best place to live for coasters

I would have to say Springfield Missouri.... yep....springfield missouri....

All biases aside, I dont think that anyone can seriously say that *any* place is better than B-more/B-more County for coasters (emphasis added because otherwise, B-more aint the greatest place on earth).

Within four hours, you can be in a park of FOUR of the FIVE biggest chains (SFA/GAdv, PKD, BGW, Dorney, sorry no Disney :(), the two largest 'independent' parks (HP, KW), one of the most loved 'little' parks (Knoebels), an Intamin hyper, two B&M hypers, two Morgan hypers, launched shuttles/full circuits/inverts, etc...

YOU tell ME how/why any one place would be better?
jeremy

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"To get into this head of mine, would take a monkey-wrench, and a lot of wine" Res How I Do

Living in Kansas City isn't too bad. It makes it so I'm not real far from anything and I have Mamba and Timber Wolf 20 minutes away.

I live in Texas, but I would say Florida!

I live in a pretty good place. 3 hours to PKI, IB, SFGAM, MIA

1.5 to CP, 2.5 to SFWOA

Right where Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan come together is the place to be.

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1989, 9 years old, Bawling my eyes out because I didn't want to ride Magnum. I did anyway and now look at me. YOU CREATED A MONSTER DAVE!!! ;)

FL, I have maintained for awhile, is overrated for coasters....there is good news I never considered before though. Spent last night at a friend's house in O-town, and he lives *across the street* from IoA....I went outside and watched the fireworks last night from his front yard! The bad news is we stayed up late and the weather plain sucked today....but I did get one new coaster on my track record anyway - RnRC.

Overall, the best places to live are in the PA/OH/IN "coaster belt" or in SoCal....ideal would be about 6 months in those places and vacationing in Orlando/Tampa area... IMO.

as said earlier in this forum, i believe souther cali. is the best!

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We are the few, The proud, We are the ride Engineers!!!!!
As Ralph wiggam once said, "everybodys hugging"

I feel lucky.

I live 10 minutes from SFWOA.

1 hour from Cedar Point.

2 hours from Kennywood.

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#1 Steel-Nitro
#1 Wood-Shivering Timbers

I live 20 mins. from SFWOA, i live an hour from Cedar Point, and 4 hours from PKI. I ALSO live 3 hours away from kennywood.

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MFMASTER, rules the force

New Jersey is not a bad place to be either. I live approx:

1 hour from SFGADV, 3 hours from SFNE, 1 1/2 hours from Dorney, 2 1/2 hours from Hershey, 3 hours for Knoebels, 30 minutes from Rye Playland, 2 1/2 hours from Wildwood Piers

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Take a Virtual Ride:
http://badnitrus.coasterbuzz.com
Mike "Viper" Semtak

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MFMASTER said:
I live 20 mins. from SFWOA, .... I ALSO live 3 hours away from kennywood.

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How does that one work when its only 1 1/2 hours from WoA to Kennywood?? But yea, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Baltimore would be my top 3 for coaster cities. All 3 are within day-trip distance of most of the biggest parks and a lot of the smaller parks (which are mostly in PA). (but ya gotta give the nod to Pittsburgh - I mean come on Steelers vs. Browns and Birdies?)

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Steel - #1 Mantis, #2 Millie, #3 Wicked Twister
Wood - #1 Thunderbolt, #2 Villain, #3 Beast
"The key to a happy life is moderation" -- Jon Stewart

The best place to live is probably the lone star state. There are three SF parks, so if you get a season pass, then prices shouldn't be a problem. Also, San Antonio has Sea World Park. And unlike the others besides Sea World Orlando, Texas' has two roller coasters- a Morgan Hyper, and a Bolliger and Mabillard Inverted. (original design )

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On the seventh day, God created coasters!

Didn't we just do this one?

Anyway, I love it right here where I am at near York PA...

Not going to mention all parks (or all coasters in those parks) near by, just the hilights:

Hersheypark: 20 minutes away: Comet, Wildcat, Lightning Racer, Great Bear (plus others) all in one of the most fun parks around.

Knoebels: 2 hrs away: the Dynamic Duo of Phoenix and Twister... not to mention the Haunted Mansion, Flyers and Scooter Bumper Cars.

Dorney Park: 2 hrs away: Talon, Steel Force, Thunderhawk (plus others), all in a park that has re-inveted itself since 1980.

