8 Little House on the Prairie locations to visit
“Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs.” This is the first line of the first book in what became know as the Little House on the Prairie series. If you were ever a fan of the books or the 1970s TV series, you probably know that they were based loosely on the real-life story of the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and her family. They depict their lives as homesteaders in the American Midwest. That means that the places described in the stories were real, and you can visit many of the Little House on the Prairie locations today.
[Last Updated August 1, 2026]
Before I go on, I should point out that this article started several years ago when I was part of a short-lived podcast series. One of our interviewees was Deb Thompson of justshortofcrazy.com, who told us about her experience following the historical footsteps of Laura Ingalls Wilder. This article expands on that conversation.
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Laura Ingalls Wilder sites
The following list of Little House on the Prairie sites reflects the chronology of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life. But first, here’s a map with all of the sites marked on it. Don’t be fooled by how near some of them seem to be: visiting all of them would mean a lot of driving! Best to pick and choose which ones are most appealing and convenient to your other planned destinations. (The map does not include the one site that’s in New York.)
1. Pepin, Wisconsin
This is the place where Laura was born, and it counts as a Little House on the Prairie location because it is where she later set Little House in the Big Woods.
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthplace replica
In Pepin, you can visit a replica of the log cabin where she was born in 1867. The museum includes things like period clothing and tools to give an impression of what life was like for frontier settlers. Children will enjoy the period school room, as well as the covered wagon.
Book your accommodation in Pepin, Wisconsin.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum: 306 Third Street (Hwy. 35), Pepin, Wisconsin. Museum open daily 10:00-17:00 from May 1 to October 31. Closed November-April. Adults $10, children $4. Website.
2. Independence, Kansas
Laura and her family moved to Independence in 1868 or 1869, but didn’t stay long before moving back to Wisconsin. They had unintentionally settled on the Osage Reservation and received an order from the government to move out about a year later. Nevertheless, with a little artistic license making her older than she in fact was, she set Little House on the Prairie there.
Little House on the Prairie Museum
At the Little House on the Prairie Museum in Independence, you can view a replica of the log cabin Laura lived in for that one year and where her younger sister, Carrie, was born. There’s also an original 1871 schoolhouse and an 1885 post office that have been moved to the site. You can even see the actual well that Pa (Charles Ingalls) dug by hand.
Book your accommodation in Independence, Kansas.
Little House on the Prairie Museum: 2507 CR3000, Independence, Kansas. Follow the billboards from Hwy. 75. Open daily “spring break to Halloween” 10:00-17:00. Closed the rest of the year, though you can still visit the property and see the outsides of the buildings. Admission: Adults $5, children 4-17 $3. Website.
3. Walnut Grove, Minnesota
Walnut Grove is where Laura set her book, On the Banks of Plum Creek, and where Laura lived with her family in a dugout from 1874-1876. A dugout was a house dug into the ground rather than sitting on top of it, with a roof made of beams and sod.
The dugout site
Walnut Grove is also where most of the tv series is set. In real life, the Ingalls family’s stay in Walnut Grove wasn’t very successful. After their third crop failure, they gave up homesteading and moved to Iowa. You can visit the site of the dugout, but the dugout itself isn’t there anymore: only a depression in the ground and an informational sign mark the spot where it was. The area has been planted with native grasses and has a picnic area.
Dugout site: 13501 County Road 5, Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Open during daylight May-October. Admission $10 per car. Website.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum
The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove doesn’t seem to hold much in its collection that is directly linked to the author except for some historical documents and a quilt. It’s more of a “settlers on the prairie” museum than anything else, with a doll collection, displays about covered wagons, and several historical buildings including the historical Walnut Grove jail cell. They also house memorabilia from the Little House on the Prairie tv series.
Find accommodation near Walnut Grove, Minnesota.
If you visit in July, don’t miss the annual Wilder Pageant, an outdoor drama based on the books, held over three weekends in the evenings. The story is narrated by Laura.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum: 330 8th Street, Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Open April to October. April hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10:00-17:00. In May-September the hours are Monday-Saturday 10:00-17:00 and Sunday 12:00-17:00. October opening hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10:00-17:00 and Sunday 12:00-17:00. Closed November-March. Admission: Adults $12, Children 5-12 $5. Website.
