Day Trippin' › Montana › From Dillon
From Dillon, Bannack ghost town is about half an hour away, Butte under an hour, Virginia City and Nevada City about an hour and 15, and Lewis and Clark Caverns about an hour and a half. The best day trips from Dillon, by drive time.
79 places within a 3-hour drive, by real roads.
Ghost town · 32 min west
Montana's first territorial capital and gold strike site, with more than 50 buildings you can walk into along Main Street.
Town · 53 min north
Once called the Richest Hill on Earth, this copper mining city has one of the nation's largest historic districts and old mine headframes.
Museum · 54 min north
A mining museum on the old Orphan Girl Mine in Butte with a recreated 1890s mining camp and an underground mine tour.
Town · 1 hr 15 min east
A gold rush town of 1863 and Montana's territorial capital, with wooden storefronts, shops and summer shows along Alder Gulch.
Cave · 1 hr 28 min northeast
Guided tours wind through one of the largest limestone caves in the Northwest, full of stalactites and columns.
Historic site · 1 hr 15 min north
A working cattle ranch in Deer Lodge that tells the story of the open-range cattle era, with the ranch house, barns and living history.
Waterfall · 1 hr 20 min north
A narrow canyon near Anaconda with 1,200-foot cliffs and a short walk to 50-foot Lost Creek Falls.
Wildlife · 1 hr 40 min south
Ponds and marshes in the sagebrush draw sandhill cranes, trumpeter swans, waterfowl, moose and pronghorn, on a 3.5- or 7-mile auto tour.
Swimming · 1 hr 52 min north
A small spring-fed lake at the edge of Helena with a beach, swimming and a 0.8-mile nature trail around the water.
Viewpoint · 1 hr 18 min north
A pile of boulders east of Butte that ring like bells when tapped with a hammer.
Family fun · 1 hr 50 min northwest
Dig through gravel for your own sapphires at a mine on the Skalkaho Pass road west of Philipsburg.
Museum · 2 hr 1 min east
A big natural and cultural history museum at Montana State University in Bozeman, with a dinosaur hall that includes the Big Mike T. rex and a planetarium.
State park · 2 hr 40 min southeast
A wildlife refuge on the Henrys Fork with moose, elk and trumpeter swans, a historic ranch, trails, famous fly fishing and groomed ski trails in winter.
Museum · 2 hr 55 min northeast
A Great Falls museum devoted to the cowboy artist Charles M. Russell and other western and Indigenous art.
Historic site · 2 hr 56 min north
A mile-long sandstone cliff near Great Falls, possibly the largest bison jump in North America, with a visitor center on buffalo culture.
Ghost town · 2 hr 30 min north
One of Montana's best-preserved ghost towns, a high gold camp of the 1890s with many buildings still standing, east of Missoula.
National park · 2 hr 38 min southeast
The busy western gate to Yellowstone right at the edge of West Yellowstone, leading toward Madison and the geyser basins.
Hot spring · 2 hr 54 min south
A small canyon town built around public hot mineral pools (about 102 to 112°F), with tubing on the Portneuf River in summer.
Hot spring · 2 hr 42 min east
A historic hot springs resort in Paradise Valley near Pray with outdoor soaking pools open to day visitors.
Drive times are by road on a typical day from ZIP 59725 (OpenStreetMap data with the OSRM route planner). Facts checked against official sites; passes and hours change, so check before you go.