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This is not my usual kind of travel post, and I love it for exactly that reason. I’m an aunt to my sister’s three kids — and a good chunk of my year now involves family trips that look nothing like the ones I write about the rest of the time.
New Hampshire’s has a few great amusement parks, and they are the ones I’ve been going to since I was a kid myself. My family did the same North Conway summer trip every year, and Story Land and Santa’s Village were always part of it. Getting to do them again as the aunt rather than the kid has been more nostalgic than I expected — I have genuinely gone from the child dying laughing at the adults getting soaked on the raft ride to the adult the kids are dying to see get soaked.
Here are the four New Hampshire parks worth your day, what each one actually costs, which ages each suits, and the practical bits — hours, food, height limits — that decide whether the day goes well or ends in a car park meltdown.
Jump To:
- Which New Hampshire Park Should You Pick?
- Story Land, Glen
- Santa’s Village, Jefferson
- Canobie Lake Park, Salem
- Water Country, Portsmouth
- Tips for Doing These Parks With Kids
- Where to Stay
Which New Hampshire Park Should You Pick?
These four split neatly by geography and by age, so the choice is usually made for you:
- Story Land — best for under-8s. Small, fairy-tale themed, in the White Mountains near North Conway.
- Santa’s Village — best for the whole spread, roughly 2 to 11. Christmas themed, deep in the North Country, and the one even my ten-year-old nephew still gets excited about.
- Canobie Lake Park — best for mixed-age groups and anyone who wants real coasters. Big, right by the Massachusetts border, easiest from Boston.
- Water Country — best for a pure water day. Also near the border, in Portsmouth on the coast.
Story Land and Santa’s Village pair with a White Mountains trip. Canobie and Water Country pair with each other, or with a Boston or coastal trip — they’re both about an hour from the city and nowhere near the other two.
Story Land, Glen
Story Land is the one people associate with North Conway, though it’s actually in Glen, about ten minutes north of the village — worth knowing when you’re booking somewhere to stay. It’s small, it’s geared to little kids, and a good half of it is built around fairy tales: a princess castle, swan boats, Alice’s teacups, a pumpkin coach, nursery rhyme play areas.
The bigger rides are what keep the older ones interested. The Polar Coaster and the wooden coaster are both genuinely fun, Bamboo Chutes is the log flume, and Dr. Geyser’s raft ride is the family institution.. Moo Lagoon, the new water play area, is the biggest addition the park has made in years, so bring swimsuits and a full change of clothes. The older kids liked this area on our most recent trip.
- Season: late May through late October. Daily operation mid-June to early September, then weekends, with Happy Hauntings running from mid-September to late October.
- Hours: vary by date — check the operating calendar before you drive out, because the shoulder-season days are shorter than you’d expect. Generally 10AM-5PM
- Tickets: $74.99 at the gate, but dated tickets online start around $39.99 and an any-day ticket runs about $59.99. Ages 3 and up pay; 2 and under are free. Seniors 65+ get a few dollars off.
- Best for: roughly 2–8. Better for the younger kids generally
- Food: standard park quick-service — burgers, pizza, ice cream, hot dogs, grilled cheese, etc.
The tip that actually saves you money: Story Land’s Final 3 programme lets you into the park free for the last three hours of the day before your full-day ticket. If you’re driving up anyway, arrive in the afternoon, do a couple of rides, and you’ve effectively got a day and a half for the price of one.
They also sell a combo ticket with Living Shores Aquarium next door, which is indoors — useful to have in your back pocket if the forecast turns, since a rainy day at Story Land is a long day.
Full details and the operating calendar are on the Story Land website.
Santa’s Village, Jefferson
Santa’s Village will forever be my family’s favourite, and I don’t think that’s only nostalgia talking. It’s in Jefferson, which is very much the middle of nowhere — a fair drive from North Conway, so you make a day of it rather than tacking it onto something else. It is also completely adorable.
You visit Santa. You ride an elevated sleigh around the whole park. You go to Elf University, decorate a gingerbread, feed real reindeer, and visit the blacksmith shop where they make the kids a special ring. On the rides side there’s the Midnight Flyer coaster, the Yule Log Flume, bumper cars and the tubing hill. It’s pitched slightly older than Story Land, which is why it’s the one my ten-year-old nephew still enjoys.
- Season: summer through to New Year’s Eve, in blocks — summer days, Fall FEASTival Sundays in September, Holly Jolly Halloween in October, then Christmastime weekends in November and December.
- Hours: 9:30am–5pm in summer and at Halloween; Christmastime is 11am–7pm Saturdays and 11am–6pm Sundays; New Year’s Eve is 4–9pm.
- Tickets: $50 for ages 4+ in summer and at Halloween ($46 seniors and military), $60 at Christmastime, $69/$59 for New Year’s Eve. Ages 3 and under are free all season.
- Best for: about 2–12ish depending on how into Christmas the kids are!
- Food: Homemade fudge, Santa’s s’mores, made-to-order pizza at Nick’s, burgers, wraps and salads, and the cinnamon sugar donut bites that are addicting. Decorate your own gingerbread & so much more.
