Things to do in Sheridan
And where to stay, the best time to visit, what a day costs, and the traps to skip.
Best time to visit Sheridan
• a note or something on ✦ an occasion worth the trip
Best months: comfortable weather, fewer crowds, wildflowers in late June and golden light in September.
Peak and priciest for the WYO Rodeo, with the town fullest and afternoon thunderstorms a given.
High summer with polo in full season and the Collective Arts Festival and County Fair.
Worst for a first mountain trip: high roads closed or winter bound and the Medicine Wheel inaccessible.
Winter Rodeo and skijoring make February a deliberate, joyful cold trip.
Shoulder month: town is easy and trails begin to open, but high roads may still be shut.
What's on
- Sheridan WYO Rodeo Usually the second week of July
Four nights of professional rodeo plus the World Championship Indian Relay Races and a week of 50 plus events.
- Sheridan WYO Winter Rodeo February, skijoring weekend
Horses pull skiers through jumps, gates and rings, with cowboy polo, bike races and concerts.
- 3rd Thursday Street Festival Third Thursdays, June to September
Main Street closes to traffic for music, food vendors and makers on summer evenings.
- Collective Arts Festival Usually a Saturday in early August
A free day at Whitney Commons with live music, an artisan village, hands on art and food trucks.
- Sheridan County Fair Late July to early August
The full agricultural county fair version of the town.
- Christmas Stroll Late November, Friday after Thanksgiving
Downtown lights, fireworks and more than 40 participating businesses draw thousands of visitors.
Best things to do in Sheridan
The Brinton Museum
A major Western and American Indian art collection on a historic ranch at the foot of the Bighorns, and entry is free.
King's Saddlery and Museum
A working saddlery and rope shop with a dense Western museum at the back, still serving real ranch hands.
Trail End State Historic Site
A 1913 Flemish Revival mansion kept with original furnishings, showing how Wyoming cattle money lived at its peak.
Sheridan Inn, BW Signature Collection
The 1893 landmark hotel where Buffalo Bill held Wild West auditions on the porch, open to visit for a meal or drink.
WYO Performing Arts and Education Center
Sheridan's restored theater for touring shows, concerts and film, the reason most evenings in town have a real event.
Historic Downtown Sheridan
A compact, still working Main Street of brick Old West buildings that holds most of the town's sights within a few blocks.
Mint Bar
A 1907 saloon kept in its late 1940s knotty pine and cattle brand interior, a museum that serves drinks.
Black Tooth Brewing Company
Sheridan's flagship brewery with a lively taproom, patio, live music and food trucks, a short walk from Main Street.
Where to stay in Sheridan
Historic Downtown and Broadway
first trips, walkers, festival nights
Walk to the Inn, the WYO, the restaurants and the bars, with easy parking and quiet streets at night.
North Main and the Downtown Edge
value with a walk still possible
Downtown end properties stay walkable to Main Street, while farther north becomes a car base.
Sibley Circle and I-90
road trippers and late arrivals
Modern chain cluster off the interstate, five minutes by car from downtown and easy with luggage at night.
Coffeen Avenue
best cheap base, car required
The south commercial road holds Sheridan's best cheap sleep, with easy parking and no pretense of charm.
Wolf Creek and the Bighorn Foothills
a ranch stay
Days organized around horses and meals at a working ranch, about 25 minutes from town.
Think twice about
- Far North Main motel strip
Bleak, noisy and car dependent beyond the walkable core. It is not dangerous, it is just a poor base for a town trip.
Best restaurants in Sheridan
Le Rêve Restaurant & Raw Bar
Sheridan's one fine dining room, French inspired with a raw bar, live piano and flown in oysters in a historic building.
Frackelton's
Downtown's gastropub, the default good dinner in town for its pork chop, ribeye, truffle fries and cocktails.
Wyoming's Rib & Chop House
The town's steakhouse institution in a historic building, the safest dinner recommendation for a mixed group.
Smith Alley
The brewery kitchen dinner, house beer with serious burgers in the easiest group room in downtown.
Sapporo Japanese Steakhouse
Hibachi tables and sushi, the town's reliable answer when the group wants anything but steak and burgers.
PO News & Flagstaff Cafe
The downtown cafe with the front window seat on Main Street, for breakfast or lunch at a local pace.
Cowboy Cafe
The Western diner for elk sausage omelettes, game burgers, biscuits and gravy and homemade pie from 7am.
