Reviews & Comments
Hot Springs, SD
Small town living -
12/16/2023We are South Dakota natives and we moved to Hot Springs in 2023 after retiring. This move was predicated on a long-time knowledge of the city and many visits here going back to the mid-1990s. With that as a background, here’s why we chose to retire in Hot Springs. Number one, we like small towns. We have lived in cities with populations in the millions (Chicago and Hong Kong) and other cities both in the USA and internationally. We can happily say small-town life suits us. If you need to live in a city, Hot Springs is not for you. With that caveat aside, Hot Springs, SD has a lot going for it. Medical care is above average, with a well-run community hospital and a Veterans Administration Medical Center. Thus the town has a high proportion of retired military. Shopping is good for a small town with two grocery supermarkets, hardware and home improvement stores, banks and restaurants (lots of restaurants). Hot Springs is also a tourist destination with, naturally, several hot spring spas and a large indoor spring-fed public pool, a picturesque historical district and the world famous Mammoth site. So for eight months of the year we’re inundated with tourists. We would love them more if they learned how to drive. There’s lots of motel rooms and camp grounds if you care to visit. There are no big-box stores in Hot Springs. If you need a Walmart, Target, Lowes, Best Buy, McDonalds, etc, forget it. Your choices in chains are Pizza Hut, Taco Johns and Dairy Queen. That’s it. If you need a chain store or restaurant, you’ll need to drive to Rapid City, SD, 52 miles away. Also, you’ll need to go to Rapid City if you want to buy a new car, have medical needs that require a specialist or you have to find some professionals (although there seems to be an ample supply of lawyers in Hot Springs, which is the county seat of Fall River County.) Housing, if you can find it, is relatively affordable but there’s not a lot of turnover in the housing market. In our search for a home in Hot Springs we saw only one to two suitable properties. That said, as of 2023 you could still find a nice 1500+/- square foot home on a decent-sized lot in a good neighborhood for well under $275,000. (There are no bad neighborhoods in Hot Springs, in terms of housing, as the community is quite homogeneous.) The main attraction in Hot Springs, of course, is the Black Hills of South Dakota and all the outdoor activities the Hills provide. In terms of culture and the arts, Hot Springs lags although there are a good number of restaurants and coffee shops – some very good. Also a large, well-endowed civic center houses a full calendar of events, including frequent craft fairs. Prices in Hot Springs tend to be slightly higher than in larger cities. It’s a small town thing. Finally, there is the climate. We might disagree with the Best Places rating and give the climate an 8.5/8.5. Hot Springs benefits from a very mild micro climate due to its elevation. Thus summers do not tend to be overly hot (AC is not necessary) and winters are not extreme. In the end, it was the climate – not too hot, not too cold – that closed the deal for us.