Your favorite airport shuttle service keeps expanding across the country, so this year for Halloween, we thought we’d give you a very extensive listing of some of the best, scariest, screaming-est, chilling Halloween-themed events throughout the U.S. Fearsome fellow travelers, awesome thrills await! Let us know what you think.
Portland’s largest, scariest Halloween event is The Fear PDX Haunted House, back again for 2024, with features like Toxic Carnage, Blood House 2 and the Slasher Shed. Just the names give you the creeps. Oh, there’s also a Poison Apple Festival. Yum. All this is a far cry from the giant friendly PDX airport Welcome carpet. Graveyard ghost tours and spooky bar hopping is another way to see Portland. And, if you’re feeling energetic, there’s always the annual Run Like Hell Marathon. Halloween could be the most fun time to visit Portland. Check out everything the city offers here.
The Music City sure knows how to provide a good time. And you’re in luck this year, with Halloween falling on a Thursday, the whole weekend is up for grabs. If you can think of a good Halloween pun, there’s a scary bar event that uses it. Think: Trick-or-Drink, or Drink-or-Trick, the Crawl-teen, even Pick-o-teen. But, if it’s scares and screams you truly seek, you won’t be disappointed with some of these options: Nashville Nightmare, Dead Land Scream Park or Millers Thrillers Haunted Woods. And you thought you were coming to Nashville for the music. Check out the latest lineup of stuff with a single click.
Houston
The Houston Scream Fest could provide enough chills and thrills for a lifetime. It’s one price for an infinite amount of goosebumps at Texas’ largest horror amusement park. You know how they do everything BIG in Texas! But wait, there’s more. Billed as one of the top 5 most terrifying haunted houses in the U.S., the 13th House should generate a few fearful dreams. Freddy will be there, waiting for you. There’s also the Houston Terror Dome and the Boo Zoo, not to mention a city-wide horror movie bingefest all October. Get more details before you head for your flight.
Hopefully the temperatures will decrease by Halloween. Either way, you’re in for a torrid time. Let’s start with the Scarizona Scaregrounds. Remember the fun of those old-fashioned corn mazes? Well, forget them. Prepare to be scared, no matter which of the five paths you choose. There’s also Fear Farm, with 30-acres of pure terror (sounds like fun). And don’t pass up Mount Mayhem Haunted House or the 13th Floor Haunted House. As a matter of fact, Phoenix has so many different haunted house experiences, it makes you wonder a little bit about the folks who live there. Personally, the storyline behind the Sanctum of Horror, with Lenore and her murderous family, sounds appealing. Phoenix is Halloween hot this year. Even the local college (ASU) mascot is the Sun Devil.
San Diego is a city chocked full of family-friendly fun. You can expect a bunch of “spooktacular” events at the ever popular Sea World and LegoLand. But, if you want to move the scare factor up a notch, you might think about The Haunted Trail at Balboa Park. It’s the largest, all-outdoor Halloween themed activity in town, and they promise quite a few nighttime surprises you’ll likely have a hard time forgetting. You can also go up the paranormal scale, with an evening at the Hotel del Coronado, delving into the chilling tale of Kate Morgan and what really went on in Room 502.
But as long as you’re in the area, a short drive up the coast would give you one of the top Halloween thrills nationwide—considered to be one of the most haunted places in the world, the Queen Mary cruise liner, docked in Long Beach. Two hundred monsters and ghosts in 6 terrifying mazes make up the Dark Harbor. They say much of what you’ll thrill to is inspired by some of the actual spirits that haunt the ship! No lie. Find out more about SD Halloween here.
Who would’ve thought a nice quiet town in the middle of Ohio would offer so many gruesome activities for Halloween. Is it being the state capitol? College town? Who knows. But prepare to be scared. Start with Haunted Hoochie at Dead Acres. If you get out with all your wits about you, you will have survived several severe horror scenes, “manned” by master actors, monsters and haunting special effects. Still want more? Make your next stop the ScareAtorium, beginning with a self-guided tour of a former mental asylum, which somehow never got rid of some of its patients or staff. And that’s just the first half. There are also evening ghost tours of the old State Capitol building. Get your Ohio fix here.
