According to a recent AAA report, the Black Hills are one of the most inexpensive places to vacation in the country. And now we can add one more feather into our economical hat: cheap gas. I know, that’s a bit of an oxymoron these days, but at least our gas is comparatively cheap.

This article from Arizona touts Tuscon as having the lowest gas station prices in the nation, according to the Lundberg Survey. However, given Lundberg’s own admission that they don’t include many small and medium-size cities, it seems that AAA’s gas station reports are more accurate – and lo and behold, the article mentions AAA’s report at the end of the article! It says that AAA reported Rapid City and Casper (a couple of hours west from the Black Hills across the border in Wyoming) tying for the cheapest gas in the country on Friday.

Rapid City gas got a little more expensive this week, but we’re still in second with a $3.50 per-gallon average for regular unleaded (Casper beats us with $3.46). That’s about 29 cents per gallon less than the national average – or, to put it another way, about a $4.35 difference on a 15-gallon fill-up.

It’s going to go up, of course, just like gas prices will in the rest of the country, but I bet we keep some of the lowest average prices in the nation through the summer. The Black Hills have had pretty inexpensive gasoline prices for the past couple of years, and that trend will likely continue. It won’t hurt that they’re considering the construction of a new oil refinery just a few hundred miles away in eastern South Dakota.

So not only are hotel, restaurant and activity prices low here, but your gas bill won’t be so bad, either. When you add all that up, it makes the Black Hills a very pocketbook-friendly and economical place to vacation.