The tradition of Halloween traces its roots back to the ancient festival of Samhain, which was celebrated in Celtic areas—including Ireland, Wales, and Scotland—during the mid-point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. Samhain was celebrated as a harvest festival, but it was also believed that the veil between this world and the next was thinnest during the holiday, which started at dusk around October 31.
After the Roman Empire conquered Britannia, the Celtic Samhain tradition blended with Roman and, later, Christian influences. The term “Halloween” is derived from All Saints’ Day, “Alholowmesse” or “All-Hallows” in Middle English, an autumnal holiday held to honor the saints. The day before All-Hallows was known as “All-Hallows Eve;" it evolved into Halloween and was imported to the U.S. mostly by waves of Irish immigration during the 19th century, where it would take on a distinctly American spin.
If you enjoy feeling a chill run down your spine, consider visiting one of these 11 haunted places around the world, and joining a ghost tour to get insider info like who murdered whom.
1. Salem, Massachusetts
- Ghost tour: Bewitched Historical Tours
- Starting price: $30
The Salem witch trials saw at least 25 people accused of being witches and killed by hanging and other execution methods. For example, one of the rare men to be accused, Giles Corey, was crushed to death by heavy stones over three days; his wife, Martha, was also accused and hanged. This vicious period in Salem was part of a witch hunting tradition common across western Europe from 1400 to 1775, during which an estimated 100,000 people were tried for witchcraft, half of whom were then executed.
Bewitched Historical Tours runs day and night tours of downtown Salem, visiting a dozen historic sites related to the gruesome Witch Trials, including one of the oldest European-style cemeteries in the U.S. (Salem is also home to pre-colonial Indigenous burial sites), which dates back to 1673.
Savannah, Georgia is a perfect destination for ghost hunters in the South seeking a thrill.
Photo by Eric Dale/Shutterstock
2. Savannah, Georgia
- Ghost tour: Genteel & Bard’s Savannah Dark History & Ghost Encounter Tour
- Starting price: $30
This coastal Georgian city has a reputation for being one of the most haunted cities in the country. And with good reason: It’s seen both American Revolution and Civil War battles, a yellow fever outbreak in the late 19th century followed by a devastating fire, and a long, horrifying history of slavery—all of which have contributed to the city’s distinctly historic and somber atmosphere.
Though there are several types of tours to take in the Hostess City of the South, some of the most popular ghost tours in Savannah are hosted by Genteel & Bard, a family-owned company specializing in walking tours. Its Savannah Dark History & Ghost Encounter Tour, which lasts about two hours and covers three-quarters of a mile, takes guests on a journey through some of the city’s most haunted locations guided by a knowledgeable storyteller. Guests can expect to see Sorrel-Weed House, which is home to several Civil War–era specters; Wright Square, where a Yamacraw chief’s grave was desecrated and an Irish indentured servant was later hanged; and the Foley House Inn, where a skeleton was discovered in a wall in 1987.
The catacombs of Paris are old limestone mines—the material was used to create some of Paris’s most iconic buildings above ground.
Photo by Mikhail Gnatkovskiy/Shutterstock
3. Paris, France
- Ghost tour: The Paris Catacombs
- Starting price: $32
What better way to ring in Halloween than by descending into the infamous catacombs of Paris? During the 17th century, Paris was experiencing intense population growth, and the city’s cemeteries were literally overflowing with corpses. The problem became so egregious that during heavy rains in 1780, a wall broke in the Cemetery of the Innocents, causing a wave of rotting bodies to flood into a nearby property. So citizens turned to the city’s network of underground limestone mining tunnels, which were dug during the 13th century. It took nearly 12 years to move the bones of Paris’ overflowing cemeteries into the catacombs—a total of 6 to 7 million people—and during the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, bodies were buried directly in the tunnels.
The practice of burying people in Paris’ catacombs ended in 1860; it’s estimated that there are over 200 miles of bone-ridden passageways beneath the city. It is illegal to explore the vast majority of the tunnels, but a small portion is open to the public. The best way to see them is by booking a tour directly with Les Catacombes de Paris, which gives access to two miles of the underground system. Though you could simply buy a ticket and explore by yourself, guided tours diving deep into the history of the city and catacombs are also available. Unfortunately, this activity is not accessible for wheelchair users or people with mobility disabilities, since entering the catacombs requires a long trip down 131 stairs.
There are 42 cemeteries in the New Orleans area—31 of them are considered historic.
Photo by Shutterstock
4. New Orleans, Louisiana
- Ghost tour: Haunted History Tours
- Starting price: $30
Along with Savannah, New Orleans has a reputation for being one of the most haunted places in the U.S. In fact, it’s been used as a spooky backdrop in several popular TV shows like True Blood, American Horror Story: Coven, and Interview With the Vampire. There’s just something about this 300-year-old city, with its French colonial–style mansions, mausoleums, and Spanish moss, that feels both beautiful and unnerving, providing the perfect setting for a scary story.
