America’s Most Haunted: 13 Spots Where the Dead Supposedly Refuse to Check Out

Americans spent over $11 billion on Halloween last year, yet somehow we’re still pretending our fascination with the macabre is seasonal. The truth is, dark tourism—you know, that peculiar urge to vacation where terrible things happened—has become a year-round industry, and nowhere does it better than the United States, where we’ve commodified our ghosts with the same enthusiasm we bring to craft beer and artisanal donuts.

Sure, Salem and New Orleans remain the predictable haunts, trading on centuries-old reputations while tour guides in period costume shepherd crowds past the same “haunted” Starbucks. But America’s genuinely unsettling destinations require more effort, whether it’s the abandoned sanatoriums where you can overnight in the tuberculosis ward, hotels where the staff acknowledges their spectral colleagues, or geological anomalies that defy scientific explanation.

What makes a place truly spooky isn’t the gift shop selling “I Survived the Ghost Tour” T-shirts. It’s the weight of documented tragedy, the architecture of isolation, the kind of silence that makes you realize how loud your own heartbeat is. It’s standing in a prison’s solitary confinement cell, watching empty piano keys depress themselves, or staring at unexplained lights dancing across the Texas desert. These 13 destinations deliver that specific American brand of horror: part historical tragedy, part entrepreneurial exploitation, entirely effective at making you question that shadow in your peripheral vision. Pack your skepticism alongside your electromagnetic frequency reader—you’ll need both.

Waverly Hills Sanatorium – Louisville, KY

• 4400 Paralee Dr, Louisville, KY 40272

This five-story tuberculosis hospital looks like central casting’s idea of a haunted building with its crumbling red brick, rusting beds and a “body chute” tunnel where corpses were discreetly removed to avoid depressing the living patients. Between 1910 and 1961, roughly 8,000 people died here. (Locals insist it’s 60,000, because why let facts ruin a good ghost story?) Today’s visitors sign up for tours ranging from historical to full paranormal investigations. Room 502, where a nurse allegedly hanged herself, remains the hotspot for activity. Then there’s Timmy, a ghost child who supposedly plays with balls visitors leave behind—when they roll back on their own, even skeptics pause. Prefer outsourcing the logistics? Local operator BourbonTown Tours runs a Waverly Hills Sanatorium tour and handles the transport and details.

The Myrtles Plantation – St. Francisville, LA

• 7747 US-61, St Francisville, LA 70775

Behind the eerie antebellum facade and moss-draped oaks lies America’s supposedly most haunted home. The star ghost is Chloe, an enslaved woman who allegedly poisoned the family (accidentally or otherwise) and now photobombs tourists while wearing her signature green turban. The 1992 photograph claiming to capture her is grainy enough to be anything, yet National Geographic found it compelling enough to feature. William Winter, shot on the porch in 1871, reportedly still climbs to the 17th step nightly where he died. The mirror in the hallway supposedly traps spirits and refuses to stay clean. Operating as a bed and breakfast with daily tours and evening mystery tours ($15), The Myrtles expertly walks the line between historical preservation and paranormal exploitation.

Villisca Axe Murder House – Villisca, IA

• 508 E 2nd St, Villisca, IA 50864

In 1912, eight people—six of them children—were bludgeoned to death here in America’s grisliest unsolved murder. The house remains frozen in time: no electricity, no plumbing, original furnishings. Day tours let you contemplate the horror; overnight stays let you experience it. Paranormal investigators report children’s voices, moving objects and shadow figures, especially active when the 2 a.m. train passes through town, as if reliving that June night. The owners embrace the “most haunted” label while maintaining strict rules, barring Ouija boards and any attempt to provoke the spirits, substantiating the fact that they require a deposit because too many ghost hunters have fled mid-investigation.

Eastern State Penitentiary – Philadelphia, PA

• 2027 Fairmount Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19130

Al Capone’s restored cell, kitted out with Oriental rugs and radio, can’t mask the psychological torture this Gothic Revival prison perfected. Opened in 1829, Eastern State pioneered solitary confinement as “rehabilitation,” driving inmates insane with such efficiency that Charles Dickens himself called it “hopeless, cruel and wrong.” Today’s tours get you into the cellblocks where prisoners’ hallucinations became permanent residents. The Halloween season brings “Terror Behind the Walls,” but frankly, daytime tours are more unsettling. Death row and the hospital wing offer particularly uncomfortable photo ops. Cellblock 12 supposedly hosts Pep, the executed “killer dog” (likely innocent, but ghost dogs don’t care about justice). 

The Stanley Hotel – Estes Park, CO

• 333 E Wonderview Ave, Estes Park, CO 80517

Stephen King’s stay in Room 217 at The Stanley Hotel in Colorado birthed The Shining, and this 1909 Georgian Revival property has been capitalizing ever since. Nightly ghost tours, psychic consultations and “Spirited Night Tours” with basement access and EMF readers cater to supernatural tourists. Room 418 allegedly houses the most active spirits—children in hallways, phantom ballroom parties. Flora Stanley still plays her Steinway after midnight in the concert hall. The fourth floor features giggling ghost children when no actual children are registered. Yet something genuinely unsettling persists, especially in the underground tunnels connecting buildings. The “Ghost Adventure Package” includes equipment and, for some, a tinge of regret.

