October is the one month of the year when everyone wants to be a little scared. Not too scared. Just enough to check the hallway before turning the light off.
The internet is full of creepy corners if you know where to look: real haunted hotels you can book, chapels decorated with human bones, maps of ghost sightings, true stories sent in by strangers, and rabbit holes that will eat your whole night. Here are 31 of the best, one for every night of October.
Haunted places with real history
1. Eastern State Penitentiary
Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia was once the most famous prison in the world. Al Capone did time here. Now it is a crumbling ruin of long cell blocks and vaulted hallways, and it has a reputation as one of the most haunted buildings in America.
2. Winchester Mystery House
Winchester Mystery House in San Jose was built almost nonstop for 38 years by Sarah Winchester, heiress to the rifle fortune. It has stairs that lead into the ceiling and doors that open onto walls. Nobody agrees on why she kept building, which is exactly why people keep visiting.
3. The Stanley Hotel
Stephen King spent a night at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, in 1974, and the empty off-season hotel gave him the idea for The Shining. You can still book a room and take one of its ghost tours.
4. The Queen Mary
The Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner docked in Long Beach, California. It carried troops in World War II, and it has collected more ghost stories than almost any ship afloat.
5. The Myrtles
The Myrtles in St. Francisville, Louisiana, is often called one of the most haunted homes in America. The legends here are dark and tangled, and the house leans into them with night tours.
6. Lizzie Borden House
Lizzie Borden took an axe... or did she? The Lizzie Borden House in Fall River, Massachusetts, is where the 1892 murders happened. It is now a museum and bed and breakfast, and yes, you can sleep there.
7. Catacombs of Paris
Under the streets of Paris, the Catacombs hold the remains of millions of people, stacked into walls of skulls and bones along miles of tunnels. Even the website feels quiet.
8. Sedlec Ossuary
The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic is a small chapel decorated with the bones of tens of thousands of people, including a chandelier made from bones. It is beautiful and deeply unsettling at the same time.
9. Mercat Tours, Edinburgh
Mercat Tours takes people down into the old vaults hidden under Edinburgh's streets, dark stone rooms where the city's poorest once lived and worked. Edinburgh might be the most haunted-feeling city in Europe.
10. Bran Castle
Bran Castle sits on a rock in Transylvania, Romania, and is known around the world as Dracula's castle. The real history is more complicated than the legend, and the site tells both.
11. Hellfire Caves
The Hellfire Caves in England were dug by hand in the 1700s and later used by the secretive Hellfire Club. They come with a ghost story of their own.
Find a haunt near you
12. Haunted Places
Haunted Places is a directory of reportedly haunted spots. Search your state or town and you will probably find something within driving distance.
13. Haunted Rooms
Haunted Rooms lists haunted hotels, inns and castles you can actually stay the night in. Perfect if you want to turn Halloween into a weekend trip.
14. Hauntworld
Hauntworld is a guide to haunted houses and Halloween scare attractions. If you want to be screamed at by someone in a mask this weekend, start here.
15. Paranormal Database
The Paranormal Database maps ghosts, phantom black dogs and strange sightings reported all over the UK, place by place. It is oddly addictive.
16. Ghosts of America
Ghosts of America collects ghost encounters people say they had in towns across the US. Look up your own town. Then try to sleep.
Ghost stories and legends
17. Castle of Spirits
Castle of Spirits has been collecting true ghost stories sent in by readers for years. Some are spooky, some are sad, and some are hard to explain.
18. American Folklore Ghost Stories
American Folklore retells spooky legends and ghost tales from every US state. Great for reading out loud around a fire pit.
19. Lore
Lore is a podcast about the true history behind folklore and the things people fear. Every episode starts with a real event and ends somewhere much darker.
20. The NoSleep Podcast
The NoSleep Podcast performs original horror stories with full voice acting and sound. Do not listen on a late night drive.
21. Scary For Kids
Got younger ghost hunters in the house? Scary For Kids has urban legends and creepy tales that are spooky without going too far.
Classic horror you can read free
22. The Edgar Allan Poe Society
The Poe Society of Baltimore has every story and poem Poe wrote, free to read. Start with The Tell-Tale Heart, then The Masque of the Red Death.
23. The H.P. Lovecraft Archive
The H.P. Lovecraft Archive collects the cosmic horror stories that shaped a century of scary movies and games, plus a lot about the strange man who wrote them.
Dark history
24. Salem Witch Trials Archive
The Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive holds the real court records, maps and letters from 1692. Reading the actual accusations is far creepier than any movie.
25. Mutter Museum
Philadelphia's Mutter Museum is a museum of medical oddities, antique instruments and specimens in jars. It is real science, and it is also the stuff of nightmares.
26. Abandoned America
Abandoned America is a huge collection of photographs from empty asylums, schools, churches and factories. Dust, peeling paint and silence.
Internet rabbit holes
27. Creepypasta
Creepypasta is where internet horror stories live: thousands of short scary tales written and rated by readers. This is where a lot of modern urban legends were born.
28. SCP Foundation
The SCP Foundation is a giant collaborative fiction project written as the secret files of an organization that contains dangerous anomalies. Read one entry and you will read twenty.
29. The Backrooms Wiki
The Backrooms Wiki maps the endless yellow rooms from the famous internet legend, level by level. It is strangely calm, and that is the scary part.
30. Lost Media Wiki
Lost Media Wiki hunts for missing TV episodes, eerie old broadcasts and games that vanished. Some of the mysteries here have never been solved.
31. Mothman Museum
In 1966 and 1967, people in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, reported a huge winged creature with red eyes. The Mothman Museum tells the whole story, from the first sightings to the legend it became.
Plan the movie night too
Once you have scared yourself reading, Bloody Disgusting has horror movie news and reviews to help you pick a film, and Shudder streams nothing but horror and thrillers all year long.
Find more like this
Every site on this list is the kind of thing NexURLs is for: real, strange, wonderful corners of the web, shared by people. Browse the Scary & Creepy topic for more, or go deeper with Mysteries & Conspiracies and True Crime.
Know a creepy site we missed? Share it on NexURLs so other people can find it this Halloween.
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