Need Help With Southeastern Coaster Trip

I am planning to head to the Georgia, Tennessee, and Carolinas area. There are lots of combinations for parks in this area. I am trying to minimize drive time, however. I would really like to hit the Myrtle Beach coasters and SFoG, but that seems like an awful lot of driving. Does anybody have any ideas for my trip? All ideas are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

What direction will you be coming from? I can help you if I know a little bit more.

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|| Jonathan Hawkins ||
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I will be coming from Kansas City.

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I would suggest hitting Dollywood and Pigeon Forge in Tennesse, the you might want to stop by Ghost Town in Maggie Valley (they have a early, high G looper), after that hit Carowinds, then Myrtle Beach and off to Georgia, Im thinking four hours from Tennesse to Charlotte, 4 hours to Myrtle Beach, and then another four hours to Atlanta. Early summer before school gets out is the best time to come.

HOPE THIS HELPS!

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Rolla coasta of looove, rolla coasta, a hoo hoo hoo, your love is like a rolla coasta baby baby, oh what a ride - Red Hot Chili Peppers

From Kansas City? That's a strange trip to say the least!

What ever you do, have your Myrtlte Beach directions before you get into the area, because everybody goes a different way, there's many ways into the Strand, lol!

Atlanta seems to be posing your time problem. From KC, I'd find my quickest way to I-75(I think that's the closest to you to get south) & get to Atlanta. From there, I-20 to I-95, and into the MB area your route of choice. From MB to Charlotte via I-95, I-20, I-77(this route may be longer than I-95 to US-74). From Charlotte, I-85 & US-74 to I-26, to I-40 and Dollywood, and back west on I-40 to your preferred route homeward. That's all abbreviated, of corse:).

If you're wanting to toss Ghost Town in, it's off of I-40 as you head towards Dollywood.

I would skip Ghost Town... it's not worth the money, and you have to drive to the middle of nowhere to get to it.

I would reccommend Lake Winnehpasauka (www.lakewinnie.com) in Rossville, Ga. It's actually only a few miles from Chattanooga, Tennesee (not far from the I-24/I-75 split), so if you were going from SFOG to Dollywood (or vise versa), it's right on your way. A nice traditional amuesment park, still family owned. It's also pretty cheap!

I forgot to add that I will be flying, so I can basically fly into any place. Hope this helps a little.

How's the woodie at Lake Winnie? I also see that they are adding a ride called "Wild Thing." Anybody know about this?

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Wild Thing is a wild mouse.

The "Cannonball" is the woodie there. I haven't been on it in ages but it has buzzbars I think. John Allen out-and-back design, still uses a big ol' brake lever to dispatch.

Dollywood, Carowinds, SFOG, Wild Adventures

Sounds like a nice 4 day trip to me.

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C'mon guys help me out here.
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What else do you want help with?

How far is it from Wild Adventures to SFoG or to Lake Winnie? How far is it from Dollywood to Wild Adventures? From Carowinds to Wild Adventures? It seems as though Wild Adventures is the headbanging capital of the world. Is Cheetah worth the drive?

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SFOG (Atlanta) to Lake Winnie (near Chattanooga) is probably about an hour and a half to two hours, depends on Atlanta traffic.

Chattanooga to Pigeon Forge isn't far "as the crow flies" but since you have to go through the mountains, it takes forever. There are a couple of ways to get there but they're all about an hour and a half at least.

Atlanta to Wild Adventures is probably 4 to 5 hours, Valdosta is WAY down in south GA. You may want to skip it if you his Dollywood, Myrtle Beach, SFOG, and Lake Winniw, because none are close to WA, and also, there'e nothing to do in south Georgia, unless you like taking picture of cotton fields.

Thanks, I appreciate your help greatly.
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If Opry Land was still around you could go there it was my home town park.
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i play when i wanna play

Also, you could go to Visionland (Birmingham, AL) and ride their CCI. It's two hours west of Atlanta on I-20.

Really? VisionLand is only 2 hours away from SFoG. Is there anything else to do in that part of Alabama?
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You can find distances between parks at mapquest.com

I see people asking this all the time and finally thought I'd mention it. There's specific choices for amusement parks. This will give you actual driving distances rather than the "as the crow flies" distances RCDB gives.

It's really not that hard to research this stuff, a few minutes and some common sense will get you more info (and you can guarantee it's 100% correct) than simply asking around.

With that said, Wild Adventures may be a bit out of the way and not worth it if you're just looking for coasters to ride. The southeast seems to be an odd choice for an area to do a park/coaster trip as the parks are pretty spread out. I'm guessing you want to get to SFOG for the B&M Flyer so perhaps it makes sense.

It's about 1150 miles from Kansas City to Myrtle Beach. I'm not sure there's any way to really "minimize" that. That's a long way to go. You would most likely be passing right through Tennessee so Dollywood makes sense. You want to hit Myrtle Beach and SFOG so do those.

From SFOG it's roughly:

150 miles to Visionland

230 miles to Wild Adventures

245 miles to Carowinds

Of those three Carowinds would be the best for someone looking for coasters to ride.

I guess using your guidelines I'd probably hit Dollywood on my way through Tennesee. Head to Carowinds. ON to Myrtle Beach and loop back around to hit SFOG on the way home. It's going to be a lot of driving pretty much no matter how you do it.

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All right. Cool. Thanks for the information. What about Lake Winnie. Would that be worth hitting? I know it is a classic park in every sense of the word.
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