A lot of folks head to Philadelphia for the history, their ‘Phanatical’ sports teams, or even just the cheesesteak. But this October, Halloween takes center stage. You decide; the options are enough to send chills down your spine. Hope you make it out in one piece after these events: Halloween Nights at the Eastern State Penitentiary, the Pennhurst Asylum, the Fright Factory, Sleepy Hollow Haunted Acres, the Spirit of ’76 Ghost Tours, or Bloodletting & Burials at the Betsy Ross House. History and horror, how delightful! Only in Philadelphia.
Now’s your chance to experience the nation’s capitol for some scary moments before the election. The city has a bunch of family-oriented events (Air and Scare at the Air and Space Museum, Boo at the Zoo, etc.). Smiley stuff, right? Then check out one of the many city ghost tours, because there sure are a lot of ghosts around DC. Get off the Mall, though, with a creepy tour of the Lesser-Known Notables of Oak Hill Cemetery, where costumes are encouraged. Or Nightmare in Navy Yard, which offers many, well, nightmares in Navy Yard. Before you ship out, look here.
Utah’s original haunted house, The Institute of Terror, has been scaring the devil out of people for over 30 years. This year it’s part of an even larger thrill-fest, Nightmare of 13th, with advanced special effects and animatronics that should send you screaming into the dead of night. After you quiet down, you might just toss in a ghost tour. It seems, Salt Lake City has seen a lot of ghosts in its days. Plan ahead with this info.
Fans of the Scarehouse in Pittsburgh will have to wait till next year for some major rehabbing. In place, the thrills will keep coming with three R-rated horror experiences in nearby Etna, like The Basement and a Stalked By a Killer escape rooms. The big event is the Phantom Fall Fest at Kennywood Park. By day, a family-friendly, Fall colors experience. But after 6pm, the monsters come out all over the park. Screams on the left, on the rides, in the haunted houses. Also, don’t miss the Hundred Acres Manor with its “buried alive simulator” (gotta’ see that) and the Scream Bar! It’s evilness along the Monongahela!
Kansas City
Wait a second. In addition to World Champion football and phenomenal BBQ, Kansas City claims to be the “Haunted House Capital of the World”! That’s a challenge you can’t pass up. Even the videos on the KC website will scare you. There’s the Macabre Cinema, that puts you right in a horror-film, the Beast, Exiled (just across the state border) and the one that started it all: The Edge of Evil, with its five-story house of horrors. No elevators, probably. Wouldn’t trust them anyway. For your calmer, evil side, the Worlds of Fun amusement park becomes Worlds of Fright for the season. Then there’s the Glore Psychiatric Museum, which is really pretty disturbing any time of year.
Just mention Cleveland and people start talking about Cedar Point, a king among amusement parks. After dark though, all the fun and laughs turn into screams, from the rides, haunted houses, and roaming monsters. But let’s go for a real record. Often sited in the Guinness Record Book as “the longest haunted house in the world,” the Factory of Terror does a good job of producing just that…terror. Or, if claustrophobia is one your phobias, what about Halloween on a Submarine aboard the USS Cod? Lake Erie isn’t Loch Ness, but there are still monsters to explore.
Detroit deserves a second look this year. The old standby Greenfield Village goes deep into Halloween for nighttime visitors. And first-wife Flora can still be heard screaming in the 3rd floor Ghost Bar at the Whitney House. But it you want to cram your screams into a tight, short schedule, head over to the Eloise Asylum. Sounds pleasant doesn’t it. Well, it’s been billed as the “Disney of haunted attractions.” The paranormal is quite normal here.
Boston surely has some decent Halloween scary attractions. For starters, check here. But as long as you’re in the area, there’s no way you can pass up the birthplace, perhaps, of all this Fall Hallowed Eve scary boo mayhem: Salem, home of the infamous witch trials. The city has a celebration for the whole month of October. It’s called Haunted Happenings, and anything you can think of about the dark, sinister side of Halloween will be there, including this year’s ‘Witch & Famous’ masquerade ball.
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