Silverwood

There aren’t many amusement parks in the American Northwest, but you don’t need that many with a headliner like Silverwood.

Its highest peaks break the treeline like a matte painting in a movie, the perfect amusement park horizon. The skeletal structures of its famous woodies, Tremors and Timber Terror, seem to tangle into one endless knot.  Along the ribcage of a lift hill, big yellow letters announce the place - SILVERWOOD.

Like any good western town, it started with a railroad. In 1989, the only attraction was the Silverwood Central Railway. More modern entertainment rounded out the offerings by year two, but that steam-powered heart still beats to this day.

The train chugs through untouched Idaho, alternating scrub-brush pines with frontier panoramas, and stops for a quick stunt show on the way. It represents the best of Silverwood, a mission statement. Not old, but old-school. Not sparse, but simple. The relative seclusion of it makes it feel like a world apart, but immediately familiar at the same time.

Silverwood doesn’t have a lot of coasters, but all of them punch above their weight. Two transplants, the boomerang Aftershock and immortal Corkscrew, are classics for a reason. Timber Terror is an all-timer for air-time. Tremors still stuns daredevils with its subterranean plunges. This year, Stunt Pilot will make its debut as one of the first single-rail coasters in the country, themed to the park’s early aviation history. They may not break records, but they’re all somebody’s favorite.  

With a heartfelt supporting cast of swings, flumes, and spin cycles, that’s what the rest of the park was made for. Add in a waterpark with every ticket, and it’s easy to fall in love. It may not be the biggest park on this list, but Silverwood is an immediate favorite.

Kings Island

Cedar Point is a tough act to follow. It came first. It provided half the name of parent company, Cedar Fair. By reputation and ad campaign, it’s America’s Roller Coast.

But there’s just something more quaint, more quiet, and more complete about Kings Island.

It was founded in 1972 out of desperation and opportunity. A record-breaking flood left Cincinnati’s premiere amusement park, Coney Island, 14-feet under the Ohio River. Taft Broadcasting, seeing what the Disney empire was doing in Florida, wanted a permanent place for its Hanna-Barbera characters to sign autographs. The solution was Kings Island, a transplanted collection of Coney Island attractions and plenty of new ones twenty minutes north of downtown.

Through various takeovers and makeovers in the decades since, Kings Island has grown into a cozy cross between major-league thrills and midway charm.  

Thrill-seekers can check their boxes. The Beast remains unchallenged as the longest wooden roller coaster ever built and has found a contemporary in Banshee, the longest inverted coaster ever built. Discerning tastes that prefer their white knuckles with a little plot are accounted for in both lumber (Mystic Timbers) and steel (Flight of Fear).

Unlike the Point, though, there’s more than enough to do without over-the-shoulder restraints.

Kings Island’s kids area, now called Planet Snoopy, won an 18-year streak of Golden Tickets. Where else can you find a Sally shooter, a junior suspended coaster, and blueberry soft-serve within a one-minute walk of each other?

The gambling type could spend an entire day along Coney Mall, trying their alleged skill at a definitive line-up of arcade and carnival games.

Visitors who are only in it for the ambiance can take it in 314-feet in the air from the park’s iconic Eiffel Tower. If those visitors are afraid of heights, there’s also the Kings Island & Miami Valley Railroad, a charming veteran of opening day.

It’s difficult to sell Kings Island because it doesn’t have an immediately distinct hook like some of the other parks listed. It’s not especially historic, not exactly one-of-a-kind, not named after Dolly Parton. It is instead the Platonic Ideal of a regional amusement park or very close to it. Easy to find. Easy to enjoy. Hard to forget.