Giggleberry Fair - the name is weird enough! It’s a place full of giggles and noises and fun, with games, prizes, balls, and a carousel.

But the most fun of all there dwells in a weird, wonderful place called the Mountain. It is 7 stories of exciting, giggling, screaming, running, climbing, noisy FUN! It is full of colorful, soft, bouncy nets, platforms, and things to climb over and through. It is a little kid’s paradise, a big kid’s kingdom, a teenager’s workout, and a parent’s nightmare. I always have tons of fun in that loud, exciting, pizza-filled place, but it is extremely exhausting climbing through holes that I can barely fit through, chasing my cousins around through nets and tubes, crawling on my belly through small spaces, ducking through tunnels and around rubber balls hanging from the ceilings, lifting my smaller cousins up to the higher bits and pushing them up the parts that are harder to climb. By the end of the day my neck and back are aching from ducking through tunnels, my knees and hands are red and raw from all the crawling through nets and tubes, and my arms are tired and limp from all the lifting and carrying of small children. The best word to describe this feeling is just plain totally and completely pooped.

Also in the magical, mystical Giggleberry Fair, there is an arcade. A huge dark room with about 50 games inside, including air hockey, skeeball, dance dance revolution, basketball hoops, and the claw game where you try to pick up stuffed animals. You play these games with coins, which you get at the front desk, and with almost every game you get tickets, and with tickets comes prizes! The loud, buzzing, ringing arcade with flashing, blinking lights, bright and colorful in the dark room, and the agonizing will to win the games are what draw you into the busy arcade. The best feeling is when you get lucky and win a jackpot and end up with thousands of tickets! It’s only happened to me twice, but it is the best feeling ever!

Another great part of this paradise is the pizza - the oozing, melting, stringy cheese in delicious tomato sauce on soft, warm, floppy dough. And with it comes the cold, refreshing drink that cools and soothes your dry, tired throat that has been yelling at kids through the mountain, and gives you just enough energy and refreshment to go back in. When you are full up of pizza and liquid, you go on to the next activity (the arcade, perhaps?) to digest your food before going back into the chaos that is the Mountain.

Last but not least in this great place is the carousel - the huge, animal-filled, moving circle that is fun to watch and ride. I lift up and buckle the kids onto their desired animal, then go with my cousin Maggie (who is 8) to find the two highest horses to ride on. I never buckle because the tiny buckle is too small to fit around my waist, and neither does my cousin unless someone tells her to because even though she is tiny she is muscly and athletic and she hates the tight buckle. There is always someone at the controls on one side, watching tiredly as we go past. The carousel is kind of boring for me, since I’m 14 and a little old for these kind of things, and for my cousin, because she’s very adventurous and athletic. So, we do small stunts like switching to side saddle or whatever we can do safely in the 3 seconds we have before we pass whoever is at the controls. We always end up laughing more than moving, and people always look at us weirdly, probably thinking we are too old for these things to be having so much fun - which of course just makes us laugh harder! We must have gone on the carousel about 10 times, since we had wristbands and didn’t have to pay per ride. We had a lot of fun on that!

I have been going to Giggleberry since I was really little, even before I had any cousins, since they are all more than 6 years younger than me. It has always been one of my favorite places to go - even now as a teenager! I love going there with my cousins, especially because soon I won’t be able to go through the Mountain as fast as them, and it won’t be any fun since they will be way ahead of me!  I really enjoy Giggleberry, and I sure hope that you (and your kids?) will too!

Giggleberry Fair is located in Lahaska, Pennsylvania.

Emily Zumchak is a member of the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program

All photos courtesy and copyright Emily Zumchak