Need Help With Southeastern Coaster Trip

You go right past it if you come from Dollywood to SFOG.

It's only a few minutes off if I-75 at the GA-TN border.

You should check it out.

All right. Cool. Is Rampage worth the 2 hour+ drive from SFoG?

I'm a southerner, I've driven these routes before, sorta, hundreds of times. You say you're flying in, where you fly into greatly influences your route. You'll probally fly into Atlanta, right? I wouldn't reccomend flying into an NC airport, they're not as busy, have more delays historically, and especially do not fly to Myrtle Beach!!!!!!!

While Ghost Town isn't really in the middle of nowhere(about 30 minutes west of Asheville, NC), it's about a ten minute ride from I-40, but unless the place holds childhood memories, I'd have to say scratch it off, or you have a fetish for rusty old chairlifts or have small kids, GT doesn't try to do much anymore.

To go anywhere in the south, draw a big circle on your map connecting everywhere you want to go, and plan your route with the least amount of backtracking and crossing paths as you can figure(especially if NC & GA are involved). Avoid using I-40 as much as possible in North Carolina, and you may escape with your sanity!

You can also search the Roller Coaster Data Base at http://rcdb.com/locationsearch.htm to measure distances between parks.

So, bottom line, if I were to hit 3 parks in this area, which would be the 3 best in terms of how good the parks themselves are, and how much driving they will cause. Thanks.
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SFOG for sure, if you go to Dollywood you might as well go to Lake Winnie since it's right on the way... there's 3.  But, I haven't been to Visionland, so I don't know if it's worth it or not...  I've heard good and bad things about it.

I have heard mixed things about VisionLand. I don't know if it's worth the drive from Atlanta. My ideal vacation would be to hit Myrtle Beach, Carowinds, and SFoG, but I now realize that would be a tremendous amount of driving.

Atlanta to Charlotte, NC is not a very hard drive, & Charlotte to Myrtle isn't too bad, either. That sounds like a good SE vacation, lol. Some things in GA & TN may be close to each other, but Atlanta, Charlotte, those other places are still where they'd be, you know? SFoG & PC are fun parks with cities nearby, & there's much to get into in Myrtle Beach(it wouldn't matter if there wasn't a coaster in town:)).

Is Carowinds worth stopping for. I have heard some pretty good and some not so good things about it. It seems as though it is the forgotten Paramount park.

Can someone tell me a little more about Carowinds?

How's Thunder Road? Top Gun?

You'd have to actually go to the park to find out, lol! Don't not go somewhere, because SOMEBODY ELSE said such & such about it.

Carowinds is a good park, it doesn't even matter that they're part of a chain. Sure, I've heard bad things about the place, I've heard bad things about myself! You never know, until you try. Charlotte has quite a bit of stuff to do, some things that aren't offered in other areas, just like most any place, especially if you've never been there!

Yeah, I am really interested. What else is their to do in Charlotte, that is within a few miles of the park?

Depends on how old you are. If you're over 18, or 21, or whatever, there's a club/music scene. The park is really out of town. There's all kinds the shopping. To do much, there's some driving involved. We used to go to record stores & rock shops around Charlotte when we went to Carowinds. Charlotte has always been a very clean place when we've been, & it has became a safe place to drive around.

Thunder Road's a good ride. I think the trains were from an old PTC, that got taken out of service as TR was coming into. When I was younger, they were always racing, I don't know if they race them anymore. It's got a cool name, I've always wondered if it had any inspiration from the movie(which also has Carolina roots).

Thanks a lot for all the information. I really appreciate it. This may seem like a weird question, but are their any places that have mini. golf and/or go-kart tracks in the Charlotte area? My little sister loves these things and would be delighted if we stopped at one of these places.

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. That's all the mini-golf & go-kart action you'll EVER want piece of. There are passes that get you in at the Pavilion & two(three?) tracks, & waterparks. But, TN has good tracks, too.......

Of course, there are tracks/courses just about everywhere.

Where at in Tennesse are the go-kart tracks located?

You can find tons of go-kart action in Pigeon Forge. They have, what look like, wooden figure-edit tracks that you can ride go karts on.

Is this in the same vicinity of Dollywood?

The go-kart tracks in TN are on the same strip in Pigeon Forge as Dollywood.  I have lived the past eight years in the NC & VA area.  I lived 3 years about 50 miles North of Myrtle, 4 years in the NC mountains, about 60 miles from Dollywood, and one year in Williamsburg, VA.  My in-laws are from Charlotte so you could say I have a little knowledge of these places.  My best advice is to skip Myrtle B, and head for the VA Tidewater region if nice beach and coasters are what you are seeking.  It takes about 4 hours from Charlotte to get to Myrtle B, and about 5 to get to the VA Tidewater so not much difference.  The advantages of VA.  Virginia Beach is much nicer, less eroded than Myrtle B, unless you are going for the golf.  BGW blows the Pavillion away, and is a must for a enthusiast. On your way back from the Tidewater area you could hit PKD without going more than 20 miles out of your way, adding TA2K to your resume.  It is all up to personal opinion, but having been to all those places except SFOG, maybe this year this would be my reccommendation.