I grew up on the Pennsylvania/New York border, and my earliest summer travel memories were rides, summer outings, and piling into the car for a day of fun. They had absolutely nothing to do with Disney World or Universal Orlando.
Those came much later.
For me, summer meant places like Eldridge Park, trips to Darien Lake and Hersheypark, and going to the Troy Fair.
Those were the places that taught me what a summer adventure felt like.
Long before I knew anything about park reservations, themed resorts, Express Passes, or planning an entire vacation around a theme park, I knew the excitement of knowing we were going somewhere fun for the day.
Eldridge Park
Eldridge Park is long gone now, but it is part of some of my earliest amusement-park memories.
My poor Daddy — or maybe not — took me on that wooden roller coaster as many times as we could squeeze in during his company picnic. I loved that coaster, and my brothers weren’t nearly as enthusiastic about taking their little sister.
At the time, of course, I wasn’t thinking about whether a park had good theming or whether the rides were worth the price of admission.
I was a kid.
It was summer.
There were rides.
That was enough.
The Troy Fair
And then there was the Troy Fair.
The fair was a different kind of experience, but in my mind it belongs in the same collection of childhood summer travel memories.
The rides, the food, the noise, the lights — there was something about a fair that made an ordinary summer day feel completely different.
I was active in 4-H, so we had all our projects on display with ribbons.
I seemed to always go with my aunt and cousins, and Dad gave me some spending money. We had so much fun riding ridiculous rides, going from booth to booth, and trying fair food. So many good memories.
Even now, there is something about seeing carnival lights after dark that takes me right back to being a kid.
Darien Lake
Darien Lake was another one of those places we went when I was growing up.
It was bigger. It felt like more of an adventure.
And as I got older, trips like that helped cement the idea that getting in the car and going somewhere for the day could be an event all by itself.
Darien Lake had water rides. For this girl, that was wonderful! While I loved a roller coaster, those hot summer months, even for Upstate New York, were always the best rides around!
Hersheypark — and One Very Memorable First Trip Home
Hersheypark has stayed part of my story much longer.
In fact, when my husband and I first went home together so he could meet my parents, we went to Hershey.
Nothing like introducing the man you’re going to marry to the family, then taking him to a place where the air smells like chocolate.
At the time, you could go through the Hershey chocolate experience and smell that unmistakable chocolate smell as you learned how it was made.
And at the end, they handed him a Hershey bar.
He loved it.
It’s such a small memory, really — one chocolate bar at the end of a tourist attraction — but it’s one of those things I still remember all these years later.
That was his first trip home with me.
His first time meeting my parents.
And Hershey became part of that memory too.
Hersheypark became a yearly event with our 4-H group. Later, I remember going with the band and choir.
My parents even took visiting family to the park. It was a few hours’ drive, but the fun? So worth being crammed in the back seat with my little brother. We may or may not have lost him on his first trip to Hersheypark. It’s okay, he didn’t realize he was lost. My bonus mom, on the other hand? She noticed!
Disney Wasn’t the Beginning of My Summer Travel Memories
I obviously love Disney now, especially the way I experience Disney after 50.
Universal has become part of our travels too, and I’ve written about why I keep going back even as a Disney adult.
But neither one was where my love of theme parks and little travel adventures started.
That began much earlier, on the Pennsylvania/New York border, with county fairs, amusement parks, summer car rides, and places that felt enormous to me when I was little.
Maybe that’s part of why I still love them.
The parks have gotten bigger.
The trips have gotten farther from home.
And I certainly spend a lot more time planning them now.
But that feeling when you’re headed somewhere fun for the day?
That part really hasn’t changed.
My summer travel memories started long before Disney, and sometimes I think the destinations we love as adults make a lot more sense when we remember where the story started.