Silver Spur Cafe
A classic small diner at straight cheap prices with the joint best cafe rating in town, ideal before a Bighorn day.
Outdoor things to do in Sheridan
Tongue River Canyon
The best first Bighorn hike, a limestone canyon trail beside the Tongue River about half an hour from Sheridan.
Steamboat Point
A short, brisk climb to a limestone crag with a panorama over Tongue River Canyon to the Cloud Peak Wilderness.
Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark
An 80 foot sacred stone circle at nearly 10,000 feet, still a living ceremonial place, reached by a high mountain walk.
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument
The 1876 battlefield an hour north, where the open grassland itself and markers for both sides tell the story.
Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site
The largest stockaded fort on the northern Plains, with trails at the Fetterman and Wagon Box fight sites nearby.
Shell Falls Interpretive Site
A 120 foot waterfall on the Bighorn Scenic Byway, the mountain excursion for travelers without hiking boots.
Flying H Polo Club
World level summer polo against the Bighorn front that anyone can watch free from the tailgate line.
The Powder Horn Golf Club
A private Troon managed 27 hole club under the Bighorn front, Sheridan's luxury round if you can arrange access.
Best hotels in Sheridan
Sheridan Inn, BW Signature Collection
Twenty two themed suites in the 1893 landmark, with period furnishings, clawfoot tubs and no televisions by design.
Residence Hill Bed & Breakfast
A classic B and B in a historic house near downtown, known for its porch and a cooked breakfast guests rave about.
Best Western Sheridan Center
A large, predictable chain hotel a short walk from Main Street, with breakfast and the modern fittings the Inn lacks.
Hampton Inn Sheridan
The default chain stay in the I-90 cluster, an easy late arrival with breakfast and parking at the door.
Fairfield by Marriott Inn & Suites Sheridan
The fresher feeling chain option in the I-90 cluster, with suites in the mix and breakfast included.
Mill Inn
A converted historic flour mill motel with clean, quiet rooms at the best cheap rates in town.
Eatons' Ranch
The original dude ranch, all inclusive with riding, fishing and family style meals on 7,000 acres by the forest.
Is Sheridan expensive? What a day costs
| Budget | $85 a person |
|---|---|
| Classic | $165 a person |
| Splurge | $340 a person |
A day of food, drink, sights and getting around, before the room
What to book ahead
- WYO Performing Arts and Education Center: a few days ahead
- The Powder Horn Golf Club: weeks ahead
- Kendrick Municipal Golf Course: a few days ahead
- Eatons' Ranch: weeks ahead
- Sheridan Inn, BW Signature Collection: weeks ahead
- Residence Hill Bed & Breakfast: weeks ahead
- Eatons' Ranch: months ahead
- Le Rêve Restaurant & Raw Bar: weeks ahead
- Eatons' Ranch books months ahead for peak summer weeks.
- Le Reve serves Wednesday to Saturday only, so reserve days or weeks ahead.
- WYO Rodeo tickets go on sale in early April and Friday and Saturday sell hardest.
- The Sheridan Inn suites, Residence Hill, Frackelton's weekends and guided days all need weeks in summer.
Is Sheridan safe?
- The real hazards are altitude, fast weather, afternoon lightning and rattlesnakes, not city streets.
- Carry bear spray for forest hikes and tell someone your trail.
- Winter roads and drinking after rodeo nights are the risks to plan around.
- Give ceremonies at the Medicine Wheel and private ranch land the respect of distance.
Sheridan travel tips: tourist traps to skip
- Treating Sheridan as a one night stop between Yellowstone and the Black Hills.
- Basing a town trip in the I-90 chain strip and driving to every dinner.
- Giving the Brinton only 40 minutes when it needs half a day.
- Driving for the Medicine Wheel on a marginal weather day.
- Assuming the Powder Horn golf club is public when Kendrick is the guaranteed round.
Getting around Sheridan: public transport and more
- You need a car: there is no meaningful transit and every excursion requires your own wheels.
- Base downtown and your evenings are entirely on foot.
- Download mountain maps and fuel up in Sheridan or Dayton before leaving town.
- Check Wyoming road conditions for US 14, US 14A and the Medicine Wheel road outside high summer.
Who Sheridan suits
| Solo travellers | Good |
|---|---|
| Groups of friends | Great |
| Couples | Great |
| Bachelor parties | Not ideal |
| Families | Good |
| Bachelorette parties | Not ideal |
Make Sheridan your trip
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