace Garden straddles the border with Manitoba, about 110 miles from Minot by our own routing. It is not a Park Service site and charges its own fee. Its own website blocked our reading, so we print no prices, hours or border rules for it.

How do you fly to North Dakota from abroad?

Fargo and Williston, the two airports whose route lists we could read, have no international flights. Visitors from abroad connect through a hub such as Minneapolis–St Paul or Denver. Fargo's Hector International flies nonstop to both and has the widest choice in the state. Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier and United fly from there to Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Minneapolis–St Paul, Nashville and Phoenix-Mesa.

Fargo adds seasonal flights to Orlando-Sanford, Phoenix Sky Harbor and St. Pete–Clearwater. Williston Basin International flies all year to Denver on United and seasonally to Las Vegas on Sun Country. The Bismarck and Minot airport sites could not be read, so we list no routes for them. Minneapolis–St Paul, with over 160 destinations including Amsterdam, is covered in our guide to Minnesota.

Amtrak's Empire Builder, the daily train from Chicago to Seattle and Portland, stops at Fargo, Grand Forks, Devils Lake, Rugby, Minot, Stanley and Williston. It does not reach Bismarck, Dickinson or Medora, and no public transport runs inside Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

The distances without "about" are the Park Service's, as are the times to the North Unit and Knife River. The rest is our own routing, whose times run longer than the Park Service's. Rapid City and the Black Hills are in our guide to South Dakota.

How cold is a North Dakota January?

A North Dakota January is severe: Fargo averages a high of 18°F and a low of 0°F, and Bismarck 23°F and 2°F. Fargo has about 42 nights a year at or below 0°F. The state's record low, in the National Weather Service's words, is "60 degrees below zero recorded in Parshall" on 15 February 1936.

The table gives NOAA's 1991 to 2020 average highs and lows at four stations. Dickinson's airport station is 35 miles east of Medora; NOAA's own Medora station, in the South Unit at 2,268 feet, averages a January low of 3.4°F and a July high of 85.6°F. Fargo gets about 51 inches of snow a year and Bismarck about 50. The state's record high, 121°F, came at Steele on 6 July 1936.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park counted 78% of its 2025 visits between June and September, and July was the busiest month, with 155,747. November to March brought fewer than 4%.

What do sales and lodging taxes add in Fargo, Bismarck and Medora?

North Dakota's state sales tax is 5%, and cities and counties add their own. From 1 October 2026 a purchase carries 7.75% in Fargo, 8% in Bismarck, Minot and Williston, and 7.5% in Medora. Dickinson and Watford City charge 6.5%. Minot's rate rose by half a point on 1 October 2026.

Hotels add local lodging taxes on top. Bismarck adds 2% on rooms and a 1% lodging and restaurant tax that also covers food and drink. A room there carries about 11% in all, by our own arithmetic. Medora adds 2% on rooms, about 9.5% in all.

Fargo adds its own 3% city lodging tax to the 7.75% sales tax on a room, about 10.75% in all by our own arithmetic. Fargo voters approved a second 3% in November 2024 to pay for a convention centre. On 22 June 2026 the city said it could not collect that tax until it amends its ordinances, aiming to start on 1 January 2027.

Grand Forks and Minot also run their own lodging taxes. Car rentals at the airport facilities in Bismarck, Grand Forks and Minot carry an extra 1%. Our guide to sales tax in the USA explains why prices are shown before tax.