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

Thanks DWeaver. If you guys were into Disneyland and would miss that aspect of leaving SoCal, the Magic Kingdom would certainly help fill that void.

I wish I could be more helpful with more practical "real world" info that many people look at when moving such as the quality of schools and such, but since I don't have kids I didn't need to take that into account.

Also I don't know much about what homes are going for in the area since I rent, like I was doing in New Orleans.

But if you like year round operation and a large, varied selection of parks and waterparks all in the same metro area (and Busch Gardens in Tampa is only 1 hour away) than I can say with confidence that in at least this category, this area would be hard to beat.

Frontrider

PS. I failed to mention this in my original post probably because I approach coasters more from a woodie/hyper/airtime angle, but if you're into B&M multiloopers, central Florida has several of them.

Well we're not "Disneyheads" so to speak (and so-cal has lots of em), but we love Disneyland so much that we figured San Diego would still be within a morning drive. But your right, Walt Disney World would more than fit the bill, and we'd be near one of my favorite places on the planet, IOA. She likes mega-loopers more than I do, I too am a hyper nut (and SFOG has what I consider the best).

I'm selling our house next year so we'll probably rent as well, but our biggest challenge right now is her boyfriend, wants to tag along anywhere she goes!

Paging Dr. Phil...

Living in Omaha, Nebraska is possibly the worst.

2.5 hr. from Adventureland Iowa
3 hr. from Worlds of Fun
4 hr. from Arnolds Park
6 hr. from Valleyfair
7 hr. from SFStL, SDC/CC
8 hr. from SFGAm, SFEG, Frontier City, Wisconsin Dells

There are 2 kiddie coasters here - one at Fun Plex. The other is a Zamperla mine coaster at Skateland, and it's not even listed in RCDB...

North Suburbs of Chicago is decent I guess

30 min from SFGAm
3 hours from the Dells
5 hours from HW
5 hours from SFKK
5 hours from SFSTL
4.5 hours from CP
5.5 or so from Geauga Lake

Souther Ontario isn't too bad.

Marineland - 30-45 mins mins
PCW - 30-45 Mins.
CNE - 40 Mins.
SFDL - 1 hr 15 mins.
Centreville - 45 mins.
MFI - 1 hr.
Knoebels - 5 hrs.
Kennywood - 5.1 Hrs.
Geauga - 4.5 Hrs.
CP - 5.5 Hrs.
SFGAdv - 7hrs.
PKI - 7.5 Hrs.
SeaBreeze - 2.2 Hrs
Conneaut Lake- 3.5 Hrs
Dorney - 6hrs.
Hershey - 6.5 hrs
LaRonde - 6hrs.
+ More...

All these Vary on traffic and border wait times too.

Pondering Choo Choo town (Chattanooga):

Lake Winnie - minutes
SFOG - 1.5 hrs.
Visionland/Dollywood - 2 hours
Beech Bend - 3 hours
SFKK/HW/PKI/PC/Wild Adventures - 5 hours
SFSTL - 6 hours

Then just 8 hours away from year round coastering in Florida!

Not too bad!!