New Orleans, though well-known for Mardi Gras and Southern hospitality, has a history that’s been marred by several tragic events, including the genocide and forced removal of the Indigenous population, a smattering of yellow fever outbreaks, and the city’s role as a major slave port. In fact, before the Civil War, New Orleans was seen as the epicenter of the U.S. slave trade. The Big Easy is also sometimes called the northernmost Caribbean city and there’s still a tinge of obeah, or voodoo, in the air.
New Orleans–based Haunted History Tours offers 10 different ways to explore the city’s dark side. Guests can pick among options like a spooky walking tour through the Garden District or a daytime stroll through the Cities of the Dead, a local nickname for the cemeteries filled with raised mausoleums that look like little buildings. Those interested in a more boozy affair could opt for the Haunted Pub Crawl, which takes guests on a quest through some of the city’s most haunted bars, with plenty of signature NOLA cocktails like sazeracs available.
Another popular option in the city is a guided walk hosted by Unique NOLA Tours. This company has a wide docket of options to peruse through, from their naughty Lewd Spirits Tour (which combines “raunchy ghost stories” with “seedy haunted bars”) to their Pestilence, Pandemic, and Plague Tour, which takes guests on a journey through the many epidemics and disease outbreaks the Big Easy has weathered over the years—if you can handle that after the past few years. They also have a Spooky Family Ghost Tour if you’re hoping to bring the kids along.
Edinburgh is an old city—it’s also teeming with spirits.
Photo by Udompeter/Shutterstock
5. Edinburgh, Scotland
- Ghost tour: City of the Dead’s Haunted Graveyard Tour
- Starting price: $25
Edinburgh is an old city—it’s been the Scottish capital since 1437. It’s also widely considered one of the most haunted places in Europe, with a history rife with witches, warlocks, ghosts, body snatchers, and other paranormal things that go bump in the night. To put things into perspective, during the Salem Witch Trials, around 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft. In Scotland, an estimated 4,000–6,000 people were put on trial for being witches—the vast majority of whom were tortured and then executed. And, of course, there’s Edinburgh Castle, said to be one of the most haunted castles in Europe; it’s seen no fewer than 23 attacks to capture it over the years, most helmed by the English.
One of the most popular ghost tours in the city is hosted by City of the Dead, a Scottish touring company owned by Black Hart Entertainment. Its Haunted Graveyard Tour gives visitors access to Edinburgh’s Greyfriars Covenanter’s Prison and the Black Mausoleum, home to the Mackenzie Poltergeist, one of the most well-documented paranormal phenomena in history. City of the Dead’s tours employ both historians and entertainers, so guests are sure to have a good time while learning a thing or two.
Montego Bay’s Rose Hall plantation is said to be haunted by the cruel spirit of Annie Palmer.
Photo by Debbie Ann Powell/Shutterstock
6. Montego Bay, Jamaica
- Ghost tour: Rose Hall Night Tour
- Starting price: $27
Though it’s better known for scenic Caribbean beaches, Montego Bay, Jamaica also happens to be home to one of the most infamous ghosts on the island: the White Witch of Rose Hall. Ever since the British expelled Spanish colonists from the island in 1655, Jamaica played an important role in the Triangle of Trade and the production of sugarcane and rum. Jamaica was widely regarded as one of the worst places to be an enslaved person, with many enslavers like Thomas Thistlewood treating Africans with inhuman cruelty, violence, and brutality.
One of the worst offenders on the island was said to be Annie Palmer, the mistress of Rose Hall near Montego Bay. Though much of the lore surrounding her story is fiction, the legend goes that Palmer ruled her plantation with an iron fist and murdered all three of her husbands. Afterward, she began taking enslaved men as lovers, but when she tired of them, she would have them done away with as well. After Palmer was killed by one of her servants, she was supposedly sealed in a special voodoo-charmed casket so her spirit could never rise again. However, it’s said that the spell didn’t take and that her ghost still wanders the plantation. Her story was immortalized in the 1973 Johnny Cash song “The Ballad of Annie Palmer.” The singer was so intrigued by the tale that he actually purchased the Cinnamon Hill Great House on the property. The great house was restored during the 1960s and is now open to the public for tours.
There are day tours available, but the night tour will give you the ultimate spooky experience. Though Annie Palmer’s tale might be more fiction than fact, you’ll learn about how the European bourgeoisie lived during the colonial era and the cruelty that their enslaved workforce endured.
Bukit Brown Cemetery was also the site of an important battle during World War II that occurred shortly before Singapore fell to the Japanese.
Photo by jnzl/Flickr
7. Singapore
- Ghost tour: Oriental Travel and Tours’ Creepy Tales of Singapore
- Starting price: $92
Singapore is now one of the safest countries in the world, but it’s also among the most haunted. With a history entangled with World War II battles and Japanese and British colonies, this city-state has seen more than its fair share of bloodshed over the years. Changi Beach, considered one of the most paranormally disturbed places in Singapore, was the site of the infamous Sook Ching Massacre. During World War II and Japanese occupation, thousands of Chinese men suspected of anti-Japanese sentiments were rounded up and executed, then buried underneath the sand. It’s said that beachgoers can still sometimes catch the sounds of men crying and screaming.
