Oliver Becker

Amusement parks and roller coasters are more than a hobby for me. In the last few years, these things turned into a kind of a lifestyle for me. I mainly love to visit parks, where I haven't been before. Therefore, I need to travel further and further away on every new trip. I'm also fascinated by the technology of attractions, their development and history. I like amusement parks best, when they offer diversification, cleanness, a high grade of theming and friendly staff. I love roller coasters, of course, but they are not the only thing in an amusement park. It's the mixture of it all.

I must leave the question for my favourite roller coaster unanswered here. There are so many kinds of them and I don't want to draw comparisons here. I like wooden roller coasters in general, first of all, because of the rough and shaky ride with the 'out-of-control-feeling'. But also water-rides, free fall towers and nicely themed dark rides are my favourite attractions at every park visit.

I have the same fun by riding roller coasters as by taking pictures of them. It is often an ordeal for all others of our group, when I'm waiting with my camera at a fence for the next train to pass by. But at the end of the day, everybody is happy about some nice pictures taken on the trip.

I'm often asked how I came to my special hobby. - I don't know. My interest in roller coasters and things like that already started, when I was a little child. Numerous yellowed photos in a lot of family albums tell stories about that.

Things were picking up the pace in 2001, when I joined a German amusement park club. Soon after that, I also joined the European coaster club. A lot of opportunities for doing my hobby occurred since then and I made a lot of new friends. In 2002, Matthias and I got to know each other. We soon started our first project together: The internet site lifthill.de. Andreas joined our team shortly after. One year later, we got to know Pascal. After a lot of park trips and leisure time together, our separate internet sites lifthill.de and coasterpics.net merged into one: lifthill.net. No one of our group expected the development of lifthill.net to these dimensions. I'm really pleased, that so many people enjoy our reviews and pictures.