The Christmastime weekends are a genuinely different experience from a summer visit — the whole place is done up in lights and it feels a little extra magical. I have written that visit up properly in my Santa’s Village at Christmas guide, because it deserves more than a paragraph.
Dates and tickets are on the Santa’s Village website.
Canobie Lake Park, Salem
Canobie is the one I’d argue is the most picturesque amusement park in New England, and that’s entirely down to the fact that it sits right on Canobie Lake. The water is visible from half the park and everything is always updated and well maintained.
The vibe is old-timey amusement park in the best possible sense. Every single time I’m there I think of My Girl — the bumper cars, the lights, that specific kind of summer-evening nostalgia. It’s also the biggest of the four, and if your kids like rides you can genuinely be there from opening until close (we always are)
The highlights for us are the swings, the bumper cars, the antique carousel, the log ride, the pirate ship, the Boston Tea Party and the lake cruise. Coaster-wise there’s the Yankee Cannonball, the park’s classic wooden coaster, the looping Dragon Coaster, and Untamed, the newest and the most intense. The kiddie section is excellent and honestly where my nieces and nephew would have happily spent the entire day — the kiddie canoes, Flower Power and the Rowdy Roosters were the crowd favorites. Castaway Island, the water park, is big enough to eat a few hours on its own, so pack swimsuits and a full change of clothes.
- Season: weekends from late spring, daily through the summer, then weekends and select days into late October for Screeemfest.
- Hours: vary a lot by day — later closes on Friday and Saturday nights in summer. Check the calendar before you go.
- Tickets: online only, and you must buy in advance — this is the one thing that will catch you out, because you can’t just turn up and pay at the gate. Date-specific tickets are cheapest and priced by day; Good Any Day tickets cost more but work on any operating day, including Screeemfest. Over 48 inches $55-67, under 48 inches and over 60 $39-$43
- Best for: 2 to adult. The only one of the four a teenager wouldn’t roll their eyes at, and still fine for toddlers.
- Food: the best of the four. Portofino does pasta with a view over the lake and is air conditioned, the Dancing Bear Canteen does ribs and burgers, and the Yankee Whaler is the ice cream stop — waffle cones, sundaes, fried dough. Budget around $15 a head for an actual meal.
Two things worth timing your visit around. There are fireworks on summer weekend nights, over the lake, which is the single best argument for staying until close. And Screeemfest runs from late September through Halloween — six haunted houses, roving monsters and Halloween shows, with no separate ticket needed beyond park admission. Sunday Family Fun Days keep it manageable for younger kids, with the indoor haunts not opening until 5pm and the walk-around characters held back until 6pm.
Everything is on the Canobie Lake Park website.
Water Country, Portsmouth
Water Country is New England’s largest water park and another one I’ve been going to since I was small. I’ll be honest with you: it hasn’t changed enormously since the early 2000s and there are corners that could do with an upgrade. It is still a very good day out, and if your kids like water slides it’s a genuinely affordable way to fill one.
The wave pool is the centrepiece — 700,000 gallons and the biggest in New England — and there are 26 acres of slides around it, from the Double Patriot freefall drops to the family raft rides you can go down together, plus the lazy river and shaded toddler zones like Bubble Bay and the Tahiti Tree House for the little ones.
And yes, if you grew up anywhere in New England, the jingle is already in your head. I’m sorry.
- Season: early June to early September — the shortest season of the four, so don’t leave it to the last minute.
- Hours: generally from 10am, closing time varies by date.
- Tickets: $59.99 at the gate, dated tickets from about $34.99 online, any-day around $49.99. Pricing splits by height rather than age — Junior is under 48″ — and under-2s are free. Parking is extra, $20 general and $25–30 preferred, which is worth budgeting for.
- Best for: 4 and up, and better the taller they are — a lot of the good slides have a 48″ limit.
- Food: standard water park fare – burgers, pizza, hot dogs, etc.
Worth knowing: Water Country and Story Land are now under the same ownership, and a season pass at one includes admission to the other. If you’re doing both in the same summer, do the maths — a pass can work out cheaper than two single tickets.
Tickets and the operating calendar are at watercountry.com
Tips for Doing These Parks With Kids
- Buy online, always. Canobie is online-only, and the other three are meaningfully cheaper in advance — often close to half the gate price.
- Three of the four have water. Story Land, Canobie and obviously Water Country. Swimsuits and a complete change of clothes for everyone, including the adult who swore they weren’t going on the raft ride.
Where to Stay
For Story Land and Santa’s Village, base yourself in the North Conway area. It’s the obvious hub for both, it’s a lovely town in its own right, and there’s plenty to fill the rest of the trip — I’ve written up the best hotels in North Conway, the best restaurants and the best things to do there in summer separately.
For Canobie and Water Country, you probably don’t need to stay anywhere at all. Both are close enough to Boston to be a day trip, and they’re about an hour from each other if you want to do both across a weekend — Portsmouth is the nicer base of the two if you’d rather not drive back into the city.
For everything else in the state, start with my New Hampshire travel guide.
