Safe and Spooky: New Ways to Enjoy Halloween

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article reflected pandemic-era Halloween events and health precautions. This story has been substantially rewritten and fact-checked for 2026, with current attractions and updated health and safety guidance. Event dates and programming can change, so confirm details with individual attractions before traveling.

Halloween is around the corner, and the ghouls and goblins are coming for us whether we’re ready or not.

Thankfully, getting into the spirit doesn’t have to mean squeezing into an overcrowded haunted house or abandoning every health precaution learned over the past several years. COVID-19 no longer dominates travel the way it once did, but flu, RSV and other respiratory illnesses haven’t disappeared. And crowded indoor spaces are not the only consideration. Strobe lights, fog machines, uneven pathways, loud noises and accessibility can all affect whether a spooky night is frightening in the right way.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend basic precautions against respiratory illness, including good hygiene, cleaner air and staying home when sick. A well-fitting mask remains an additional option, particularly in crowded settings or for people at higher risk of severe illness.

Fortunately, Halloween experiences have become much more creative than the traditional haunted house. From Salem’s month-long celebration to an illuminated trail through London’s Kew Gardens and Dracula’s legendary territory in Transylvania, there are plenty of ways to welcome the season.

So, are you ready to be scared?

Hunt Ghosts on Your Own Schedule

If you like your ghosts with a little independence, Questo’s ghost tours and haunted adventures offer an interesting alternative to a traditional guided tour.

The app currently features more than 200 ghost-themed experiences across about 180 cities. Travelers follow self-guided routes, uncover stories and solve clues using their phones while exploring streets, neighborhoods and historic sites.

That means you decide when to start, how quickly to move and who joins you. Experiences are available in cities including Savannah, New Orleans, Edinburgh, York, Paris and Rome.

For anyone who prefers outdoor experiences, smaller groups or simply doesn’t want a costumed character jumping out of a dark corner, a self-guided ghost hunt offers plenty of atmosphere without being trapped inside an attraction.

Let Salem Take Halloween Seriously

Few destinations embrace Halloween with the intensity of Salem, Massachusetts.

Salem Haunted Happenings takes over the city throughout October with markets, performances, tours, family activities and special events. The 2026 celebration officially kicks off with the Haunted Happenings Grand Parade on October 1.

Of course, Salem’s relationship with the supernatural isn’t just entertainment.

The city’s identity remains intertwined with the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, when fear, accusations and injustice resulted in the executions of 20 people. That history deserves space alongside the costumes, witches and modern Halloween festivities.

It also makes Salem one of those destinations where cultural history and contemporary celebration collide.

But October comes with a warning: crowds.

Salem officials describe October as the city’s busiest season and are urging visitors—especially on weekends—not to drive downtown. Road closures, limited parking and heavy pedestrian traffic are expected throughout the month, with particularly significant impacts around Halloween.

If crowds or prolonged close contact are a concern, consider visiting on a weekday, reserve timed attractions in advance and explore outdoor sites earlier in the day.

For travelers arriving from Boston, the city recommends using the commuter rail or Salem Ferry rather than driving.

Spend Halloween Night in an Abandoned Prison

The setting alone is enough to raise a few goosebumps.

Halloween Nights at Eastern State Penitentiary returns to Philadelphia on select nights from October 2 through November 7, 2026.

The sprawling former prison becomes an immersive Halloween festival featuring five haunted houses, historic experiences, live performances, themed bars and lounges, and more than 200 performers each night.

There is also a connection between the scares and the historic site itself. Proceeds from Halloween Nights support Eastern State’s preservation and educational mission.

But this is one attraction where reading the health and accessibility information before buying a ticket matters.

Eastern State warns that all five haunted houses use strobe lights, fog machines, loud noises, dark spaces and other high-startle effects. The haunted houses are not recommended for visitors who are pregnant, prone to seizures or have certain health concerns.

If that’s more fright than you bargained for, visitors can bypass all five haunted houses and enjoy the historic tours, live entertainment, themed spaces and other less startling parts of the festival.

