Your guide to the best theme parks and amusement parks. ThrillZing covers the standout rides, must-do attractions, tips, and history for the parks worth planning a trip around — whether you’re chasing thrills or a full day out with the family.
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/ July 11, 2026
Canobie Lake Park is a 59-acre amusement park in Salem, New Hampshire, that has welcomed visitors since it opened as a trolley park on August 23, 1902. It’s one of only a handful of trolley parks still operating in the United States, having survived a
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Darien Lake is a large amusement park and resort in Darien Center, New York, roughly midway between Buffalo and Rochester and about 45 minutes from Niagara Falls. The park opened in May 1981 as Darien Lake Fun Country on a sprawling property that today covers
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Fun Spot America is a family-owned amusement park chain built on go-karts, wooden coasters, and no-nonsense fun near Orlando’s tourist corridor. The flagship Orlando location opened on December 24, 1997, founded by John Arie Sr., whose roots in the amusement business trace back to the
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Frontier City is a Wild West-themed amusement park on the north side of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, operated by Six Flags and owned by EPR Properties. The park traces its roots to Boomtown, a replica pioneer town built for Oklahoma’s 1957 semicentennial celebration, which former Hollywood
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Elitch Gardens is Denver’s 65-acre theme and water park, and one of the oldest continuously operating amusement parks in the United States, with roots stretching back to 1890. It’s also a park whose future has been in the news almost as much as its rides,
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Lagoon Amusement Park sits in Farmington, Utah, about 18 miles north of Salt Lake City, and traces its roots back to a lakeside resort called Lake Park that opened in 1886. When the Great Salt Lake receded and stranded the original site, Simon Bamberger moved
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/ July 11, 2026
Adventureland is a family-owned-turned-corporate amusement park in Altoona, Iowa, just northeast of Des Moines. Founded by Jack Krantz and opened in August 1974, the park grew from a modest local attraction into one of the Midwest’s most-visited theme parks, spread across roughly 176 to 180
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Waldameer Park & Water World sits at the base of Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania, where it has drawn lakeside crowds since 1896. Originally a picnic ground called Hoffman’s Grove, the site was leased and renamed by the Erie Electric Motor Company to
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Idlewild Park, officially known as Idlewild and SoakZone, is a family amusement park tucked into the Laurel Highlands near Ligonier, Pennsylvania, about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh. Founded in 1878 as a campground along the Ligonier Valley Railroad by banking magnate Thomas Mellon, it is
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Lake Compounce isn’t just a nostalgia trip — it’s a fully modern amusement and water park that happens to trace its roots back to 1846, making it the oldest continuously operating amusement park in the United States. Straddling the Bristol-Southington line in Connecticut, the 332-acre
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Knoebels Amusement Resort has welcomed guests to Elysburg, Pennsylvania since it first opened on July 4, 1926, and the Knoebel family still owns and operates the park a century later. Spread across roughly 150 acres of wooded grounds, Knoebels combines an old-fashioned picnic grove, a
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/ July 11, 2026
Kennywood opened on May 30, 1898, in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, just southeast of Pittsburgh, growing from a trolley-line picnic ground into one of the country’s most celebrated regional amusement parks. In 1987 it became one of only two amusement parks in the United States designated
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/ July 11, 2026
Holiday World ’ Safari sits in the town of Santa Claus, Indiana, where retired industrialist Louis J. Koch opened it in 1946 as Santa Claus Land, making it one of the oldest theme parks still operating in the United States. The park was rebranded Holiday
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tz
/ July 10, 2026
Silver Dollar City is a themed amusement park in Stone County, Missouri, just outside Branson on the Indian Point peninsula of Table Rock Lake. Opened on May 1, 1960, the park grew out of Marvel Cave, a natural cavern the Herschend family leased in 1950
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tz
/ July 10, 2026
Dollywood is a 168-acre theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, co-owned by entertainer Dolly Parton and Herschend Enterprises, which handles day-to-day operations. The site traces back to 1961 as a small tourist attraction called Rebel Railroad, later renamed Goldrush Junction and then Silver Dollar City,
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tz
/ July 9, 2026
Michigan’s Adventure sits just outside Muskegon and holds the title of the largest amusement park in the state, spreading across roughly 250 acres alongside its adjoining water park, WildWater Adventure. What began in 1956 as a small petting zoo called Deer Park has grown into
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tz
/ July 8, 2026
Worlds of Fun is a theme park in Kansas City, Missouri, that opened on May 26, 1973, on land developed by Kansas City Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt and Jack Steadman. The park originally drew its theming from Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days,
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tz
/ July 8, 2026
Valleyfair has been the Twin Cities’ go-to theme park for 50 years, growing from a 26-acre park with 20 rides in 1976 into Minnesota’s largest amusement park — headlined today by the 207-foot hypercoaster Wild Thing and the newly expanded Superior Shores waterpark. Ownership changed
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tz
/ July 7, 2026
Dorney Park traces its roots to 1860, when Solomon Dorney built a trout hatchery and picnic resort on his estate outside Allentown, Pennsylvania. The grounds grew into a full amusement park by 1884, making it the fifth-oldest continuously operating amusement park in the United States
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tz
/ July 7, 2026
California’s Great America opened on March 20, 1976, as Marriott’s Great America, one of two nearly identical Americana-themed parks Marriott built that year (the other became Six Flags Great America in Illinois). Sitting on 112 acres in Santa Clara, right in the heart of Silicon
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