Salem

Haunted houses bring the dead—and Salem—to life each fall, but you don’t need to wait until the leaves turn to visit this historic port city north of Boston. The site of the infamous Salem Witch Trials isn’t shy about playing up its past: The Salem Witch Museum presents a notably cheesy re-creation of the infamous witch hunt, and the town is also home to a pair of wax museums, exhibits devoted to horror films, and a significant population of real-life practicing witches. On the more serious side, the Peabody Essex Museum is located in downtown Salem; founded as the East India Marine Society in 1799, it has an excellent collection of maritime art. A guided tour of the House of the Seven Gables, darkly portrayed in Nathaniel Hawthorne's supernatural novel of the same name, is another Salem staple.