Press Release Date: 25th October 2012
Get in the spirit of Halloween with these famously haunted regions throughout the United States.
If you love a good scare and All Hallows Eve is your favourite hoilday, then you need to visit these spooky sites and experience their chilling air for yourself with American Holidays:
Salem, Massachusetts
Spend 4 nights at the 4* Omni Parker House, Boston from only €700pp.
In 1692, Salem became the sight of a series of infamous trials after three local women were accused of using witchcraft to terrorize a trio of young girls. The trials soon escalated into mass hysteria, with townspeople vehemently accusing neighbours and acquaintances, almost all of them unmarried women, of being witches. Over 150 people were arrested and charged, and as many as 19 were eventually executed by hanging. Today, the town of Salem encourages its reputation as “Witch City, USA” and has one of the biggest Halloween celebrations in the country. Alongside the tourist shops and museums, though, stand several infamous ghost stories related to the witch trials. One in particular concerns Gallows Hill, the site of several hangings, which is said to be haunted by the spirits of the 19 people lynched for being witches.
Travel: 27th January 2013
Ref No: 811080
San Francisco, California
Spend 5 nights at the Hotel Triton, San Francisco from only €865pp.
San Francisco is a Mecca of all things haunted. Chinatown alone is home to countless ghost tours and creepy folklore, but the city also boasts a wealth of haunted hotels, mansions, and army bases.Visit spooky Winchester House, home of the rifle heiress Sarah Winchester. In 1884 Sarah Winchester began work on the 160-room Victorian house. For 38 years, until the day she died, Sarah kept carpenters working 24 hours a day, building non-stop. The house has a fascinating higgledy-piggledy design, and features an endlessly confusing floor plan, with doors and staircases leading nowhere. Tours from €49pp.
Travel: 21st January 2013
Ref No: 810958
Chicago, Illinois
Spend 5 nights at the InterContinental, Chicago from only €958pp.
Thanks to its famous great fire and history of gangsters and underworld criminals like Al Capone, Chicago has developed quite a reputation for being haunted. The city has a number of well-known ghost stories that are whispered among the locals each Halloween.Take a supernatural ghost tour of one of Chicago’s most famous warehouses, located around the corner to the mafia headquarters for Al Capone’s bootlegging business. The prohibition era generated millions of dollars of illegal alcohol sales, resulting in countless murders. Those spirits still have a strong presence in the warehouses where the operations took place. Armed with several types of sensors, detectors, cameras and thermal scanners, you’ll chase the dead all the way back to the Roaring Twenties. Tours from €44pp.
Travel: 3rd January 2013
Ref No: 810969
Key West, Florida
Spend 7 nights at the 3* Lexington Key West, Florida, from only €1382pp.
Sunny Key West might not seem like the most probable setting for haunted houses, but this small beach community is home to some of the oldest-and creepiest-of all ghost stories. The city’s rich history of buccaneers and rum-runners provides the backdrop for these ghosts, like those that are said haunt Captain Tony’s Saloon. Before it was a bar, Captain Tony’s was supposedly the location of the island’s morgue, and the tree that grows through the building’s centre is said to have been a major site for lynching pirates and other criminals, and many are said to still haunt the premises today. Take the Key West Ghost and Gravestone Tour and join your gravedigger guide aboard the “Trolley of the Doomed” for a journey through Key West’s darker side from €25pp.
Travel: 27th January 2013
Ref No: 811082
New Orleans, Louisiana
Spend 5 nights at the Courtyard Downtown, French Quarter from only €1565pp.
New Orleans has truly embraced its reputation as a centre of all things paranormal. All of the criteria that produce ghost legends-a coastal location, a checkered past, a rich cultural history, and a potent mix of old and new world religion- can be found here. The city is full of haunted mansions, taverns, and graveyards, Civil War-era spirits, and voodoo hexes. In this realm, one of the most famous figures is undoubtedly Marie Laveau, a Creole woman who gained a massive following during the 1800s as one of the first practitioners of voodoo. She died in 1881, but for years after many people claimed to see her walking throughout the French Quarter, and more than 120 years later many ghostly legends about the “Voodoo Queen of New Orleans” still persist. Tour one of the city’s most haunted cemeteries, St Louis Cemetery No. 1 and visit the tomb of the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans from €21pp.
Travel: 7th January 2013
Ref No: 810977
American Holidays is fully licensed and bonded by Commission for Aviation Regulation (TO 029).
Call American Holidays to book on 01 673 3804 or call into their office just off Grafton Street – 18- 19 Duke Street, Dublin 2 where the expert staff will help you plan your holiday of a lifetime.
TravelMedia.ie
Michelle Ryan
Ph: +353 83 1042620
Email: michelle@travelmedia.ie
Michael Collins
Ph: 086 8583585
Email: michael@travelmedia.ie
Niamh Waters
Ph: +353 85 1205112
Email: niamh@travelmedia.ie
This press release has been sent by TravelMedia.ie on behalf of American Holidays.
