Subscribe to this blog and you'll be entered to win a voucher for a Vacation Getaway for 3 days and 2 nights Hotel for any one of 22 cities (listed below). The voucher is for Hotel (and hotel taxes) only, you'll be responsible for your transportation and meals. There's no other catch (no timeshare presentations or that kind of b.s. are required).
The winner will be drawn from all subscriptions received, and everyone who enters will also be sent a travel gift. The grand prize winner will be notified immediately after the drawing via the contact information, and should receive their prize within two weeks. The winning name will be drawn on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 11:59 pm Eastern Time.
The cities eligible for the prize are as follows. Accommodations will be in a Marriott-grade hotel, to be determined by a hotel broker once the reservation is made, based on availability. There may be some blackout dates, and you will need to book at least 60 days in advance. Make sure you get the hotel reservation confirmation before you book your airfare or other transportation.
You will have your choice of any of these cities:
Las Vegas, NV
Anaheim, CA
Palm Springs, CA
Ft. Myers, FL
Myrtle Beach, SC
Puerto Vallerta, Mexico
Orlando, FL
Pocono Mountains, PA
San Antonio, TX
Ormond Beach, FL
Williamsburg, VA
Cancun, Mexico
Reno/Carson City, NV
Lake Tahoe, NV
Gatlinburg, TN
Charleston, SC
Honolulu, HI
Atlantic City, NJ
Daytona Beach, FL
Hilton Head, SC
Branson, MO
Niagra Falls Area
Good luck. Please subscribe only once. All duplicate emails will be culled prior to drawing.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Top 10 Most Haunted Destinations
These get my votes...I'm interested to hear your stories and where you would nominate for the most haunted places to travel. Please leave your comments below! Let's have some fun with this for Halloween.
10. Chaco Canyon: near Farmington, New Mexico.
I have personal experience of this one. I was there in the late evening, after having almost destroyed the suspension on my car driving in to the park...it was the bumpiest washboardy road I've ever been on. The park had started to clear out of the tourists and I wasn't ready to go, especially after sacrificing my shocks on my car. So, I stayed and had plans to explore and watch the sunset. I began to hear the sounds of a Native American ceremony with chanting and drumming, and figured there was a reservation nearby. There were still a few people milling about and I asked them about what we were hearing...the trouble was, they weren't hearing it! It was a ghostly ceremony being held right there amongst the kivas.
9. Omaha Beach, Normandy France: The cemetery with all the thousands of crosses is silently still as you imagine the families back home receiving word that their boy would be remaining in France for eternity. If you go to the actual beach heads where the landings of our Allied Forces stormed the Germans, you can feel the waves of death just like you can feel the tides. Thank God they didn't die in vain. The bunkers still have bullet holes and the bomb craters from the air strikes are now grown over with grass, but the energy of those intensely important days is still in the sand and the soil.
8. Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh Scotland: I haven't personally been to Scotland, but can you think of a better place to meet up with ghosts? I've been as far north as Durham in England, and the landscape filled me with memories of old Werewolf movies, set among the moors. Spooky.
10. Chaco Canyon: near Farmington, New Mexico.
I have personal experience of this one. I was there in the late evening, after having almost destroyed the suspension on my car driving in to the park...it was the bumpiest washboardy road I've ever been on. The park had started to clear out of the tourists and I wasn't ready to go, especially after sacrificing my shocks on my car. So, I stayed and had plans to explore and watch the sunset. I began to hear the sounds of a Native American ceremony with chanting and drumming, and figured there was a reservation nearby. There were still a few people milling about and I asked them about what we were hearing...the trouble was, they weren't hearing it! It was a ghostly ceremony being held right there amongst the kivas.
9. Omaha Beach, Normandy France: The cemetery with all the thousands of crosses is silently still as you imagine the families back home receiving word that their boy would be remaining in France for eternity. If you go to the actual beach heads where the landings of our Allied Forces stormed the Germans, you can feel the waves of death just like you can feel the tides. Thank God they didn't die in vain. The bunkers still have bullet holes and the bomb craters from the air strikes are now grown over with grass, but the energy of those intensely important days is still in the sand and the soil.
8. Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh Scotland: I haven't personally been to Scotland, but can you think of a better place to meet up with ghosts? I've been as far north as Durham in England, and the landscape filled me with memories of old Werewolf movies, set among the moors. Spooky.
