Theme parks are at the top of both of our lists of favorite places to visit – in fact, we’ve scheduled a trip to Disneyland for Christmas later this year! However, our enjoyment of theme parks borders on a bit obsessive (in a healthy way, we promise!), so we always new that some of our earliest posts would involve the parks in some form or fashion.

To understand why we like theme parks so much, you have to know a bit about us. First, we are nerds. Unabashedly. As in, comic book-buying, glasses-wearing, cliche nerds, without a doubt. Ok, you got us – Dallas is the only one that buys comic books. But Karen likes the movies! Anyway, theme parks are the perfect places for nerds like us. They allow us opportunities to explore those places we’ve read about in books and seen in movies, and live out those adventures ourselves. For us, we’ve always been drawn to those stories far, far away (Star Wars and Harry Potter marathons are regularly showing on our TVs), so you imagine the appeal of immersing ourselves in these universes.

Admittedly, our favorite parks are undoubtedly Disney parks. Our Honeymoon was to Walt Disney World, and we enjoyed it so much that we started a Disney-themed instagram (@unlockingdisney), and we went back as soon as we could. The time we went back, however, we didn’t visit WDW exclusively; we also spent several days at Universal Studios Florida (which was a must-do, as both of us are HUGE Harry Potter fans.) For our most recent trip to the parks, we switched coasts and took our first trip to California where we fell in love with Disneyland. We’d never visited California before, but the charm of Walt’s original park and detail of Disney’s California Adventure won us over in a big way – so much so that we’re going back for Christmas this year! The food was amazing, the environments were detailed, the rides were a blast… we couldn’t have imagined a better time!

As for when we’ve gone, we’re a bit obsessive as to researching the best times to visit these parks. We’re in a sort of golden age of big theme parks now: Disney and Universal Studios (in both Florida and California) are in an arms race to provide fresh new attractions every single year, which has prompted that same type of growth for smaller parks as well. With this growth has come increased popularity as well; theme parks are busier than ever. As a result, when to visit theme parks has become a key issue for us to avoid as many crowds as possible. The argument among theme park fans nowadays is that there is no “slow period” anymore, but the general rule for us has been to avoid holidays (meaning the actual day, not the overall season.) This means our days in the park being Monday through Friday, and picking months that are usually when school is in session (our go-to time has been September.) This isn’t for everyone – in fact, this may not be for us much longer with our new addition to the family! – but these are some of the factors we’ve considered when planning visits.

We’re firm believers that every theme park has something that makes it individually special – none are the same, and each is worth visiting at least once (or once a season, if we had our preference!) As we’re sure you’ve begun to gather from this post, with so many different amazing aspects (many of which we’ll continue to detail in future posts), theme parks are some of the vacation destinations that we’re most passionate about, so be sure to check back here for some of our favorite specifics about the parks out there, as well as our future travels!