GO THERE! A Truly Haunted Mansion!
Sunday, October 27, 2024
We mentioned this place a while back, and if you haven’t been there yet, Halloween is your golden opportunity!!!
The Winchester Mystery House is the former home of widow Sarah Winchester, who in 1881, upon the death of her husband, inherited 50% of the Winchester Repeating Arms company. Mrs. Winchester believed her family was cursed and that her Northern California mansion was haunted by all the victims who died at the muzzle of a Winchester rifle. So she began adding rooms to the property in order to accommodate all of them. By the time she died in 1922 the house had 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and 6 kitchens, along with plenty of secret passageways, trap doors, and stairways leading to nowhere. Plenty of ghost stories up in this crib.
GO THERE! (without the little ones)
Friday, October 25, 2024
If you are the kind of person who actually enjoys being frightened out of your wits, there’s no better place to be on Halloween than the Headless Horseman Hayrides & Haunted Houses attraction in Ulster Park, New York. Be prepared for an intense night of thrills as you explore 6 themed haunted houses, a corn maze and a haunted hayride, where the Headless Horseman himself may leave you screaming like a little Marco.
GO THERE! And tell us how they stack up…
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
The city of Anoka, Minnesota, has been celebrating Halloween festival style since 1920. Now they claim, with good reason, to be the “Halloween capital of the world”. And they have the mural to prove it…
GO THERE! Pumpkin-heads!
Saturday, October 19, 2024
This Saturday, if you love carving jack-o-lanterns and are anywhere near New Hampshire, the Keene Pumpkin Festival is your Halloween dream come true! And its “Orange Towers” are a pumpkin’s worst nightmare realized.
GO THERE!
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
To get your share of Halloween spooks, look no further than The Stanley Hotel in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. This hotel and its ghostly inhabitants, which inspired Stephen Kings novel/movie The Shining, go the extra mile during haunting season. So book a room on the fourth floor, the most paranormally active floor, and don’t expect to sleep a wink. No better way to spend Halloween! Which in Marco’s case means curled up in the fetal position, crying for mommy.
GO THERE! But don’t tell them we sent you.
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Though you will have to find a way to get permission to enter, if ghost towns are your fancy, this is likely the scariest one of all. Nicknamed Village of the Damned;Â Dudley Town, Connecticut, was once a prosperous town, but a series of odd occurrences, including ghost sightings, inexplicable murders and suicides, mass hysteria, and demonic manifestations ultimately caused the remaining townsfolk to run away screaming. Dan Aykroid calls it the scariest place on Earth. That’s right, even Ghostbusters won’t go near it.
GO THERE! …at your own risk
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
They don’t get much more haunted than Ireland’s Leap Castle, where, in its heyday, death and violence were part of the daily routine. During its renovation, a dungeon was discovered with spiked floors and piles of human bones. So, it’s safe to say there are hordes of ghosts roaming around up in this joint. But wait, there’s more! Having once been the meeting place for dozens of occult activities, it is believed that a hostile Elemental creature, nicknamed “It”, was summoned to Leap Castle from… wherever Elementals are summoned from. This little grey humanoid makes his presence known first with the stench of rotting flesh, and though it hasn’t made as many appearances, it remains the most feared apparition in the castle, commonly known not just to intimidate but to attack thrill-seeking tourists.
GO THERE! …and bring a flashlight!
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
El Panteon de Belen is an historical cemetery built in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1848. Though it closed in 1896, it remains open to the public as one of the most incessantly haunted cemeteries in the world. Â So, of course the best time to be there is for the special nighttime tour.
The most popular day of the year?
Hallo-what? No, silly!
November 2, Mexico’s Day of the Dead!
GO THERE!
Monday, October 7, 2024
It’s Halloween season, so it’s time to get to know some of the more spooky, scary and downright creepy destinations in the world, starting with Portugal’s Capela dos Ossos, or Chapel of Bones.
This 16th Century chapel is stacked wall to wall with human bone remnants from the once overcrowded cemeteries, with the intention of embracing death as an ephemeral and joyous spiritual transition. But really, it just ended up being super creepy. The inscription at the door: Nós ossos que aqui estamos pelos vossos esperamos (“We bones, lying here, for yours we wait.”) Makes us go all prinkly!!
GO THERE!
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
The Underwater Sculpture Park in Cancun, Mexico. Another great reason to learn how to snorkel.