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Sod House on the Prairie
About 20 minutes’ drive straight east of Walnut Grove, outside of Sanborn, Minnesota, you’ll find Sod House on the Prairie. It’s not a Little House on the Prairie location, but this little private museum has a collection of replica sod houses that you can explore, set in several acres of restored prairie. It might be worth the stop just to imagine what the prairie once looked and felt like, and how the Ingalls family lived in their dugout in Walnut Grove.
Sod House on the Prairie: one mile east of the junction of Highways 71 and 14. Open daily in spring, summer and fall from 10:00-16:00. Closed in the winter. Admission: $5 for age 7 and up. Pay at the farmhouse, cash or Venmo only. Website.
4. Burr Oak, Iowa
After they lived in Walnut Grove, the Ingalls family moved briefly to Lake City, Minnesota, and then lived for a short time with relatives in South Troy, Minnesota. Laura’s baby brother, Freddie, died, after which they moved to Burr Oak, Iowa, and then back to Walnut Grove.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum
In Burr Oak, Charles (a.k.a. Pa) helped manage the Masters Hotel, now the Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum. A guided tour tells about that one year when Laura and her family lived in the hotel before moving back to Walnut Grove. She didn’t set any of her books in the Masters Hotel, perhaps because the memories were less idyllic: failed crops and the death of her little brother.
Book your accommodation nearby in Decorah, Iowa.
The hotel can only be visited via a guided tour. You can sign up for a tour at the Visitor’s Center at the Burr Oak Mercantile, a restored shop. The museum includes other historic buildings: a former bank building, where you can see the original vault and learn about the building’s history, and a one-room schoolhouse, furnished as it originally looked in 1915.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Park & Museum: 3603 236th Avenue, Burr Oak, Iowa. Open in May Monday-Saturday 10:00-16:00; June, July and August Monday-Saturday 10:00-17:00 and Sunday 12:00-16:00; September to mid-October Thursday-Saturday 10:00-16:00. Closed all winter. The last tour each day starts an hour before closing time. Admission: Adults $10, children 6-17 $6. Website.
5. De Smet, South Dakota
The family moved back to Walnut Grove, but only for a couple of years. Their next stop was De Smet, South Dakota. This is where Laura set By the Shores of Silver Lake and then The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years.
Ingalls Homestead
De Smet’s museum, called Ingalls Homestead, focuses on actively learning about the pioneer days, offering experiences like riding a covered wagon, attending a lesson in a one-room school house, making a corncob doll, or washing laundry by hand using a washboard. You can also spend the night in a covered wagon or book a campsite (info here).
The homestead includes a number of replica buildings: a dugout, a claim shanty, a barn, a church, a school – all matching the period portrayed in the books. You can even see the surviving cottonwood trees that “Pa” planted on the homestead.
Ingalls Homestead: 20812 Homestead Road, De Smet, South Dakota. Hours vary, but from late May to early September it’s open daily from 9:00-19:00 with all activities available 10:00-18:00. September hours are daily 9:00-17:00 with activities available 11:00-14:00 on daily except Saturday, when they’re available 10:00-16:00. The schoolhouse section is only offered on Saturdays in September. Open daily in October 9:00-17:00, but no activities. Closed November-April, with variable hours in May because they’re busy with school field trips. Check their website. Admission: $21.15 for 5 and up, valid for more than one day if you’re staying longer, all activities included.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Homes Tour
The Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Homes Tour is worth taking as well. It allows you to see inside two of the homes in De Smet where the Ingalls family lived. One is called the Surveyor’s House and was the family’s home while Charles Ingalls worked for the railroad. Laura described it in By the Shores of Silver Lake. Later, they moved to the home that Charles built for his wife, Caroline, in 1887-89. This house is also on the tour. By this time, Laura had married Almanzo Wilder and moved out. The tour also takes visitors to the schoolhouse that Laura and her little sister, Carrie, attended.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Homes Tour: Buy tickets at 105 Olivet Avenue, De Smet, South Dakota. Tour times vary and sometimes the tours are taken by school fieldtrips. Tours take place in September-April on Tuesday-Saturday 9:00-16:00; in May Monday-Saturday 9:00-16:00 and June-August Monday-Saturday 9:00-17:30 and Sunday 12:00-17:30. Admission: Adults $18, children 6-12 $10. Website.
