Getting Here and Around

Air

Within eastern Montana, frequent commercial flights—generally via Salt Lake City, Seattle, Denver, or Phoenix—are available only to Billings and Great Falls, the only major airports in this vast region. Cape Air offers flights to small towns like Glendive and Sidney, and charter flights can be arranged. Because the region is so isolated, flights here from anywhere in the country can be pricey—often more expensive than coast-to-coast flights. Some residents of the region drive as far as Bismarck, North Dakota; Rapid City, South Dakota; or Gillette, Wyoming, to catch departing flights.

Airports

Billings Logan International Airport. 406/247--8609; www.flybillings.com.

Great Falls International Airport. 406/727–3404; www.flygtf.com.

Car

It is virtually impossible to travel around the Montana plains without a car. You can get by in Billings with Uber, Lyft, or a taxi service, but drivers are few and far between, and it will be expensive. One of the best things about driving here is the lack of traffic. Aside from a little bustle in Great Falls or Billings on weekdays in the late afternoon, gridlock and traffic jams are unheard of. The largest driving hazards will be slow-moving farming or ranching equipment, herds of grazing livestock that refuse to move off the highway, and deer bounding over ditches in the evening. Driving gets a little hairy in winter, but not because of the amount of snow that falls, which is generally very little. Whiteouts, when winds tearing across the plains whip up the tiniest bit of snow into ground blizzards, are the most common hazard. Large drifts and slick roads become more problematic at higher elevations.

Train

Amtrak serves the isolated communities of the Hi-Line with its Empire Builder line, running three trains a week from Chicago to Seattle or Portland. The tracks run nearly parallel to U.S. 2 the entire length of the state. Trains stop in the towns of Glasgow, Malta, Havre, Wolf Point, and Cut Bank, among others.