7. Chickamauga Battlefield, Tennessee: Any battlefield will have ghosts, that's just the tragedy of war. Here though, both sides were "our" boys. I haven't been to any of the other great battlefields like Gettysburg, but it was all I could do to make a beeline back to my car and leave the premises after I had just paid to go through the little museum and visitor's center there at Chickamauga. It was just too sad...the woodlands are completely saturated with death...it's oppressive if you're sensitive. If you don't think you're psychically sensitive, try visiting one of these battlefields. You'll begin to feel what it's like to "sense" a ghost or twenty.
6. The gold mining fields of Alaska's Klondike, or the California Rush, or those in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Men and women died in those hills trying to strike it rich...most never did. Some did and died trying to protect their claim. I was on an excursion in Skagway, Alaska in which we toured the mountains where the miners hoped to make their dream come true. They got their provisions in Skagway, and you can still feel the old west atmosphere that they brought from the lower states. When you're actually in the hills, the energy turns a little more desperate, and you can almost see the bones of mules that collapsed in exhaustion from carrying their burdens through those valleys.
Try the Golden North Hotel in town, Room 14 or Room 23. Those are the haunted rooms there...but be prepared to get out fast if you find you can't breathe...
6. The gold mining fields of Alaska's Klondike, or the California Rush, or those in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Men and women died in those hills trying to strike it rich...most never did. Some did and died trying to protect their claim. I was on an excursion in Skagway, Alaska in which we toured the mountains where the miners hoped to make their dream come true. They got their provisions in Skagway, and you can still feel the old west atmosphere that they brought from the lower states. When you're actually in the hills, the energy turns a little more desperate, and you can almost see the bones of mules that collapsed in exhaustion from carrying their burdens through those valleys.
Try the Golden North Hotel in town, Room 14 or Room 23. Those are the haunted rooms there...but be prepared to get out fast if you find you can't breathe...
In Cripple Creek, there are many hotels where the ghosts of saloon girls still roam, and the latest owners invite you to sleep in the haunted rooms. The noise of the casinos drowns the ghostly wails out now, but you can hear them if you're listening...try going up on a clear summer night and listening under the stars. It's an experience you won't be able to forget.
5. London Tower, London England: This is where Henry VIII beheaded his wives--the guillotine is right in the main square called the "Tower Green" for everyone to see. It's been wiped off, but it's not hard to imagine the sound of it dropping and the gush of red that followed each victim's fate. This is also where Queen Elizabeth I was kept when imprisoned by Mary, Queen of the Scots. There were many other prisoners of the crown kept here, most of whom also died here. It's not all about death and torture...there's a wonderful exhibit of the Crown Jewels and all the Royal Gems that is not to be missed if you're a rock hound like me. There's certainly plenty to do in London, and many, many other haunted places...think how many perished in the Great Fire of London...those ghosts hang around down near the Stock Exchange and St. Paul's Cathedral. You feel them when you drive through there...takes you back to Dickens' time. They're all about the British Library also, and they come alive as you look at the Magna Carta and the song lyrics penned on a napkin in John Lennon's handwriting.
London in general is quite haunted.
4. Columbia, Missouri: Stephen's College in particular. This is the second oldest women's college in the country, and there are a lot of Civil War ghosts (Missouri was neutral, so many a soldier drifted through and many fell in love with one of the students. (Remember The Beguiled with Clint Eastwood?)
A dear friend went to school here and majored in theater in the early 80's. The main theater had just burned down (never discuss Shakespeare's The Tempest by name in a theater! Refer to it as "The Work" or tragic things may befall the building...) and they were using a dilapidated class building as a stand in those first few years of her education there. Lots of spooky things took place then, and still do around campus, including ghostly gardens that would appear during the games of Hide and Seek she'd play with her friends after class. Much to their initial disbelief, a garden that they discovered "just outside" one of the basement doors, and which was quite enchanting to hear her tell it, transformed back into a mere blocked-off alley entrance which no one in their right mind would be tempted to enter...in daylight. She also tells of ghostly labyrinths that would trap her on her way to class in that building (and no, she wasn't smoking anything!)
3. St. Augustine, Florida: founded in 1565, it's the U.S.'s oldest city. It's had lots of time to accumulate its ghostly reputation. I haven't been to St. Augustine, but I've been to some of the other old cities in Florida, and if you like old graveyards like I do, there are many to be found. A lot of the graves are crypts that are on top of the ground, rather than buried. That just makes the thin veil between the worlds even thinner in these places! The dead are all around, but their bones are only a couple inches from you, whereas in newer cemeteries, there is six feet of earth between you and them.
The fact is, there are so many ghosts (and stories that go with them) in St. Augustine that they have ghost tours every night of the year...not just around Halloween.