RMS Queen Mary – Long Beach, CA

• 1126 Queens Hwy, Long Beach, CA 90802

This Art Deco ocean liner turned floating hotel holds the nautical record for both elegance and death—49 documented fatalities during its sailing days. Stateroom B340 was sealed for decades after guests reported covers yanked off, faucets turning themselves on and shadow figures. It’s reopened now, complete with Ouija board and EMF detector for the “Ghosts and Legends” package guests. The empty first-class pool echoes with the laughter of “Jackie,” a girl who drowned in the 1940s. Daily tours navigate the ship’s haunted hot spots, while spending the night means choosing between ocean views and paranormal activity. Why not go for both?

Winchester Mystery House – San Jose, CA

• 525 S Winchester Blvd, San Jose, CA 95128

Sarah Winchester spent 38 years and her rifle fortune building a 160-room Victorian maze to confuse the vengeful spirits of those killed by Winchester guns. The result: staircases to nowhere, doors opening onto walls, a floor plan that would break Google Maps. The architecture is genuinely disorienting—24,000 square feet of beautiful craftsmanship in service of paranoia. Daily tours navigate 110 rooms, including the séance room where Sarah allegedly communed with spirits nightly. Opt for the Friday the 13th flashlight tours if you time it right—spirits don’t hibernate after Halloween after all—or the “Door to Nowhere” option, with corridors that loop back on themselves create genuine unease. 

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum – Weston, WV

• 50 S River Ave, Weston, WV 26452

Operating from 1864-1994, this hand-cut stone Gothic Revival asylum housed 10 times its intended capacity at its peak—2,400 patients crammed into space for 250. The history reads like a horror novel: ice-water baths, insulin comas, lobotomies and patients chained in cages. Today’s tours range from historical to overnight ghost hunts. The fourth floor, where the most violent patients were kept, generates the most activity. Room 13 in Ward 2 is particularly active, allegedly, but it’s the chapel, where hundreds of funerals were held, that maintains an oppressive atmosphere even skeptics acknowledge. 

The Marfa Lights – Marfa, TX

• 302 S. Highland Avenue, Marfa, TX 79843

Since the 1880s, mysterious lights have danced across this West Texas desert, defying explanation and physics. The official viewing area on Route 90 (nine miles east of Marfa) fills nightly with observers watching colored orbs appear, merge, split and zoom impossibly fast across the horizon. Scientists blame car headlights and atmospheric refraction; locals point out there are no roads in that direction. The lights predate automobiles anyway. Native American lore, UFO theories and ghost stories compete for explanation, here, as the lights appear randomly—sometimes nightly, sometimes not for weeks. Free viewing, though Marfa’s boutique hotels and art scene make this the most culturally sophisticated ghost hunt in America. 

Bonaventure Cemetery – Savannah, GA

• 330 Bonaventure Road, Thunderbolt, GA 31404

While tourists crowd River Street’s haunted pubs, Savannah’s most atmospheric location sits three miles east. This 160-acre Victorian cemetery, draped in Spanish moss and resurrection ferns, achieved fame through “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” The Bird Girl statue (now in a museum) drew thousands, but the real draw is wandering among 19th-century monuments at dusk. Notable residents include Johnny Mercer, Conrad Aiken and hundreds of yellow fever victims. Ghost tours share tales of Gracie Watson, a six-year-old whose statue supposedly cries and René Rondolier, who allegedly haunts his elaborate tomb.

1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa – Eureka Springs, AR

• 75 Prospect Ave Suite 105, Eureka Springs, AR 72632

Built in 1886 as a hilltop resort, then repurposed in the 1930s as con man Norman Baker’s “cancer hospital,” the Crescent now markets its scar tissue with a straight face as “America’s Most Haunted Hotel.” Tours start in the fourth-floor Ghost Parlor, detour past a third-floor “vortex,” and end in Baker’s basement morgue—nice touch, that. Room 218 is the fan favorite; legend says an Irish stonemason fell through the frame there during construction and the room’s been busy ever since. Expect weekend sellouts, standard tickets hovering around thirty bucks and a late “Expert and Expanded” option if you prefer your jump scares after 10 p.m.

St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum – St. Augustine, FL

• 100 Red Cox Dr, St. Augustine, FL 32080

Florida’s oldest city runs a tight supernatural ship. The after-hours Dark of the Moon tour hands you a lantern and points you up all 219 steps, with time in the keeper’s house to parse 19th-century tragedies and run an EMF without someone shouting “orbs!” every five seconds. It’s equal parts maritime history and controlled paranoia, with investigation-only options for the data-driven. Logistics matter: participants must be at least 44 inches tall to climb, with expanded schedules during peak seasons. 

Bell Witch Cave – Adams, TN

• 430 Keysburg Rd, Adams, TN 37010

Tennessee’s most durable haunting isn’t shrouded by a honky tonk haze. The Bell Witch allegedly terrorized the Bell family here in the 1810s; today, the farm’s cave and cabin run daylight tours through the warm months, with an October calendar heavy on hayrides and folklore. If you’d prefer fewer strollers and more static, book a private lantern tour: two or three hours after dark, four-person minimum and pricing designed to weed out unserious thrill-seekers. Investigators can rent the cave, cabin, burial grounds and “Haunted Dell” for most of a night. Bring fresh batteries and maybe some diapers.