Loftus Store, the cemetery, and Almanzo Wilder’s homestead
Other Laura Ingalls Wilder-related things to see in De Smet include the Loftus Store at 205 Calumet Avenue SW, which appears in The Long Winter and is now a gift shop.
You can also visit the Ingalls family grave site at De Smet Cemetery outside of town on 208th Street (turn south from route 14 onto 432nd Avenue to the corner with 208th Street). Caroline, Charles, Mary, Carrie, and Grace are buried here, as well as Genevieve Masters (Nellie Oleson in the stories) and the baby son of Laura and Almanzo Wilder.
Almanzo Wilder’s homestead claim, where he and Laura spent their early married life, is just north of De Smet on Highway 25. Today none of the structures survive, though, and there’s nothing to see but an informational marker and some fields.
If you’re not going to camp in a covered wagon at the Ingalls Homestead, find other accommodations in or near De Smet.
6. Spring Valley, Minnesota
Things did not go smoothly in Laura and Almanzo’s early married life near De Smet: a series of events – failed crops, a barn fire, a bout of diphtheria, the loss of an infant child, and a house fire – led them to move away temporarily. Their first stop was Spring Valley, where Almanzo’s family lived. They stayed for less than a year in 1890-91.
Book your accommodation in Spring Valley, Minnesota.
Spring Valley Methodist Church
The church where the Wilder family worshipped, the Spring Valley Methodist Church, still stands and today houses a small museum. While the church has some Wilder family-related items, it is more about Spring Valley history in general. Besides the church, you can tour the 1865 Washburn-Zittleman House.
Spring Valley Museum: 220-221 West Courtland Street, Spring Valley, Minnesota. Open daily 10:00-16:00 from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Church admission: Adults $10, Children 5-16 $4. Admission to the church, the Washburn-Zittlemand House and the History Hall: Adults $12, children 5-16 $4. Website.
7. Mansfield, Missouri: Where the series was born
Next, Laura and Almanzo took a trip to Florida to consider moving there, but instead returned to De Smet. Within a few years, Laura, Almanzo and their daughter Rose had settled in Mansfield for good. It’s not a Little House on the Prairie site, as such, since none of her stories are set here. It’s important to her story, though, because it’s where she wrote the books. She didn’t even start writing them until she was 65 years old.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum
The Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum includes two different houses: a farmhouse that Laura and her husband lived in for many years, and a more modern house that their daughter Rose gave them later. Laura wrote the first four books at the newer home, but then moved back to the farmhouse.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum: 3060 Highway A, Mansfield, Missouri. Open March 1-November 15, Monday-Saturday 9:00-17:00 and Sunday 12:30-17:00. Admission: Adults $18, children 6-17 $8. Buy your tickets at the new museum before visiting the houses. Website.
Mansfield Cemetery
Laura Ingalls Wilder died in 1957, which means she lived in Mansfield for more than 60 years. The last of the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites is, of course, where she was buried: Mansfield Cemetery. She was laid to rest next to Almanzo, who died before her in 1949.
Mansfield Cemetery: 200 N Lincoln St, Mansfield.
8. Malone, New York: Almanzo’s childhood home
For the true Little House on the Prairie series fanatic, there’s one more site to visit. One of the books was called Farmer Boy, based on Almanzo Wilder’s childhood in rural New York State.
Almanzo Wilder Homestead
Almanzo’s father, James Mason Wilder, bought the land in Burke, New York, in 1840, then built the buildings. He married Angeline Day in 1843, and they stayed far more settled than the Ingalls family, living here until about 1875. While they had six children here, the book, Farmer Boy, only includes the four that had been born by the time the story takes place.
The original farmhouse from 1843 still stands and guided tours are available. Other buildings on the site are replicas: two barns and a schoolhouse, with plans for more additions like an icehouse and outhouse. There’s a museum, with period items and information about the Wilder family and farm life in the mid-1800s. A period garden gives an impression of what people would have grown in a kitchen garden in those days.