Oriental Travel and Tours’ Creepy Tales of Singapore experience takes guests to Changi Beach as well as a few other scary places. They include the largest Chinese-style cemetery in the world outside of China: Bukit Brown, which is estimated to hold more than 100,000 tombs.
The defenders of the Alamo are said to wander the grounds of the mission to this day.
Photo by Arina P Habich/Shutterstock
8. San Antonio, Texas
- Ghost tour: Sisters Grimm Haunted History Walk
- Starting price: $25
One of the oldest cities in Texas, San Antonio was founded in 1718 and has a reputation as the most haunted city in the Lone Star State. There’s the Victoria’s Black Swan Inn, which once had a hanging tree on the premises and is said to be haunted by Native American spirits as well as a young couple who met an untimely death. Then, as any San Antonian knows, there are the railroad tracks by Villamain and Shane roads, which are haunted by benevolent schoolchildren who (supposedly) died in a train crash in the 1930s when their bus stalled on the tracks. They’ll push any cars stuck on the tracks over to safety. And don’t forget the Alamo—the old mission is said to still be protected by ghostly apparitions of the original defenders.
Get acquainted with the supernatural side of San Antonio on a Sisters Grimm Haunted History Walk. It takes guests to famously spooky locations like the Alamo, the Spanish Governor’s Palace, the old Bexar County Jail (now a Holiday Inn Express), and the Menger Hotel—one of the most haunted hotels in the nation; it’s supposedly occupied by Theodore Roosevelt’s ghost. If getting in your daily steps is not your thing, the Sisters Grimm also has a Ghost Bus Tour, which includes a cemetery stop.
Several specters are said to haunt the streets of Prague.
Photo by Perati Komson/Shutterstock
9. Prague, Czechia
- Ghost tour: Mysterium Tours’ Dark Shadows of the Old Town
- Starting price: $23
With a history that dates back more than 1,000 years, Prague is one of the prime places in Europe for ghost hunting. And with its many cobblestone streets and medieval castles, it’s not hard to let your imagination run free. Some of the apparitions said to be haunting the city include the Headless Templar, the legendary founder of Prague, the mistress of a monk, and a golem created by a rabbi in the 16th century to protect the Jewish community from antisemitic attacks.
Prague-based Mysterium Tours takes visitors through one of the most ancient parts of the city on its Dark Shadows of the Old Town Tour. This tour snakes its way through Prague’s Old Town, Josefov (the Jewish Quarter), and past dozens of Gothic churches, convents, and old cemeteries. In a fun twist, the storytellers and guides on these tours dress up in period-correct clothing. If you’re not in Prague but are still in the mood to be spooked, Mysterium Tours also offers experiences in Budapest, Kraków, and Madrid.
Though many stars have come to Hollywood, not all of them have gone.
Courtesy of Experience First
10. Los Angeles, California
- Ghost tour: ExperienceFirst’s Haunted Hollywood Walking Tour: True Crime, Creepy Tales
- Starting price: $39
Though it’s nicknamed the City of Angels, L.A. is also home to a whole host of ghosts as well. To get a taste of the spookier side of Los Angeles, consider going on ExperienceFirst’s Haunted Hollywood Walking Tour: True Crime, Creepy Tales, which introduces guests to a variety of haunted hotels, theaters, and landmarks. During the tour, guests will learn about the history of the Hollywood Ripper (a serial killer that operated in Southern California during the 1990s and early 2000s), find out where to see Marilyn Monroe’s ghost at the Hollywood Roosevelt, and visit the Knickerbocker Hotel, where Harry Houdini gave one of the last performances before his death.
The Whaley House was built in 1857 over the location of where it’s said that a horse thief, Yankee Jim Robinson, was hanged.
Photo by Artazum/Shutterstock
11. San Diego, California
- Ghost tour: Old Town Trolley Tour’s Ghosts & Gravestones
- Starting price: $44
Better known for its legendary surf breaks and mild Southern California weather, San Diego is actually considered to be one of the most haunted cities in the Golden State. San Diego is also home to the Whaley House, an 1857 Greek Revival-style mansion that has been the site of a number of documented paranormal phenomena and is said to be one of the most haunted homes in the nation. The Old Town Trolley Tours’ Ghost & Gravestones option takes guests past some of San Diego’s spookiest sites by old-fashioned trolley. On their journey, visitors will learn about the city’s Wild West past as well as the tragic history of the Whaley House, and experience the unusual electromagnetic activity of Pioneer Park, a favorite hot spot of local ghost hunters using E.M.F. readers. The adventure begins at Old Town Market and takes a little over an hour and a half to complete.
This article was originally published in 2022 and most recently updated on October 8, 2024 with current information. Sophie Friedman contributed to the reporting of this story.
