Plan a Billings Stay-cation

Many of us have been forced to re-think, reschedule or cancel our summer vacation plans this year, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Depending on where you were originally planning on traveling, many restaurants, venues, and activities like theme parks and other tourist attractions are either closed or operating with restrictions. At my house, we canceled our planned summer trip to the Midwest that included: a family reunion in Devil's Lake, ND, a Twins game in Minneapolis, visiting family in Iowa, and then hitting up the attractions in Rapid City on the way home.

My wife and I thought we deserved a little break from the kids, dogs, and day-to-day pandemonium that ensues in our household, so over Father's Day weekend we booked a couple of nights in downtown Billings and pretended we were somewhere else. I know downtown gets a bad rap sometimes, but if you view it through the eyes of a tourist it's actually pretty fun. After dropping the car off with the valet we didn't have to drive anywhere for two days and spent the weekend eating, drinking, and window shopping around a 6 block area of the hotel.

Here are some highlights of fun things in downtown Billings that are all very walkable from two of the big hotels.