Mine was the steep sandstone valleys that began where my town (and my back garden — lucky, lucky boy) abruptly ended. They were called the Firehills, because the gorse bushes frequently caught fire in a dry summer and burnt like mini forest-fires for days; very few people bothered to explore down in the deepest, forested parts of the valley bottoms so us kids had them to ourselves. We could go an entire day without seeing or hearing anyone and with the ferns and brackens and little waterfalls amongst patches of shady, forest-floor sunlight, it really did feel like dinosaurs could be down there with us.

For 10 to 14 year-old children with long summer holidays to enjoy, it was simply... Wonderful.

Anywhere I was told I couldn't go without a good explanation as to why I couldn't

Sounds adventurous! Like sledding down a hill in an old grocery basket....ghetto fabulous ????. When I was a kid liked going to my uncle Shine house he was a musician that toured all over the state's and UK...we'd dance and sing along with them during practice sessions...

There were two, but the best was on Sunday morning when I would get on my bicycle and ride up to Silver Falls State Park in Oregon. It was an all day trip up and back. I liked hiking the trail behind South Falls. The trail went in behind the falls and it was a great place to just sit and think and dream. I was 7 and 8 years old then and no one thought twice about letting me go up to the park on my own in those days.

My favorite place was probably my grandparents ranch which was around 7,000 acres. We could always find an adventure there.

The back woods where we kids would play hide and seek, army ( it was another time) , and freeze tag

My backyard was 10 acres of field before 95 was built. Had my own little sandpit for tractors and trucks. Occasionally would build teepees with my next door neighbor Butch. Had major boulders across the road for climbing-labelled them Rock#1, #2 and #3. In the winter we had a huge skating rink in my backyard.

My favorite place was Big Basin State park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The list why won't fit here.

Ours was Elm Hill. We would take the chains off of our bicycle and go down the hill with no brakes. We had to cross two streets with about 30 yards of median in between. It wasn't super busy, but we had limited visability for the cross traffic. We had a real sense of the stupid!

Pedaling my bike anywhere and everywhere!

I have lived on the East coast and West coast when I lived in California one of my younger brothers and I would walk all the way out on the jetty in Seal Beach we were fishing there many times. To get to the jetty it requires crossing seal beach naval weapons station when we were kids we had no idea that it was illegal for us to be there. Much later I have been back for a visit had my military id card just so happens a guard had seen us out on the jetty and came to inform us it was illegal for us to be there. I showed him my card with top secrete clearance on it. Guard said fish.

The local movie theatre as it was air conditioned!

A small pond in the woods out behind my house. I'd go there at sunrise with my ice skates in the winter and have the whole pond to myself and build ice castles for my prince and I. (I was 7-8 years old.)

In my town, in the heart of anthracite country, the coal mines piled the mine tailings, called culm, into huge mounds by the breakers and surrounding areas.The mines had shut down by the time I was growing up. There were birch tree woods all around, cuz birch trees grow in anything. We'd set up forts in the woods, hang out, climb up the shale and slate piles, get filthy-ass dirty, then dial it up again the next day. One of the two playgrounds in town was right next to where the culm banks were, with a corner store that had popsicles and ice cold coke. Carefree times.

I grew up in rural Arkansas. I used to go into the woods with my brothers and play. Sigh... kids nowadays don't play with anything but electronics....

Chula Vista? You had snow in Chula Vista? No, I'm guessing you grew up somewhere else. I grew up in a little town, Humboldt, in north central Iowa, and it was in a little valley with a steep hill leading into it. That hill was about a third of a mile long and curved into a bridge crossing a river. The challenge was to be able to slide all the way to bridge and you had to get up lots of speed to do it. Humboldt got lots of snow in the winter and school was canceled because of it two or three times each winter so we had plenty of opportunities to go sliding. In those days, it was called sliding, now they call it sledding but it was fun, and usually very cold back then.

Florida

Saylorsburg, Pocono mountains to visit my grandma. Loved the area, the house she was living in and, of course, time spent with her. She worked a couple nights at the drive in down the road and we’d walk along the old railroad bed behind the house to get there. And the New Jersey shore every summer. Miss it.

A nameless mountain within walking distance of my home. There was a small spring-fed pool surrounded by boulders. The spring bubbled out of the ground at the head of the pool and disappeared beneath the rocks on the downhill side of the pool. It was completely surrounded by laurel and honeysuckle bushes. The only way into it was a deer trail that wound its way in so that their was no view of the world past the greenery. The surrounding foliage and cold flowing water kept that place cool even on the hottest summer days.

Hell, as a kid, I probably drank a couple hundred gallons of water from that spring.

The back woods where we kids would play hide and seek, army ( it was another time) , and freeze tag

Living in SF I liked going to the park. One was Glen Park in the middle of the city. You stand in the middle of it and could not see any houses. The other park was the Golden Gate park.

I grew up in Pittsburgh. Our house was on a street that butted up to the Eastern edge of Frick Park. That park could keep us entralled for hours. We knew every inch of it. From the Blue slide to the lawn bowling greens. Summer wasn't summer without it.

This was a wild area of the east bench in SLC that has since been turned into a park.
[slcgov.com]

Inside a volcano! I win...

I'm 100% cheating here, because as a military brat who lived in Naples Italy for 4 years growing up in the 70s I had access to a place that was almost like a amusement park in it's factor of cool. I can assure you that it was jaw dropping when I first got there at 12 years of age.

Carney Park... hands down best place as a kid ever. Inside the extinct volcano there was a 9 hole golf course, a swimming pool (I could write a whole thread on working at the pool my last summer in Italy as a 16 year old), drive-in movie theater, small 7-11 style convenience store, a greasy spoon style grill that offered old school military prices (hot dogs were like 50 cents), and tons of hiking, skeet range, and simply too many things to do. The last year or two I was there they even had a skateboard park! (Apparently vcrs, video tape, and/or dvds and armed forces cable shows killed the drive in during the 80s. A true crime if ever there was one!)

It had a gate guard that checked cars coming in... so parents felt safe dropping kids off at like 7 or 8 am on a Saturday morning... and not expecting the kids home till after the drive in movies were over that night! Yep, parents actually bought lines like "Mom, tomorrow I'm going to Carney early with Colonel Bringham, and coming home after the movie with the DeLa Ossa's!!" They didnt worry about where their 14 year old was in Europe for 18 to 20 hours! No cell phones... my folks never knew where I was.

There was a constant flow of busses coming in from, and back, between Carney Park and both fleet landing (think carriers like the USS Saratoga anchored in Naples bay!) and the NATO base and Naval base.
Flash your dependent I.D. card and you were on board the free bus and on the outside! And there was a train station just outside the NATO base main gate. Spend the day in Sorrento, go to Capri (the ferry was cheap, hydrofoil cost $$$!) Whatever. Actually just riding the train to Piazza Mergallina and having a beer and pizza without mom and dad knowing was generally enough of an adventure.

Make it back to the base or Carney park by the time the evening movies were over and you could hitch hike with military folk back to your neighborhood! Mom and dad would never know!

[en.m.wikipedia.org]

A brief wiki overview, and a corny short military promo flick. (They didn't rent bikes at Special Sevices when I was a kid! That would have ruled!)