Unusual Haunted Houses and Places to Visit This Halloween

Halloween is coming up! Which means that’s a good excuse for everyone to dress up as something scary. Even something more scary than these Halloween Cakes!

Today I’ve got a post  from Kacey Mya about the more offbeat haunted houses and places you can visit during this upcoming Halloween period in the United States.

Kacey is a lifestyle blogger for The Drifter Collective, an eclectic lifestyle blog that expresses various forms of style through the influence of culture and the world around us.

You can follow Kacey on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Here it is!

Haunted Houses and Places to Visit This Halloween

Do you believe in ghosts? They say seeing is believing. You’ll know your first real ghost over easily explained creaky boards or leaky pipes. It’s a bone cold chill you won’t be able to shake.

What are your Halloween plans? Instead of fake haunted houses or corn fields, why don’t you see if ghosts are real for yourself? Take a mini road trip to visit haunted destinations, at your own peril!

1. Devil’s Tramping Ground

Want to go camping with the Devil? The Devil’s Tramping Ground is a camping spot in the middle of a forest in Bear Creek, North Carolina. The spot is a nearly 50-foot ring and is completely barren, as the devil “tramps” there every night. Folks say that nothing has grown within the ring for a hundred years.

Objects left in the circle overnight are said to disappear, sometimes thrown right back out of the circle, no matter how heavy. Dogs whine and won’t go near the barren spot. Lore describes the barren ring as a gateway to hell, from which the Devil himself rises every night.

Previous campers have stayed in the circle itself and lived to tell the tale. The spot has not been treated kindly in the past, with spooky spray-painting on nearby trees. If you are brave enough to go camping, when the Devil is in North Carolina he loves a good barbecue.

2. Ghost Ranch

Ghost Ranch is a living museum of 21,000 acres originally given as a land grant to Pedro Martin Serrano from the King of Spain in 1766. About an hour outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the beautiful land drew poets, philosophers, artists and hikers. The grant was named Piedra Lumbre or “Shinning Rock.” Georgia O’Keeffe said: “It is not a country of light on things. It is a country of things in light.”

Ghost Ranch is appropriately named for darker happenings. It’s nicknamed “El Rancho de Los Brujos,” because the land is said to be cursed by witches. Ghostly boots can be heard in some of the buildings, and many hangings are said to have occurred here.

3. Laura’s Cottage

Camping in a tent may not be your thing, you can glamp it up in a haunted log cabin. Laura’s cottage, in Savannah, Georgia, is the perfect historic ghostly getaway, with the original 1779 pine floors, ceilings and walls.

Windows open and close by themselves, for your frightful courtesy. Laura likes to flicker the lights and invite herself to sup with guests. She lived in the house for over 50 years. The cottage was utilized in Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator.”

4. Historic Anchorage Hotel

Do you like kids? The Historic Anchorage Hotel, in Anchorage, Alaska, boasts about comfortable rooms and free breakfast. Since 1936, it was the main gathering place in town, where you could get a warm meal served on fine china. However, it’s a more chilling experience than advertised.

The kids at the hotel love a good game, flicking the lights, running down the halls and hiding in your closet. They’re also dead. Yes, your room comes with a free ghost child.

One would think Police Chief, “Black Jack” Sturgus would help keep the kids in check, but unfortunately he’s quite busy seeking justice for his own death on February 20, 1921. Sturgus was found shot in the back with his own gun.

Shower curtains sway back and forth. Photos over the mantel hit the coffee table. Curtains rumble as ghost children play hide and seek. A police chief seeks out his killer. A jilted bride walks the halls of the hotel. Once you check in, how fast will you check out?

5. Bird Cage Theater

If you go gaga over the theater, you should stop by Tombstone, Arizona. The Bird Cage Theater was once a saloon and brothel. There are over 140 bullet holes found in the walls.

Visitors to the theater hear yelling, loud music and laughter, even after the show. It may the last curtain call, but it’s not last call for the ghosts. Remember the number one rule of the saloon: If you don’t start no trouble, there won’t be no trouble.

6. Winchester Mystery House

In San Jose, California, a woman named Sarah Winchester built a grand house with staircases that went nowhere and labyrinth-like halls. Was she paranoid or eccentric?

In 1862, Sarah was wed to William Wirt Winchester, a American who owned a successful family business in the arms industry, makers of “the gun that won the West” and killed many soldiers and Native Americans. The couple had one daughter, and life was going well.

Death eventually took the men in the family in one fatal year, and the young window believed a clairvoyant who told her the family was cursed. Ghosts of the gunned down victims haunted Sarah. The clairvoyant told Sarah to go west and build a huge house so they wouldn’t find her. If construction ceased, she would die. Sarah had a séance room especially built to consult the dead as the designers of the house.

Construction lasted 38 years until Sarah was found dead. Today, the house contains 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 17 chimneys, 13 bathrooms, six kitchens, two basements and three elevators. In October 2016, an additional room was found boarded up. The mystery still is unfolding.

Do you think you can survive a night in the Devil’s Tramping Grounds or in the Winchester Mystery House? Dare you. Bring salt, an extra flashlight and a sense of adventure. Remember to not close your eyes too tightly, because seeing is believing.

See more at Unusual Places To Visit.