18 American Vacation Spots That Were Huge in the ’80s but Faded Away

Every decade has its own travel fads, and the eighties were no exception. Everything from dolphins to boardwalks with casinos to abandoned desert ghost towns attracted travelers in search of new experiences back in the day. Some of these destinations closed outright. Others just stopped being trendy and were quickly forgotten. 

Here are eighteen places that were hot vacation spots in the eighties and have become nothing more than fond memories.

After legalizing casino gambling in 1976, Atlantic City found itself the only legal gambling destination on the East Coast almost overnight. In the 80's, the boardwalk was lined with new casino towers, and busloads of visitors started coming down from all over the Northeastern region. However, that dominance wasn’t meant to last. Connecticut's tribal casinos opened in the early '90s, and gambling spread to states all over the country, leaving Atlantic City to compete on a much more crowded field.

For decades, "The Poconos" was one of America’s top romantic getaways, complete with heart-shaped whirlpools and champagne-glass-shaped soaking pools. Honeymoon hideouts like Cove Haven and Mount Airy Lodge made an industry out of the idea, with countless couples flocking to these resorts throughout the decade. But affordable Caribbean package vacations soon offered similar luxuries with an ocean attached, and the Poconos never recovered. Mount Airy Lodge was torn down in 2001.

Action Park opened in 1978, and by the middle of the '80s, over one million visitors were visiting the park annually, thanks to rides like the Cannonball Loop and Alpine Slide. It was later nicknamed "Traction Park" because of the six fatalities that occurred during the eighteen years the park was operational. It ended up shutting down in 1996 due to lawsuits and the rising insurance costs, with a tamer water park eventually taking its place.

Niagara Falls had been dubbed "Honeymoon Capital of the World" since the Victorian age, and by the 1980s, business was booming for resorts offering heart-shaped bathtubs on either side of the border. As cheaper air travel opened up tropical destinations to honeymooning couples, Niagara Falls became just another choice amongst many.

Opryland offered a mix of roller coasters with country music shows, and towards the end of the '80s, it was pulling in almost 2.5 million tourists annually, making it the most visited tourist spot in Nashville. In 1997, however, new management decided the land was worth more as a shopping mall than a theme park. The rides were sold off to parks around the country, and Opry Mills opened on the site in 2000. Company executives later admitted closing the park had been a mistake.

The AstroWorld theme park opened up in 1968 near the Astrodome, and it was one of Houston's major attractions in the 80s and 90s due to its skyline of rollercoasters. In September of 2005, Six Flags decided to close down the park, citing other plans for the land. The demolition started in 2006, and the 57-acre area was turned into parking lots. One of Houston's biggest summer traditions ended up as parking for stadium events.

Perched on the cliffs of Palos Verdes, Marineland of the Pacific had been a major Southern California destination since 1954 due to its shows with killer whales and dolphins, predating SeaWorld's. In 1987, the corporation running SeaWorld purchased Marineland and moved its animals, including the two orcas Orky and Corky, to San Diego. The Palos Verdes park closed for good shortly after.

Wildwood beaches were unique due to the Googie architecture "Doo Wop" motels, complete with neon lights and kidney pools. For a long time, names like "Caribbean" and "Pan American" drew in families from across the mid-Atlantic. It served as a go-to family beach destination on the Jersey Shore up until the end of the eighties. As families opted for other beach resorts and inexpensive flights to more tropical destinations, the Doo Wop motels were abandoned, though a small cluster has since been preserved as a historic district.

Hot Springs is known throughout the world for its bathhouse district, where spa buildings take advantage of the natural hot spring water, which has been federally protected since 1832. By the '80s, the spa tourism model had run its course, and most of the bathhouses had closed their doors, with the National Park Service stepping in to preserve what remained. Hot Springs was also known for illegal gambling that ran well into the 20th century, which only added to its anything-goes appeal during its peak years.

Even before Las Vegas was synonymous with casino vacationing, Reno billed itself as "The Biggest Little City in the World" and capitalized on the revenue of gambling, hasty marriages, and fast divorces. It competed effectively with Vegas until the California tribes entered the game in the '90s. After that, the tourists who used to come for gambling no longer had to make the trip up.

SeaWorld of Ohio opened in 1970, introducing killer whale and dolphin shows in the Midwest region. It was one of the most popular places where parents could take their children during the summer in the 1980s. In the late 1990s, Six Flags acquired the park, moved the animals to other SeaWorld locations, and rebranded it. It later changed hands again and became Geauga Lake before finally closing in 2007.

Calico Ghost Town is a restored mining town in the Mojave Desert that became a popular pit stop for road trippers cutting through the desert in the '70s and '80s, complete with gunfight shows and a narrow gauge railroad. As travel routes along the interstate became more prominent and tourists grew tired of Old West gimmicks, Calico became a much quieter regional curiosity rather than a must-see stop.

Old Tucson was originally built as a movie set for the 1939 film Arizona, and later became a functioning theme park where people could see how Western movies and television shows were made by walking through the very streets portrayed in the show. Old Tucson had a lot of success in the eighties, but much of the complex burned in 1995, and although it reopened in scaled-back form, it never regained its place as an Arizona must-visit.

Lake Havasu City built its identity around a surprising landmark. The original London Bridge was dismantled from the Thames and reassembled there in 1971. In the '80s and into the '90s, the lake was a major spring break destination, packed with boats and college students every March. But students began choosing Cancun, South Padre Island, and Panama City Beach instead, and Havasu's spring break scene faded into a smaller, more local affair.

Palm Springs had been the desert getaway of choice for Frank Sinatra and other Hollywood celebrities, and that poolside glamour carried into the '80s as a draw for retirees and vacationers alike. By the late '80s and through the '90s, travelers began looking elsewhere for desert sun, and many of the city's midcentury hotels sat half-empty for years. Although a design-driven revival brought interest back in the 2000s, the place is still a shadow of its former self.

Coney Island had already lost much of its shine by the '60s and '70s, but Astroland managed to keep its attractions up and running in the '80s as the area attempted to regain some of the luster it once had as America's playground, without much success. For decades, it had been one of the country's top vacation spots while still remaining within reach of working-class families from Brooklyn to the Bronx who could have a beach day without leaving the city. By the time Astroland closed in 2008, that version of Coney Island was long gone.

From Florida to California and everywhere in between, motels with Polynesian pop styling, including tiki bars, volcanic-shaped pools, and thatched-roofed lobbies, offered budget-minded tourists an exotic escape without having to travel abroad. This style was quite popular throughout much of the '70s and '80s. It slowly began fading in the 90s, and numerous motels were either torn down or remodeled beyond recognition.

The Tommy Bartlett Show had been a Wisconsin Dells fixture since 1952, packing in crowds every summer for its water ski stunts and variety acts well into the '80s. When ski shows stopped drawing people in, it relaunched as the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory, pivoting to science exhibits. The Dells kept booming as a destination, but the show itself finally closed in 2021.