A theme park – a quaint idea that started a hundred years ago at a time when fantasy was a commodity that was distant and rare, and when life was slow enough that young people had the patience to stop and stare in wonder at surroundings they could never have experienced before. For very long now, amusement theme parks have been epitomized by the Disney signature. You take your child to one of these, and you expect fun and frolic to a different idea each time – it could be a fairytale experience like in the Magic Kingdom, it could be a movie theme as in the Universal Studios theme park; either way, lighthearted fun is the underlying spirit that inspires everyone of them. But there are certain rebellious elements in the theme park industry that wish to expand on the concept. Let’s look at a few around the world that seem to rather push the envelope on the very idea of what a theme park should do.

You’ve heard the phrase in Dickensian, haven’t you? It’s a word that signifies a life of hardship and privation, of uan nfeeling community and the threat of bubonic plague around the corner. It is orphanages that Oliver Twist would have called home, and cruel parents that David Copperfield would have run away from. What would it be like if they made amusement theme parks that could place you in a world like this? That’s exactly what they’ve done at Dickens World in London. The bleak Victorian era feel, the narrow lanes, starvation, a complete lack of human rights, terrible child labor, people dying of tuberculosis, are all on display in this macabre theme park; you could take your child there, and perhaps have her appreciate everything that 200 years of civilization have done away with.

You keep hearing of the great orgy of extravagance that Dubai is all the time; what kind of amusement theme parks might they have? Well extravagance is really the word for it – for Dubailand – a theme park so lavish, it was to cost more than the annual budget several countries are able to afford – at $60 billion. It was to be twice the size of Disney World at 3 billion square feet, and there were to be rides and experiences there that were so lavish, so dreamy, that it would attract visitors from all over the world (the promoters placed the figure at 3 million)- a Disneyland to outdo Disneyland. Just imagine  – golf nuts could go to the Tiger Woods Dubai attraction; you could ski at artificial slopes at Snowedome – it was just going to be too much. And it was; the country went bankrupt, and all you have now is a dusty bunch of half-built attractions. It could be a great park on the theme of unmanageable ambition and hubris.

Okay, here is a theme for an amusement park that gets decidedly distasteful. South Korea is a country that’s held back by the prudishness of its culture. The government, after having watched the country’s birthrate slide for years, decided that what the country needed was to loosen up. That way, people would fall in love more often, and have more children; that was how the reasoning went. That might be all wonderful, except for the fact that they decided to help everyone get their groove on with the help of amusement theme parks called Love Land. If you ever went to one of these places, and saw attractions called Breast Mountain and Self-Abuse bike, would it put you in a wholesome state of mind for love and raising a family?

When I was about thirteen years old, my dad took the whole family out to Yellowstone National Park.  I was kind of an awkward kid, and I really did feel like I had something to prove at that age. As such, it was hard for me to go on vacation with my family. I would always get into fights with my sister and my brother in the car. It was almost painful for me to sit still.

As our road trip neared its destination of Yellowstone National Park, however, I grew still. I had never seen anything quite like the countryside I was driving through. It was big and empty, and the sky was huge above us. Soon, mountains began to loom up quite impressively from all around. As a child of Michigan, I was not used to seeing any big changes in elevation, so suddenly being in the presence of all those mountains made quite an impression on me.

When we finally got to Yellowstone National Park, however, I was more than ready to stop driving! We had made a brief detour through the Grand Tetons National Park, but had scarcely taken the time to stop and stretch our legs before we were out on the road again. My dad was always one of those dads who wanted to get there as quickly as possible, which made for long hours of endless driving.

The first thing that we went to see in Yellowstone National Park was the Old Faithful Geyser. I had a lot of trouble believing that it was as faithful as they said but, sure enough, it erupted when it was supposed to almost to the second. If I saw it nowadays, I do not know if I would be quite as impressed, but as a kid I absolutely loved it. I also loved looking at the hot springs and smelling the sulfurous odor that came from everything.

One of the best things about the trip, however, was national park fishing. My dad had reserved a fishing license for Yellowstone National Park months in advance, and could hardly wait to go once we got there. I had never been fishing before, and once I started I was surprised to find that my dad was quite an able fisherman. He knew just where to cast to find the biggest and best trout. The fish there was out of this world! You just can’t beat catching it yourself.