There might be an uptick in Airbnb‘s popularity when the summer rolls around and everyone is looking for ways to spend a vacation, but for horror movie fans, there’s a much bigger surge in October. Few things scream “Halloween” quite like taking a trek to a seasonally appropriate locale.
In many cases, this might mean going to specific locations to see the actual place where beloved movies were filmed, or maybe it means spending some time in a community with a haunted history. Surprisingly, as detailed in a new Airbnb blog post, you can stay in locations with reported paranormal activity, such as a haunted morgue in Ozark, Missouri, or in intimidating domiciles that only have fictional sordid histories, such as Buffalo Bill’s house from The Silence of the Lambs.
Last year, Bloody Disgusting was lucky enough to spend the weekend in the Poltergeist house, and you can get a firsthand recap of that experience for yourself. In Airbnb’s report, they confirm that searches for stays over Halloween weekend are up nearly 15% year-over-year, with Gen Z driving the sharpest increase — their searches are up almost 45%. Understandably, one of the most popular destinations in the country for the Halloween season is Salem, Massachusetts.
Below you’ll find some highlights of the best rentals available for horror movie fans:
- Byers Home – 15 Min to ATL (Fayetteville, GA): With an eerie ambiance and meticulously recreated details that transport guests straight into Hawkins circa 1983, this home’s exterior doubled as a beloved fictional family’s residence.
- Buffalo Bill’s House (Perryopolis, PA): The 1910 Queen Anne Victorian that served as the actual house in the 1991 five-time Academy Award-winning film. The original curio cabinet remains, and the basement is staged as an interactive set.
- Horror-Themed Cabin! Retro & Scary Movie Inspired (Big Bear Lake, CA): This cabin comes complete with a replica movie bathroom including an axe in the door, ghostly special effects, and an escape-room mystery with its own backstory.
- Haunted Mansion-Inspired Ghoulish Sanctuary (Kissimmee, FL): The home that welcomes “foolish mortals” with three bedrooms each themed to different resident ghosts, flickering lights, creaky doors, and a dining room set for a “swinging wake.”
- Catskills Modern Amber Lake Cottage (Livingston Manor, NY): A renovated former fishing cabin on the bank of Amber Lake, with its own dock and a short drive to Main Street.
- The Word Barn (Exeter, NH): An apartment in a renovated New England farm barn, in an idyllic country setting beside a literary and live-music venue.
- The Salem Porch House (Salem, MA): A 1913 Colonial Revival condo with a porch overlooking Salem Common, and a front-row seat to the trick-or-treat crowds.
If real-life hauntings are more your thing, then perhaps the below destinations, some of which have earned investigations from groups like Ghost Adventures, are more your thing:
- Parks-Bowman Mansion: The Haunted Bedroom (New Orleans, LA): A third-floor room in a Garden District mansion. The hosts describe their resident ghost as a shy girl in an 1890s yellow dress, and guest reviews rank it among the most haunted stays on Airbnb.
- Mystic Pond Cabin-Dark History! (Summersville, WV): A tiny cabin on a reclaimed coal mine site, where the host reports ghostly occurrences and Bigfoot sightings and leaves a basket of paranormal gear in the cabin.
- Historic Morgue and Paranormal Investigation! (Ozark, MO): A loft inside a building that served as a morgue, funeral home, church and museum, furnished in morgue decor, with a spirit box, an EMF detector, and dowsing rods for guests who want to investigate.
- Haunted 3-bedroom Mining Cabin in Death Valley (Beatty, NV): A remodeled historic miner’s cabin from the early 1900s, once featured on a paranormal reality series, eight miles from the Death Valley park entrance.
- Haunted Magnolia Hotel Bed & Breakfast (Seguin, TX): The entire second floor of an 1850 frontier hotel and stagecoach stop, including an unrestored eleven-room wing with no electricity, known as its most haunted part.
- The Haunted House Apt 301 (Penetanguishene, Canada): A third-floor apartment in an 1885 Victorian built for a lumber baron, where the host says the staircase creaks, the original architecture “oozes with history”; and the spirits never left.
You can head to the official Airbnb blog to get even more inspiration for honoring the best season of the year, ranging from remote rentals in the middle of the woods to rentals with Gothic charm to destinations that fully deliver on witchy vibes.
Which location would you most be interested in checking out? Let us know in the comments below!
