Places to Visit This Halloween Season
All Hallows Eve, All Saints Eve, Halloween or the Day of the Dead. Whatever you call it, October 31st and the days leading up to it are a fun-filled, creative, and fear-worthy time across all parts of the world. In the States there are endless amounts of festivals, traditions, haunted tours, costume parties, and tricks. It’s a time of the year where frightening the neighborhood children is welcomed and allowing the kids to indulge in a sugar high well into the night is embraced by parents. Carved pumpkins, gaudy decorations, sexy and silly costumes, and eating ourselves into oblivion, this is a time of year is celebrated by all.
Here are my four favorite spooky places in America everyone should visit during the scariest month of the year.
ESTES PARK, COLORADO
Listed among the top 10 most haunted cities in America, Estes Park is a great visit during the fall. The location of the infamous Stanley Hotel, the setting to one of the most frightening horror movies and horror novels ever: The Shining. A visit to the hotel’s ghost tour is a must-do for visitors to visit the grand ballrooms, spooky halls, remodeled Ice House, and underground tunnels that were made famous by Stephen King’s novel and Stanley Kubric’s movie decades ago. For adults, visit any of the town breweries and taste the local brew, RedRum, inspired by The Shining. For families looking for something a little less sinister, the entire town shuts down Main Street for trick or treating, local entertainment, bobbing for apples, and costume contests catered to all ages.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
When we think of haunted cities in America, San Francisco may not be the first to come to mind. However, the city has a very dark past, from stories of haunted buildings to graveyard visions of ghosts, but there is no place in the city more notorious for it’s fear factor than Alcatraz Island, where guides will tell the stories of past inhabitants like Al Capone, The Birdman, The Butcher, and George “Machine Gun” Kelly, among others. The Night Tour brings visitors by ferry to tour the cells of prisoners long past. Light-hearted events are aplenty, such as Bowlloween, a costume party for adults that includes alcohol, DJ and dancing, and of course bowling. All over the city adults will find theatrical productions based on horror themes, nighttime haunted walking tours and festivals at places like Fisherman’s Wharf for the family.
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
With its rich Creole history and past of tragic events, New Orleans is considered to be the most haunted city in America by many. Street parties during Halloween season challenge that of Mardi Gras, when larger-than-life costumes, floats, and personalities making their way down Bourbon Street. The French Quarter has plenty of ghost tours, but the Big Easy’s cemeteries are where it’s at. The city hosts over ten cemeteries that do Halloween walking tours, and each have their own horrid tales of reported ghost sightings that date back to the 1800’s. Boat Rides of Terror offer haunted swamp tours for adults or families that tell of NOLA’s voodoo priestesses, and the old world buildings of the city showcase haunted houses and horror fests all month long.
NEW ENGLAND
What would Halloween in America be without mention of New England? From the rich history of Salem to the multitude of Hollywood horror flicks like The Haunting in Connecticut, The Conjuring, and Annabelle, to the home of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) made popular on Sci-Fi’s Ghost Hunters. New England towns have no shortage of haunted house and horror tales. Halloween is celebrated wildly across the region with Haunted New England, Spooky World, Halloween New England and other entertainment companies offering attractions like Zombie Paintball, Headless Horseman Hay Rides, Chainsaw Massacre scare and other overall frightening and unique experiences that are not for the faint of heart. Quaint New England towns shut down their roads to allow for neighborhood trick or treating and popular theme parks like Six Flags New England offer Halloween inspired games, rides, and treats. From the museum created by famous Connecticut ghost hunters The Warrens, Emily’s Bridge, Fairfield Hills are just a few of the many abandoned insane asylums, prisons, hospitals or landmarks New England offers to those looking for a scare.
If you can’t visit any of my four favorite Halloween locations this season, seek out the entertainment in your local town that showcases your own city’s unique heritage and you might just find that you too are residing in one of America’s most haunted landmarks, and if not, you’ll find a few thrills along the way.