Six Flags America: 2 hrs away: Wild One and Superman:RoS in a park that has improved greatly over last year.

While not "Near By", but also worth a mention... Kennywood along with its collection is only 4 hrs west of here while BGW is only 4.5 hrs south.

But face it... Knoebels, Hershey and Dorney... Phoenix, Comet and Thunderhawk... Where else could you have 3 Schemck designs with in two hours of your door?

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Face it, call ourselves what we want, but to the parks we are all "GP".

*** This post was edited by SLFAKE on 7/22/2002. ***

*** This post was edited by SLFAKE on 7/22/2002. ***

Many will say Socal, but I'll have to give the nod to the Bay Area. Why? Not because we have better coasters, but because Bay Area people tend to travel to LA quite frequently, but not vice versa. Socal people rarely come up to PGA or SFMW, but SFMM and Knott's are always full of Bay Area folks. So, in essence, we have more parks to choose from. LA people don't have the opportunity to ride gems like Medusa and Roar, but we hit up Goliath and Ghostrider on a consistent basis. From where I live, it's about a 4.5 hour trek to SFMM. You can even make a day trip out of it.

As far as the rides, themselves, Socal has Norcal beat, but not drastically. Roar and the Giant Dipper compare favorably to anything down south besides Ghostrider. Grizzly, Colossus, and Psyclone are non factors, as we all know. Okay, so Riddler blows away Vortex, Viper beats the Demon, Batman is slightly better than Top Gun, but they are basically the same types of rides, just larger. I'd take V2 over Deja Vu and Greased Lightnin' over Superman: The Escape. Of course, X beats Stealth, but who knows what's going on with that. Medusa is certainly the finest Beemer on the west coast. Socal has Goliath and Xcelerator though, which we definitely don't have.

Besides, the Bay Area people are a lot nicer, and the girls are hotter too. They are much more natural. =)

*** This post was edited by BassHedz on 7/23/2002. ***

Jeremy:

The one thing that could be better about B-more is we could have a truly local park so my daughter could fulfil her ambition to be a ride op. Otherwise our location is great.

Well I will add on to the B-more discussion. I too am from B-more and have always felt very fortunate to live in this coaster haven. I don't know if it is the best place, but very few can compare to this area (especially considering we don't really have a park of our own). Someone started mentioning parks within 8 hours of them...if we went that far, within 8 hours of B-more is PKD, BGW, SFA, Knoebels, Hershey Park, Dorney Park, SFGAdv, Lake Compounce, SFNE, Great Escape, Kennywood, PKI (yes it is within 8 hours, that's how long it took me to do the trip in 2000), CP, SFWoA, plus all of the small parks which are too numerous to even mention. There may even be other parks within an 8 hour drive that I am not sure of...such as SFDL and Carowinds.

Of course I think 3-4 hours is a more reasonable discussion since it is more likely that I would do a park within 3-4 hours in a day trip. Those parks from here have already been mentioned, so I won't go into them, but I just thank my lucky stars that I live where I live.

Happy Coastering!

Sean

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"Have fun stormin' the castle!"

Jim: How about getting her a job working the carousel down in the Inner Harbor? Okay, a coaster it aint, but it *is* a ride (and think of the smiling children :))
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"To get inside this head of mine, would take a monkey-wrench, and a lot of wine" Res How I Do

there's a CAROUSEL at the Inner Harbor now? I remember when my father worked at the News American in Bawlamer and we'd go see an Orioles' game at the old stadium. The Inner Harbor, pre-Roush, was not the nice neighborhood it was the last time we went....

bill, who finds it more than mildly amusing that ex-Mayor Kurt Schmoke came out later in favor of decriminalization of marijuana....

Jeremy:

They also have a little train at Xmas and Easter at Harford Mall, but she just doesn't think it compares to Superman.

I think I'm pretty good in Upper Jersey. 1hour45min from SFgadv, 1hour20min from Dorney. 3hours from MP. 3hours 30 min from SFNE. 5hours to SFamerica. 6hours30min to PKD 7hours to BGW 6hours to SFwoa. 7 hours to CP. 10 hours to PKI but I've never been there. 3hours from Lake Compounce 3 hours from Quassy 1 hour 20 min to Rye Playland. 1 hour 30 min to AStroland (Coney Island) But there's a lot more.

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Sean