Insanely nerdy content ahead: best place to live - to ride

As previously stated by some other people, I think the best place to live is in or around Philadelphia, PA. I live in Philadelphia and their are so many good parks just a couple hours away.

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RatherGoodBear said:
Which puts my house close to the epicenter.

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Yeah, I thought of you when I looked at that. I know you're in those whereabouts somewhere.

Aren't you more of a small park woodie fan, though?

Gotta agree that that area of eastern PA is probably the single best location in terms of easy, relevant park trips. TONS of parks that are easy day trips. Take a look at how many parks (and coasters) are just within 3 or 4 hours from Allentown. It's sick.

The closest park for Phoenix, AZ is SFMM and that is a 6 and half hour drive.

That does not include Castles and Coasters.

Sorry edit is not working.

What is up with all these post getting shut down and what is so bad with debating.

Also, how come all the good parks are on the East coast and not the West Coast?

Hamster Boy its because during the golden age of the 20s more of the population was centered on the east coast, and therefore more parks were there. When you start out with more, you tipically get more.

I think the Raven, Legend and the new kid on the block make my town the best place to live & ride. Plus Beech Bend is 1.75 hours away, SFStL is 3, Lake Winnie and IB is 4 and SFOG is 6.

Have Fun

Paul

Living 1/2 way between Pittsburgh and Cleveland is like living in the middle of nowhere. For some reason this area is like a black hole though. People try to get out but they always end up stuck back here.

If I have to live here i'll try and find some sort of positive meaning behind it.

45 mins from Conneaut Lake
1 hour from Geauga Lake
1.25 hours from Kennywood
1.5 hours from Waldameer
2 hours from Cedar Point
2.5 hours from Idlewild
3.5 hours from Lakemont Park and SF Darien Lake
4 hours from Knoebels
5 hours from Dorney, Hershey and King's Island
6 hours from Dutch Wonderland

As you can see NW PA isn't a bad place to live if you like coasters. Like Jeff said, the winters SUCK, so don't come here for that reason alone. *** Edited 5/28/2006 2:14:35 PM UTC by Super Loopy*** *** Edited 5/28/2006 2:15:10 PM UTC by Super Loopy***

Pennsylvania hands down takes the cake here

I will have to agree, even though I want nothing more than to leave the greater Scranton, PA area, I have it best for day trips for parks. I have also to the north of me Darien Lake, SFNE, Great Escape, Martin's Fantasy Island, and to the southeast Rye Playland and Coney Island.

Evidence in my great locale? Since the 10th of April we have already been able to hit PKD, BGW, Hershey, Knoebels (2x), SFGadv, and Kennywood. Next week is Six Flags America, then in July we have plans for SFNE, and Dorney. Each coaster season I am lucky enough to get to at least eight parks, and ride well over fourty coasters. (Not to mention our coaster-centric vacation to SFoG the last week of June this year.)

Let's I now live north of Tampa and I am about

45 min. from Busch Gardens Africa
1 1/4 hour from USF/IOA
1 1/2 hour from Disney World and Sea World
1 3/4 hour from Cypress Gardens

and I get to ride year round.

Poor me.

You guys are completely forgetting the temporal dimension. There are only two places: central Florida, and southern California, because those are the two places you can ride all year.

^ I for one do NOT buy that argument...SoCal'ers have at least ONE wooden coaster that rates high enough to merit that....we don't.

Myself? W. PA, OH, IN, IL.

Texas and Virgina parks open at the beginning of March and run through Halloween, a 4 month off season isnt really that bad especially with football and basketball filling the void.

Well, 'gator, that settles it. We're all moving in with Mamoosh. ;)

Being a map geek, I find this thread very interesting. Thanks matt.

Best place to live to ride though is on an RV. ;)

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Lord Gonchar said:

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RatherGoodBear said:
Which puts my house close to the epicenter.

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Yeah, I thought of you when I looked at that. I know you're in those whereabouts somewhere.

Aren't you more of a small park woodie fan, though?

Gotta agree that that area of eastern PA is probably the single best location in terms of easy, relevant park trips. TONS of parks that are easy day trips. Take a look at how many parks (and coasters) are just within 3 or 4 hours from Allentown. It's sick.

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I was wondering about that sharp pain in the side I was getting. :) Yep, those are my whereabouts thereabouts. Just turn right at Yuengling's brewery.

I prefer the smaller parks to the corporate types, but I don't have anything against steelies. I'm not going to turn down rides on Talon, Steel Force or Storm Runner.

Now what someone (hint, hint) needs to do is combine the wood and steel maps and see what you get.

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janfrederick said:
Being a map geek, I find this thread very interesting. Thanks matt.

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Wait, this thread is about maps? Lol. I nearly had forgotten.

The only park that I have been to on the East Coast is Bush Gardens Williamsburg (???Europe???).

I mostly go to West Coast, Flordia, and Midwest (sometimes).

*** Edited 5/30/2006 11:31:15 PM UTC by Hamster Boy***

I've thought about this before and the best place to live for next year will be to buy a season pass and live in the middle of Ohio. Well that might be the best value and some great coasters.

I've always liked Being in Indiana. I'm an hour from IB, 4 from SFGAM, MIA, CP, PKI SFKK, 5 from HW & GL.

Oh and Barry, riding year around robs people of the joy of opening day. There is nothing quite like looking forward to your favorite parks opening for the season.

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matt. said:

Wait, this thread is about maps? Lol. I nearly had forgotten.

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Well, being on the West coast, I tend to get to the threads a little late. ;)

Anyway, the only problem with the higher ranking, larger circle correlation is that assumes someone would want to live within driving distance of the most top coasters.

But what if number one was WAY better than number two? Wouldn't you want to live closer to it even if it meant moving away from the influence of a couple mid ranked coasters? Case in point: The much acclaimed Voyage. Why live 50 miles from Holiday World just to be closer to some of the others on the list when you could live next door to the park and get that within walking distance. Not to mention the *other* coasters there. :)

But how to handle that on a map? Shade the circles perhaps? Keep the circles the same size, but use a darker shade based on ranking. The darker the area, the mor desirable it is to live in.

And don't just use evenly graduated levels of shade. There must be a way to not only rank coasters in order, but by magitude as well. So if Voyage was ranked first and Legend ranked second, but it was determined somehow that Voyage was twice as thrilling as Voyage, it would be two shades darker instead of one

But I guess this is all moot right? We all know where we want to live. Southern Indiana. During the summer anyway. Either that of own an RV or small plane and have lots and lots of money.