City guideUnited States · Seasonal autumn events
Eight US towns that go all out for Halloween, from Salem to Estes Park
Architectural Digest rounds up American towns where the season runs for weeks, with corn mazes, ghost tours and haunted hotels.
Architectural Digest's Amelia Mularz has gathered eight American towns that treat Halloween as a season rather than a single night. Some come by it through history or fiction, others through sheer enthusiasm for pumpkins. Salem, Massachusetts, site of the 1692 witch trials, pairs the Salem Witch Museum and the historic Witch House with haunted tours and hat and broom shops. Sleepy Hollow in the Hudson Valley has the cemetery where Washington Irving is buried, plus a blaze of more than 7,000 jack-o'-lanterns.
Film fans get St. Helens, Oregon, where Disney's Halloweentown was shot and which now hosts a festival from late September, and Estes Park, Colorado, whose Stanley Hotel inspired The Shining and holds a costumed Shining Ball. Anoka, Minnesota, has called itself the Halloween Capital of the World since a 1920 celebration meant to curb pranks.
Elsewhere there are bar crawls in San Diego, a 28-acre corn maze at Richardson Adventure Farm in Spring Grove, Illinois, and, in New Orleans, the free pleasure of wandering the Garden District to see the Skeleton House on St. Charles Avenue.
Most events run through October and dates shift each year, so check before planning a trip around one.
Our summary of a story from Architectural Digest, published 13 October 2026. Read the original
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From Architectural Digest