Get Out of Boston for the Day: Canobie Lake Park
Canobie Lake Park, New Hampshire
Somebody is flying through the air in a giant orange rooster. A hearse advertising Screeemfest is parked near the entrance. Somewhere nearby, another family is about to discover exactly how wet a water ride can get you.
Welcome to Canobie Lake Park.
Boston is great. But sometimes the best Boston day is the one where you get in the car, head north and get the hell out of Boston for a few hours.
Canobie Lake Park in Salem, New Hampshire, is close enough to Boston to make an easy day trip and far enough away to feel like you actually went somewhere.
And it still has something increasingly hard to manufacture.
Personality.
Old-School New England Fun
Canobie opened in 1902 as a trolley park on the shores of Canobie Lake.
More than a century later, it somehow still feels like a New England amusement park instead of an amusement park that happens to be in New England.
There are thrill rides, kiddie rides, water rides, midway games, live entertainment, gardens and wonderfully strange little corners everywhere you look.
One minute you're watching people spin through the air.
The next you're standing beside an immaculate flower bed.
Then you turn a corner and encounter a hearse advertising a Halloween festival.
As one does.
That may be my favorite thing about Canobie.
It doesn't feel like somebody ran the place through a corporate focus group until every odd edge disappeared.
There is plenty here for little kids, teenagers and adults who still haven't accepted that voluntarily being dropped, spun, flipped and soaked may not be the most rational way to spend an afternoon.
For the rest of us, there are benches.
One Day at Canobie Lake Park, Salem, New Hampshire
There Is a Lot Going On
Canobie has more than 85 rides, games and attractions, so this is not a place where you arrive, ride three things and wonder what to do next.
There are the big rides for people who enjoy having gravity used against them.
There are smaller rides for kids.
There are water attractions.
There is Castaway Island if your idea of amusement-park fun involves getting wet on purpose.
And there are enough games, food stands and midway distractions to keep separating you from your money all afternoon.
Which, admittedly, is also part of the traditional amusement-park experience.
Canobie in Motion
The rides aren't the only thing moving around here.
Canobie still does something a lot of amusement parks have lost along the way: live entertainment.
We happened onto a show while wandering around the park, because apparently my day needed singing and dancing between roller coasters and Screeemfest hearses.
It worked.
Yes, there is live entertainment too.
And Then There Is Screeemfest
I was there in August.
Screeemfest wasn't even open yet.
That did not stop Screeemfest from making its presence known.
There were signs. There were decorations. There was a hearse. There was a flame-covered car with a New Hampshire plate that basically screamed SCREEM.
Subtlety was not part of the marketing plan.
Screeemfest takes over Canobie in the fall, which means the same park that spends summer launching kids through the air eventually decides what everyone really needs is monsters.
New England knows how to do seasons.
The GoBoston Quick Take
Best for: Families, kids, teenagers, grandparents, nostalgia addicts and adults who never quite outgrew amusement parks.
The vibe: Classic New England amusement park with enough modern rides to keep the thrill seekers occupied and enough old-school character to make the place memorable.
Go for: The rides, water, games and family day.
Stay for: All the weird little things you didn't expect to find.
Would I go again? Yep.
Getting There
Canobie Lake Park is in Salem, New Hampshire, just off I-93.
From Boston, figure roughly 35 minutes without traffic.
That last part is doing some work.
This is Boston.
Plan accordingly.
Your Turn
If you grew up around Boston or southern New England, there's a decent chance you have a Canobie story.
So what's your ride?
And more importantly:
Which one couldn't you pay me enough to get on?