perfect place to live for a coaster addict?

I know. I am picky. lol

Add in easy access to my other two recreational pursuits, craft beer and alpine skiing, and the Pennsylvania argument starts to make sense. Of course, I'm in NE Ohio, and I can't complain too much about access to all three where I am, either.

We had another thread years and years ago with a similar topic. I believe we even discussed mapping out coasters and creating buffers around them, and then seeing where the most overlap of the buffers was to get a pretty pseudo-scientific answer. I think we even discussed making the buffers larger based on the coaster's rank on Mitch's poll, and maybe even doing different maps for steel and wood coasters.

After all that discussion though I think we realized no matter how much we fiddled with the variables, the mid-Atlantic, especially central / eastern PA kicks all sorts of ass.

I guess another interesting questions would be - is it better to live close to several parks you like, or one park you love? This would depend on your own particular flavor of coaster addiction, I suppose.

I love living in Central Florida because of the theme parks, and Universal and Busch have amazing coasters that are some of my favorites, but I'm really starting to get the itch again for pure coaster parks. 2 years without a CP or KI trip is starting to make it really strong, and having a Six Flags pass is making it tempting to do the 6 hour jaunt for SFoG. I'll finally get to scratch that itch in a month, though, when I head to Cali for 10 days and will hit most every park and major coaster in SoCal. Can't wait for Knott's and hopefully Magic Mountain.

The original question asked about the number of parks (an absolute), not the quality (subjective).

Still don't think anywhere in the world has easy access to so many parks as the folks in Allentown/Philly do.

If you are looking for sheer number of coasters, PA is the place for you. If you are looking for quality coasters, then Ohio is the place to be.

Electricfeel, I don't know about that. PA has some serious quality coasters in it or nearby.

Mike, I say we kidnap Travis, force him to enter Great Adventure, buy a Flashpass Platinum, and then you, me, smelly Blaster, and Travis will power ride Toro (of course we get the back seat). We'll count like the Count over every airtime hill, and Blaster will keep his arms up THE WHOLE ride. Then because we're evil PFP carriers, we'll ride again in the same seats. We'll even make Travis carry the QBot so it's REALLY traumatic.

Yeah the Allentown/Philly area is accessible to many parks for a day trip, but I prefer my western PA location. I've got the obvious Kennywood, Waldameer, CP, among other smaller parks in under 3 hours for day trips.

Now add in a couple/few hours drive for a weekend trip and I've all those parks mentioned for the Philly area plus Carowinds, Dollywood, KI, KD, BGW, SFGAm, Hershey, IB, HW plus others.

I like having so many good parks within a days drive rather than having a bunch of little parks within an hours drive that I'd hardly visit.

Bunky, to borrow a phrase from a TV show that used to be a favorite of mine...I love it when a plan comes together.

Yeah, Pennsylvania's got some great ones. I know lists are frowned on here, but I've not really though much about breaking down coasters by State.

I'll limit myself to five:

Ravine Flyer II

Lightning Racer

Twister

Talon

Phantom's Revenge

I'm sure I've missed some that should be on there.

Yeah, that's a very small sample of the great rides in PA, but it is a good start for sure.

Without RF2, Thunderbolt, or Phoenix, it feels incomplete to me.

Where would I live? Elysburg - that way the drive-time to other parks becomes irrelevant!

bunky666 said:

Electricfeel, I don't know about that. PA has some serious quality coasters in it or nearby.

That may be, but I am a bona-fide Cedar Point junkie :) And Kings Island has always been quite awesome as well.

Yeah, Mike, one is conspicuously missing. I know what you think of Skyrush but it's on my personal top 10 list. Of course all of this is so subjective because Lightning Racer doesn't do a thing for me.

Eastern Pennsylvania is getting a lot of votes and I likewise vote for this as a good place for a coaster addict to live. I live in downtown Philadelphia and can get to Great Adventure in an hour, Hersheypark in 2 hours and Dorney in an hour and a half. Now that I have a GPS, I might even be able to get to Knoebels in under 3 hours. (Took 5 when I went because the MapQuest directions were confusing and I got hopelessly lost.)

rollergator said:

Without RF2, Thunderbolt, or Phoenix, it feels incomplete to me.

Where would I live? Elysburg - that way the drive-time to other parks becomes irrelevant!

Like I said....

I forgot about my # 2 coaster. I smell an edit job, because RF2 has GOT to be there. Sorry, Storm Runner..NO SOUP FOR YOU!!

LostKause said:

I have Camden Park closest to me, about an hour away. The next nearest is Kings Island, which is about 3.5 hours away. Beyond that, I have to drive five or six hours or more to get to a park.

Life is hard, but I manage.

The caption for this photo, located on my Facebook, reads:

See that "2" next to Charleston, WV? That's Camden Park, in Huntington. I live pretty close to there; about 45 minutes to an hour. The other numbers on the map represent locations of other amusement parks and how many coasters they have. The point of this image is to show how freekin' far away I live from any amusement parks.

The map in this image is from an awesome website called Coast2CoasterMap. I highly recommend you to take a look if you haven't already.

Dude, I wouldn't complain about living in West Virginia. Those mountains are amazing!

The west side of Cleveland isn't too bad either, though I admit eastern PA probably wins out. From where I live, Cedar Point is an hour, Waldameer 2 hours, Kennywood just under 2.5 hours. Oh, and I guess you could add Conneaut Lake... also 2 hours. For water parks, in addition to CP's Soak City, Wildwater Kingdom is only 45 min. away.

Farther out, Kings Island and Idlewild are 3 hours, Darien Lake and Lakemont Park 3.5 hours.

And two of the big enthusiast events don't require airfare: Phoenix Phall Phunfest and HoliWood Nights are 5 and 6 hours away, respectively. And in the case of HWN, Kings Island makes a nice halfway stopping point along I-71. :)

As for WV, I found the Gualey River to be more thrilling and terrifying than any coaster. It might be the whole "you could die from doing this" aspect, though...

Break Trims said:

As for WV, I found the Gualey River to be more thrilling and terrifying than any coaster. It might be the whole "you could die from doing this" aspect, though...

I second you on the Gauley. Having the misfortune of doing this I can tell you going swimming in class VI whitewater is not fun! If I could choose to live anywhere I'd Choose Indianapolis, I'd be within hours of Indiana Beach and Holiday World, these two parks have the greatest number of Top-Ten Wood Coasters in one area. The Cornball Express and the Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain at Indiana Beach and The Voyage, The Legend and The Raven at Holiday World. Beech Bend, Kings Island and Six Flags St. Louis are also relatively nearby.

Since when did burritos cause smelly armpits? BTW that bean burrito I just packed a lot of gas. Anyone keep track of how many times they've farted on a roller coaster?