Ranking the most haunted destinations on Earth including these paranormal US hotspots
They’re everyone’s favorite haunts.This Halloween, scream-seeking globe-trotters are traveling the world in search of the scariest hotspots.To expedite their pilgrimages, online casino SpinBlitz surveyed travel sites to narrow down the most bone-chilling meccas worldwide, finding that Salem, Massachusetts, came in at number one when it came to haunted hubs.There’s never been a better time to visit spooky locales.
According to the gambling platform, Ghost tours, eerie overnights, and “haunted experience” packages now generate up to 20% of local tourism revenue in some destinations.And many of the Halloween pilgrims likely aren’t just seeking surface-level screams — a staggering 41% of adults believe in ghosts, and one in five (20%) say they’ve experienced something paranormal, per the gambling site.To narrow down the spookiest spots around the globe, SpinBlitz initially created a seed list of the most frightening destinations using multiple travel sources, including Lonely Planet, Trip.com, and Condé Nast Traveller. They then rated them according to their TripAdvisor ratings, including only those with 1,000 or more reviews in the final rankingSpinBlitz then made sure all the places were Halloween-appropriate by ensuring they had a “paranormal reputation, factoring in folklore, historical legends, and documented ghost reports alongside visitor reviews.”“This approach allowed us to highlight destinations that combine both high traveller satisfaction and authentic spooky appeal,” they wrote.Number one on the countdown was Salem, Massachusetts, with a score of 4.9 out of 5.
According to the site, the city’s haunting legacy from the 1692 Witch Trials scares up over 1 million visitors each October, with 87,500 people crowding its streets on Halloween night in 2024– a record breaking 37% increase from the previous year (2023).“Despite its small population of about 44,000 residents, Salem braces for up to 100,000 tourists per week...