Knowing your limits isn’t spoiling the fun. It might be what makes the night enjoyable.

And if haunted history is more appealing than manufactured scares, World Footprints has explored some of the region’s lingering legends in Hauntings Beyond Halloween in America’s Mid-Atlantic.

Keep the Scares Going in the Mid-Atlantic

Philadelphia isn’t the only place in the region where Halloween gets serious.

Near Reading, Pennsylvania, Shocktoberfest has been frightening visitors for decades. The sprawling scream park combines haunted attractions with outdoor experiences, including its popular Zombie Safari Hayride. For families with younger children—or anyone who prefers a little less terror—the attraction also offers a milder Halloween experience.

Farther south in Lorton, Virginia, the Workhouse Arts Center brings a different kind of history to Halloween. The arts campus occupies the former D.C. Workhouse and Reformatory complex, where its annual Haunted Trail sends visitors outdoors after dark for an immersive walk through the historic grounds.

Both offer alternatives to the traditional indoor haunted house—and plenty of reasons to keep looking over your shoulder.

Celebrate Halloween New Orleans-Style

New Orleans doesn’t need much encouragement to put on a costume.

Ghost stories, cemeteries, centuries of history and a city culture that knows how to stage a parade make October a natural fit.

One of the biggest events is Krewe of BOO!, New Orleans’ official Halloween parade. In 2026, the parade rolls at sundown on October 24.

The celebration has grown from a post-Hurricane Katrina community event into a major Halloween tradition featuring elaborate floats, costumes and the city’s distinctive parade culture.

Families have another option with Ghosts in the Oaks, which runs October 15–18 at Carousel Gardens Amusement Park and Storyland in City Park. The event includes trick-or-treating, rides, activities and live entertainment, with a limited number of tickets available each night.

New Orleans is also an easy place to create your own version of Halloween. A daytime cemetery visit, historic neighborhood walk or outdoor ghost tour can provide atmosphere without committing to a crowded indoor attraction.

And sometimes the city’s history is spooky enough without any special effects.

Follow Halloween’s Film Trail in Bowling Green

Halloween takes on a different meaning in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the childhood home of filmmaker John Carpenter, creator of the Halloween franchise.

Horror fans can follow the city’s self-guided Reel Sites, Real Scary: A John Carpenter Driving Tour, which traces 17 locations connected to Carpenter’s life and references that later appeared throughout his films.

For travelers who prefer their scares less cinematic and more immediate, Skeleton’s Lair Scream Park delivers the traditional Halloween experience with haunted woods, a haunted hayride, a two-story haunted house and a 3D maze.

Together, they offer two very different ways to explore Bowling Green’s connection to horror: one through film history and the other through a good old-fashioned scream.

Follow Britain’s Darker Legends

Not every Halloween experience needs actors, fake blood or a haunted house. Some places come with unsettling stories of their own.

In Wales, walkers can follow a trail through the Gwenffrwd-Dinas landscape to Twm Siôn Cati’s Cave, the legendary hideout associated with the outlaw sometimes called the “Welsh Robin Hood.” The route combines folklore with ancient woodland, river scenery and a climb to the cave itself.

London offers its own encounters with the past. Crossbones Garden of Remembrance occupies the site of a former paupers’ burial ground in Southwark, where thousands of people were buried over several centuries. Today, the garden remembers those once pushed to the margins of society.

Then there is Nunhead Cemetery, one of London’s great Victorian cemeteries. Its weathered monuments, wooded pathways and elaborate memorials offer plenty of atmosphere without anyone having to manufacture a ghost.

Walk Through a Haunted Garden in London

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew trades flowers for fright when Halloween at Kew returns from October 16 through November 1, 2026.

The 1.5-kilometer illuminated trail winds through the gardens with live actors, fire performers, Dracula’s Lair, a Cursed Tomb, Medieval Dungeon, Forest Ritual and the returning Headless Horseman.

What makes this experience particularly appealing is that visitors can choose how spooky they want the evening to become.

Kew offers Daylight, Twilight and Moonlight sessions, with the scare level increasing as darkness falls. That gives families, younger travelers and people who enjoy Halloween more than horror some control over the experience.

