access to amusement

When I was a kid I mostly lived in rural areas and did not have a lot of disposable income, so I did not go to places like Chuck E. Cheese's, zoos, or amusement parks in general much.  We did go to some to be sure, but the opportunity to do this much was not there.  Small towns do have other things to offer, like bowling, soccer leagues, the Shriner's circus, and city pools, so I still did well.

It's in contrast to this that I notice that our kids have gotten to experience a lot of the things I would have dreamed of as a kid.  They have gotten to experience multiple amusement parks, zoos, pumpkin patches, because the opportunity was there.  In fact, we have already purchased season tickets to Silver Dollar City for the upcoming year.  This past weekend they got to visit the KC Legoland Discovery Center and the KC Sea Life Aquarium, which are two more things that are simply not accessible to a lot of kids.  Based on what I see on Facebook, though, I suspect that we do fewer events like this than the average family.

It is this contrast that is making me wonder, do kids do more things like this that back twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years ago?  When you were a kid did you go to amusement parks much (more than once a year)?  Did you visit zoos much or fairs, or Chuck E. Cheese's, or other such things?  Were there other things you did more that offset modern amusements that weren't available to you?

I'm not one to complain that kids these days have it too easy, because each generation is faced with it's own unique challenges, and there will always be individual kids in each generation that have to face enormous hardships.  I am wondering if the difference I am noticing is age-related, money-related, city-versus-rural-background-related, or something else entirely, though.