The St Louis Cathedral in New Orleans is the oldest Catholic cathedral in continual use in the US. — Getty Images/TNS
Paranormal adventures aren’t just a Hollywood thing. Some travellers are obsessed with them, too, eager to spot the unsettled spirits of the not-quite-departed-enough and hear haunting tales of, well, hauntings.
To slake that thirst, Travel And Leisure, the travel magazine and website, is offering up its own take on the 20 most haunted cities in the United States. We’re not talking single-ghost destinations like Lizzie Borden’s house in Fall River, Massachusetts. These are entire cities brimming with spooky sightings!
San Francisco, in California for example, makes the list in the No.15 spot thanks to its abundance of ghosts on Alcatraz Island, the magazine notes, as well as at China Camp State Park (ahem, not San Francisco – it’s in San Rafael) the Mare Island Shipyard (again, not San Francisco, but Vallejo) and aboard the USS Hornet, which is in Alameda. There have been so many ghost sightings on the latter ship – Cal Tech has an entire web page devoted to the stories.
The historic RMS Queen Mary ocean liner earlier this year in Long Beach, California. The ship served from 1936 until 1967, before retiring to a more sedentary role as a museum and hotel. — Los Angeles Times/TNS
The legendary city of New Orleans in Louisiana tops the list with its vampires, ghosts and sightings of long-gone luminaries – author William Faulkner, midwife and Voodoo queen Marie Laveau and pirate Jean Lafitte among them.
Here are 10 of the places in the list. To see all 20, plus ghostly tales and travel tips, check out the Travel And Leisure website (travelandleisure.com). – Tribune News Service
10 most haunted places in the US:
1. New Orleans, Louisiana
2. Pawley’s Island, South Carolina
3. Chicago, Illinois
4. Pine Barrens, New Jersey
5. Savannah, Georgia
6. RMS Queen Mary, Long Beach, California
7. St Augustine, Florida
8. Shoshone Ice Caves, Idaho
9. Portland, Oregon
10. The Stanley Hotel, Colorado