The route takes roughly 60 to 90 minutes to complete. Because this is a garden, Kew also advises visitors to consider natural terrain and wet-weather conditions, and accessible toilets are available along the trail.

In other words, wear the shoes you can actually walk in. Save the dramatic footwear for somewhere with fewer tree roots.

Meet Dracula in Dublin

Before Dracula belonged to Transylvania—or Hollywood—he belonged to the imagination of an Irish writer.

Bram Stoker was born in Dublin in 1847, and the city celebrates that literary legacy through the Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival.

The 2026 festival runs from October 23–26 and brings Gothic storytelling, performance, literature, spectacle and family programming to venues across Dublin. The full 2026 program is scheduled to be announced in late September.

For travelers who would rather explore the cultural roots of Halloween than simply be frightened, Dublin offers another dimension.

Halloween itself has deep connections to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people marked the transition from harvest season into winter and believed the boundary between the living and spirit worlds became thinner.

Terri Marshall explores that history—and how Irish traditions eventually traveled to America—in our World Footprints story Exploring the Origins of Halloween.

Then Follow Dracula to Transylvania

If Dublin gives us Dracula’s creator, Romania gives us the landscape that helped cement the legend.

Bran Castle’s Halloween 2026 programming runs from October 24 through November 1 under the theme The Legend of Dracul.

The castle leans fully into its connection with the Dracula myth through special effects, performers, low lighting and themed experiences.

But history and legend are not the same thing.

Travelers interested in separating Dracula’s literary trail from the history of Vlad III can go much deeper. Author Steven P. Unger followed both across England and Romania for his book, In the Footsteps of Dracula: A Personal Journey and Travel Guide, tracing places connected to Bram Stoker’s fictional Count as well as the historical prince who became entangled with the Dracula legend.

The popular connection between Bran Castle, Vlad the Impaler and Bram Stoker’s fictional Count Dracula is far more complicated than souvenir shops sometimes suggest. Stoker never visited Romania, and historians continue to distinguish between the real-life Vlad III, the fictional Dracula and the tourism mythology that later connected Bran Castle to both.

That doesn’t make visiting any less fun. If anything, understanding how history becomes legend—and legend becomes tourism—makes the experience more interesting.

Visitors should also pay attention to Bran Castle’s health and safety warnings. The Halloween experience includes flashing lights, loud noises, low temperatures, dark spaces and potentially slippery stairs and walkways. The castle specifically cautions guests who experience claustrophobia or sensitivity to those effects.

Halloween night doesn’t need an actual injury to become memorable.

Health and Safety Still Matter

The days of organizing Halloween around family “bubbles” and six feet of distance have passed. But some of the lessons about traveling responsibly still make sense.

Respiratory viruses spread more easily in crowded indoor environments, and the CDC continues to recommend staying home when you’re sick, practicing good hygiene and improving indoor air when possible. Masks can provide an additional layer of protection in crowded settings, particularly for people at greater risk of serious respiratory illness.

Travelers with asthma or other respiratory conditions should also look carefully at attractions that use theatrical fog. Anyone sensitive to strobe lighting, sudden noises or confined spaces should check an attraction’s warnings before purchasing tickets.

Then there are the more ordinary Halloween hazards: dark pathways, stairs, wet leaves, uneven pavement, elaborate costumes that block your vision and shoes chosen entirely for appearance.

A little planning can prevent the kind of scare nobody wants.

Halloween Is More Than a Fright

One of the reasons Halloween travels so well is that it isn’t a single tradition.

It can lead you from Celtic history in Ireland to literary history in Dublin, community celebrations in New Orleans, the painful history of Salem, ghost stories in American cities and the ever-expanding mythology surrounding Dracula.

Some experiences are created simply for fun. Others are rooted in stories that tell us something about the places we’re visiting.

The best Halloween travel can offer both.

And if you’re not ready to put away the ghosts after October 31, explore more paranormal history in Ghost Towns and Goblins: Halloween Traditions in the Lone Star State.

Happy haunting.

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