Tied for number two:
2. Charleston, South Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana
First, Charleston. The dichotomy of a cheerful antebellum plantation lifestyle in contrast to the old slave markets that supported them give Charleston an understated creepiness that in palpable. There were plenty of pirates marauding the city in the early years also, and their punishment was violent enough to live on in the soil and streets of the city. Click on the heading for the Charleston section to read more. It's quite a compelling history.
New Orleans has recent ghosts from Hurricane Katrina as well as from its sordid past. I personally believe that anytime a lot of people die in the same place and at the same time, the location is doomed to some hauntings. The Tsunami that hit nine months before Katrina left many places haunted in the Indian Ocean nations.
What makes New Orleans unique is its association with Voodoo and vampires. These, on top of the ghosts, can make for a fun and creepy excursion into supernatural territory.
and
1. Auschwitz, near Krakow, Poland
Well, how could we expect a place not to be haunted when so many millions of lives were taken there? The link takes you to pictures from a museum at Auschwitz II, because you're not allowed to take photographs when you're actually there.
Now, nominate your favorite haunted places and tell us all why! Comment below.
5. London Tower, London England: This is where Henry VIII beheaded his wives--the guillotine is right in the main square called the "Tower Green" for everyone to see. It's been wiped off, but it's not hard to imagine the sound of it dropping and the gush of red that followed each victim's fate. This is also where Queen Elizabeth I was kept when imprisoned by Mary, Queen of the Scots. There were many other prisoners of the crown kept here, most of whom also died here. It's not all about death and torture...there's a wonderful exhibit of the Crown Jewels and all the Royal Gems that is not to be missed if you're a rock hound like me. There's certainly plenty to do in London, and many, many other haunted places...think how many perished in the Great Fire of London...those ghosts hang around down near the Stock Exchange and St. Paul's Cathedral. You feel them when you drive through there...takes you back to Dickens' time. They're all about the British Library also, and they come alive as you look at the Magna Carta and the song lyrics penned on a napkin in John Lennon's handwriting.
London in general is quite haunted.
4. Columbia, Missouri: Stephen's College in particular. This is the second oldest women's college in the country, and there are a lot of Civil War ghosts (Missouri was neutral, so many a soldier drifted through and many fell in love with one of the students. (Remember The Beguiled with Clint Eastwood?)
A dear friend went to school here and majored in theater in the early 80's. The main theater had just burned down (never discuss Shakespeare's The Tempest by name in a theater! Refer to it as "The Work" or tragic things may befall the building...) and they were using a dilapidated class building as a stand in those first few years of her education there. Lots of spooky things took place then, and still do around campus, including ghostly gardens that would appear during the games of Hide and Seek she'd play with her friends after class. Much to their initial disbelief, a garden that they discovered "just outside" one of the basement doors, and which was quite enchanting to hear her tell it, transformed back into a mere blocked-off alley entrance which no one in their right mind would be tempted to enter...in daylight. She also tells of ghostly labyrinths that would trap her on her way to class in that building (and no, she wasn't smoking anything!)
3. St. Augustine, Florida: founded in 1565, it's the U.S.'s oldest city. It's had lots of time to accumulate its ghostly reputation. I haven't been to St. Augustine, but I've been to some of the other old cities in Florida, and if you like old graveyards like I do, there are many to be found. A lot of the graves are crypts that are on top of the ground, rather than buried. That just makes the thin veil between the worlds even thinner in these places! The dead are all around, but their bones are only a couple inches from you, whereas in newer cemeteries, there is six feet of earth between you and them.
The fact is, there are so many ghosts (and stories that go with them) in St. Augustine that they have ghost tours every night of the year...not just around Halloween.
Tied for number two:
2. Charleston, South Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana
First, Charleston. The dichotomy of a cheerful antebellum plantation lifestyle in contrast to the old slave markets that supported them give Charleston an understated creepiness that in palpable. There were plenty of pirates marauding the city in the early years also, and their punishment was violent enough to live on in the soil and streets of the city. Click on the heading for the Charleston section to read more. It's quite a compelling history.
New Orleans has recent ghosts from Hurricane Katrina as well as from its sordid past. I personally believe that anytime a lot of people die in the same place and at the same time, the location is doomed to some hauntings. The Tsunami that hit nine months before Katrina left many places haunted in the Indian Ocean nations.
What makes New Orleans unique is its association with Voodoo and vampires. These, on top of the ghosts, can make for a fun and creepy excursion into supernatural territory.
and
1. Auschwitz, near Krakow, Poland
Well, how could we expect a place not to be haunted when so many millions of lives were taken there? The link takes you to pictures from a museum at Auschwitz II, because you're not allowed to take photographs when you're actually there.
Now, nominate your favorite haunted places and tell us all why! Comment below.
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