The 10 best roller coasters in the US and where you can ride them

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While theme park rides come in all shapes and sizes these days, nothing beats the adrenaline rush of a well-designed roller coaster. A panel of theme park experts chose 20 coasters, then USA TODAY 10Best readers voted for their favorites. For the 2023 Readers' Choice Awards, here are the 10 best roller coasters in the United States.

The Emperor Dive Coaster at SeaWorld San Diego provides the sensation of a thrilling boogie board ride – or, more in line with the ride's theme, the underwater acrobatics of an emperor penguin – with its face-first, 14-story vertical drop, barrel rolls and Immelmann turns. California's first floorless dive coaster rises to 153 feet high and features speeds approaching 60 mph.

Kingda Ka is "the true king of coasters," says expert Nikky J, especially going by the numbers: it's both the tallest roller coaster in the world and the fastest in North America. The main hill on this steel coaster rises a mind-boggling 456 feet high and the ride hits 128 miles per hour in a 3.5-second launch to get you to the top. From there, it's a 90-degree drop back down, but not straight down – the track actually spirals on the descent.

The 3,365-foot track of Phantom's Revenge in Kennywood brings visitors frighteningly close to another of the park's coasters, Thunderbolt. A hair-raising highlight is the second drop – a 230-foot thriller at 85 miles per hour.

If bigger, faster and taller is better, then Goliath is the roller coaster for you. This steel "hypercoaster" at Six Flags Over Georgia has some giant-sized thrills starting with a 200-foot climb to the top. From there, though, it's not one-and-done: the first 170-foot drop is followed by plunges of up to 175 feet at 70 mph, pulling a face-compressing 4G in turns.

A ride on Skyrush – Hersheypark's tallest and fastest coaster – takes just a little more than a minute but packs a lot of thrills into those precious seconds. The big yellow steel coaster starts with a 200-foot hill climb before a 75-mph descent into a series of four high speed turns and five zero-G airtime hills. Skyrush is considered the scariest ride in the park, especially for riders who sit on the "wings" of the coaster cars that dangle them in the air far from the coaster track.

When Steel Vengeance debuted at Cedar Point in May 2018, it was the world's tallest and fastest hybrid coaster with the steepest drop (90 degrees), longest drop (200 feet) and most inversions (four). At 5,740 feet, it remains the world's longest hybrid coaster and coaster with the most airtime (27.2 seconds), as well as a guest favorite.

Combining the best elements of steel and wooden roller coasters, the hybrid Iron Gwazi at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is named for a mythical half-lion, half-tiger beast. Taking the place of the park's Gwazi dual-track wooden coaster, the Iron Gwazi packs in a lot more adrenaline-pumping thrills than its predecessor, leading off with a 91-degree drop from its 206-foot-tall peak, followed by corkscrews, inversions and top speeds of 76 miles per hour.

Hang onto your hat – and maybe your lunch, too – on this "hyper twisted coaster" where an initial 255-foot drop leads into a tunnel before emerging to endure a pair of 540-degree spirals, with the ride hitting 85 mph over a mile-long track. They say everything is bigger in Texas, but no coaster in the Lone Star State is taller than Titan.

This classic wooden roller coaster at Knoebels proves that newer, taller and faster aren't always better. Phoenix offers panoramic views of the surrounding hills, as well as thrills in the form of a double out and back layout and speeds of 45 miles per hour.

Guests looking for thrills at SeaWorld Orlando will find them aboard one of the park's roller coasters, Mako. Orlando's tallest and fastest coaster gets its name from one of the world's fastest sharks – appropriate for a thrill ride reaching speeds of 73 miles per hour.