Which parks are easiest for you to travel to?

For me, a day trip could be Busch gardens, and anything in Orlando is just an overnight stay. Pretty much anything else is a flight away.

Closest to me in Six Flags Great America about a two hour drive from my Chicagoland suburb

I live in Orange County, California, so pretty much any park in SoCal is within a two hour drive, so those parks are always day trips for me. The NorCal parks, as well as Lagoon in Utah, are what I consider to be overnight/weekend trip driving range. I have, however, done longer road trips to parks as far away as Silver Dollar City in Missouri and Silverwood in Idaho (with additional stops, of course).

When it comes to flights, I'm about equidistant between LAX and SAN, so lots of options for easy flights from those (or SoCal's other smaller airports). Add single connection flights (I won't do more than that unless absolutely essential), and pretty much every destination I'm likely to travel to becomes accessible. Getting from the airport to the park varies from place to place, but everywhere I've traveled thus far I could either rent a car (my preference in the US and certain European locations) or utilize either public transportation or a rideshare/group tour to get to the park from a major urban area. I've been to over a hundred parks across the globe at this point in time, and thus far have yet to encounter one that required extra effort to fit into an itinerary.

Where we live in Northern Virginia, we have 3 parks in our regular rotation that are within an easy driving distance, SFA, KD, and BGW. Beyond that, we have another group of major parks that are within reasonable driving distance for a long day trip, Hersheypark, Dorney Park, and SFGAdv. Aside from the smaller, independent parks in Pennsylvania (like Knoebels, Lakemont, and Dutch Wonderland) and beachside parks on the shore, everything else within driving distance of us would require an overnight stay like Kennywood, Cedar Point, Kings Island, Dollywood, Carowinds, SFoG, SFNE, SFDL, Luna Park, etc...). Then we have another set of parks that are within an extended driving distance (>10 hours), where we have both driven and flown to reach like Canada's Wonderland, Holiday World, Kentucky Kingdom, SFGAm, BGT, SWO, WDW, and UO. Anything over 12-14 hours, we would almost certainly fly to, but I have absolutely no problem renting a car and driving around a region to hit all the parks. For instance, we have often flown to SoCal, and rented a car to visit SFMM, DL, DCA, USH, Knott's, Legoland, and SWSD in a single trip.

I do know some theme park fans don't like to rent a car, but it's never stopped us from getting to parks, even in England where we flew into London and rented a car to visit both Thorpe Park and Alton Tower (>2 hours north of London).

Given that we live reasonably close to 3 major airports, it's pretty easy to fly to most places around the world, though the 2 "big" parks we've been wanting to visit just aren't really easy or economical for us to reach. Silver Dollar City is located pretty much equidistant between St. Louis and KC, and necessitates an overnight excursion just to spend a day in Branson. The other park I'd like to visit is Lagoon near Salt Lake City, which one of the few major cities in the US that is really expensive to get to from our local airports.

I'm a 45 minute drive from Hersheypark.

2 hr and 30 minute to Knoebels

A day's drive to KD and BGW (which require a hotel stay)

A 26 hour Amtrak train to WDW and UO (with Mears transport to wherever we are going)

Six Flags New England is a Two hour Drive but we never go there..

SO Orlando it is - 3 Hour flight.....

Four parks are within easy driving distance from me: Great Adventure, Hersheypark, Knoebels and Sesame Place. The Florida parks can be easily accessed by nonstop flights but require a car rental or Uber/Lyft. The most difficult park for me to access is Michigan's Adventure, which requires a flight change, car rental and one hour drive. The most expensive park for me is Silver Dollar City. The closest airport is Springfield, MO, an hour away. Apart from the necessity of a car rental or Uber/Lyft, the airfare is astronomical. It cost me more to fly to Springfield (over $600) than it did to fly to London ($500 before the pandemic). Dollywood is almost as expensive, as the closest airport is Knoxville, an hour away, so there's both the cost of a rental car and a pretty steep airfare.

@Bobbie - I'm completely with you on SDC, and even if you want to save on airfare by flying to KC or St. Louis, easier airports to get to than Springfield, you're going to face a 3-4 hour drive to reach Branson.

This list contains only what I have actually done. Several other parks would fall into the same category’s, but if I’ve never actually done it, then I didn’t list them:

Walking Distance (Haven’t been here in over 5 years, no plans to ever return)：
Niagara Amusement Park & Splash World (formerly Fantasy Island)

Less than 2 hour drive (I RARELY go to these):
Six Flags Darien Lake
Canada’s Wonderland

Day trip with at least one night of hotel:
Cedar Point
Kalahari Mount Pocono
Kalahari Sandusky
Hersheypark
King’s Island
Six Flags Great Adventure
Sesame Place (when kids were young)

Multi-Day Road trip:
Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Dollywood
Kings Dominion

Direct Flight (I always get a rental car):
All Central Florida Parks

Cross Country Flight (6+ hours):and rental car:
Sea World San Diego
Disneyland & DCA
Universal Studios Hollywood
Knott’s Berry Farm
Six Flags Magic Mountain

Being from Edmonton Canada everywhere is a flight! We at lest have a direct flight to Orlando which is 5h15mins or 3h30mins to Los Angeles. Pretty much everywhere else would require a connecting for us :(