South Dakota Board of Tourism

I grew up in rural South Dakota. I didn’t hear the term “flyover country” until I was almost an adult. Chalk it up to Great Plains naivete, but I just wasn’t aware that a lot of the country is conversationally cast as a hub for bi-coastal travel. Maybe I should have been furious, but I found it hilarious. 

Growing up in South Dakota meant sometimes weekly opportunities to see wildlife that many people only read about in books. I had my face shoved in the seriously rank coat of a buffalo before I had a driver’s license. Deer emerging from a cornfield at daybreak was weighed more for its potential to cause an accident than its sheer natural beauty, simply because it happened so frequently. 

The natural and manmade wonders of my home state are so definitive that selling them—to me— just means reminding people that they exist. Telling someone about a man who had the gumption to carve the faces of four of our greatest presidents into a mountain can’t hold a candle to staring at it. In this case, my job was to forcibly jog a memory of a childhood vacation or inspire that trip you’ve always wanted to take.

I love taking the term “flyover country” and turning it on its head, pairing it with the beauty of my home state. It embodies the off-the-beaten-path spirit that’s not only inherent to those of us who grew up in flyover country, but anyone who wants to see what wonderful secrets the middle of the map has been holding onto all this time.