Find accommodations in Malone, NY.
Interiors of the farmhouse, barns and schoolhouse can only be seen on a guided tour, though you can walk around the site without taking a tour.
Almanzo Wilder Homestead: 177 Stacy Road, Malone, NY, but often listed as being in Burke, NY. It’s actually right between the two towns. Tours take place from the last week in May until the end of August on Wednesday-Sunday at 10:00, 12:00 and 14:00. In September tours are on Saturday and Sunday at 10:00, 12:00 and 14:00. Otherwise there are no tours except by appointment. Tour price: Adults $16; children 6-16 $9. Website.
Have you ever built your travel plans around an author or a book? Which one? Leave a comment below; I’d love to hear your ideas!
My travel recommendations
Planning travel
- Skyscanner is where I always start my flight searches.
- Booking.com is the company I use most for finding accommodations. If you prefer, Expedia offers more or less the same.
- Discover Cars offers an easy way to compare prices from all of the major car-rental companies in one place.
- Use Viator or GetYourGuide to find walking tours, day tours, airport pickups, city cards, tickets and whatever else you need at your destination.
- Bookmundi is great when you’re looking for a longer tour of a few days to a few weeks, private or with a group, pretty much anywhere in the world. Lots of different tour companies list their tours here, so you can comparison shop.
- GetTransfer is the place to book your airport-to-hotel transfers (and vice-versa). It’s so reassuring to have this all set up and paid for ahead of time, rather than having to make decisions after a long, tiring flight!
- Buy a GoCity Pass when you’re planning to do a lot of sightseeing on a city trip. It can save you a lot on admissions to museums and other attractions in big cities like New York and Amsterdam.
- Ferryhopper is a convenient way to book ferries ahead of time. They cover ferry bookings in 33 different countries at last count.
- I’ve become an affiliate for VisitorsCoverage travel insurance, mostly because you should ALWAYS have travel insurance when you travel! You may be young and healthy and never get sick, but the fact is, sh*t happens, and it’s worse if you don’t have insurance!
Other travel-related items
- It’s really awkward to have to rely on WIFI when you travel overseas. I’ve tried several e-sim cards, and GigSky’s e-sim was the one that was easiest to activate and use. You buy it through their app and activate it when you need it. Use the code RACHEL10 to get a 10% discount!
- Another option I just recently tried for the first time is a portable wifi modem by WifiCandy. It supports up to 8 devices and you just carry it along in your pocket or bag! If you’re traveling with a family or group, it might end up cheaper to use than an e-sim. Use the code RACHELSRUMINATIONS for a 10% discount.
- I’m a fan of SCOTTeVEST’s jackets and vests because when I wear one, I don’t have to carry a handbag. I feel like all my stuff is safer when I travel because it’s in inside pockets close to my body.
Rachel Heller is a writer living in Groningen, the Netherlands. She is the owner and primary author of this website, Rachel’s Ruminations, a travel blog focused on independent travel with an emphasis on cultural and historical sites/sights. Read more here about her and about this website. All photos in her articles are her own, unless otherwise specified. Rachel also owns and operates a website about World Heritage travel.
I’ve only been to the sites in De Smet where I got to take the reins while on the horse drawn wagon. It was a dream come true! I would love to visit the other places one day. Sadly, my kids are not as enamored of the series as I am. Have you read Wilder’s Pioneer Girl: Annotated Autobiography? It’s fascinating and a must for any fan of the Ingalls family. The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure is another interesting read.
No, I haven’t read it, but I’ll add it to my to be read list! Thanks!
I have heard about this author but I am not that familiar with her books. It would be nice to learn more about the states you mentioned in here thru her literary works.
They’re classics of children’s literature!
I loved the show on TV. It would be good to retrace those steps. Great idea.
I watched an episode recently: it’s terribly corny and moralistic, but I absolutely loved it when it first came out.
I’m planning on going to at least two of the Laura ingalls wilder museums this May (2025), before I go to the Dr Pepper 10-2-4 convention in Waco, Texas the beginning of June
Enjoy! Please com back here afterwards and let me know if there’s anything that needs updating!