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Spooky season: Haunting destinations around the world

If you’re partial to ghost tours, spooky houses, or tales of the unexpected, we’ve got it covered. Explore’s Amy Fiske shares her fascination with kooky destinations.
Written by: Amy Fiske - Paid Media Specialist & Co-ordinator at Explore Worldwide
Date Published: 30 September 2024
Read the full-length article in issue three of The Explorer magazine.
 

Often, when you're travelling, the experiences that stay with you are the ones you didn't see coming. It could be an incredible wildlife sighting or a once-in-a-lifetime sunset. Or it could be a supernatural story that sends shivers down your spine and keeps you up all night.
 

Yep, it might not be for the faint hearted, but if you're like me, and macabre-inclined, spooky stories and legend can be a great insight into a local culture, past and present.
 

Here are my recent goosebump-inducing favourites:

Lima, Peru

La Casa Matusita, an unassuming building near Lima’s Museum of Art, carries a haunting past. During the Spanish colonial era, a Persian woman first bought the house. Facing accusations of witchcraft, she was dragged from her home by the Spanish Inquisition and accused of making a pact with the devil. Suffering a fate known all too well by witches of the era, she placed a curse upon anyone entering her house, ensuring a cruel destiny would befall them.
 

Over the years, the house has witnessed numerous violent incidents. In the 1970s, a renowned TV personality attempted to disprove the house’s haunting by staying for seven days and nights. Within four hours, he was forcibly removed due to psychiatric concerns and never spoke of the house again.
 

Visit La Casa Matusita on your way to the delicious restaurants nearby and raise your Pisco Sour to honour those who fell victim to the curse. Perhaps, if you offer a drink in tribute to the original homeowner, she may allow you to pass by peacefully.

View all Peru trips

An unforgettable festival

Still alive and kicking, voodoo is Benin’s national religion to this day. The Voodoo Festival is the highlight of the voodoo calendar in Ouidah. On the 10 January each year, spectators and practitioners gather to celebrate voodoo and its related paths. This high energy festival is top of my travel wish list. Full of drumming, dancing, drinking and of course ritual sacrifice, this is far from your country fair and something you’ll never forget.

View our Benin and Togo Voodoo Discovery Trip

Tokyo, Japan

Before my Simply Japan trip started, I stayed in Asakusa in Tokyo and ventured 20 minutes north to the old Kozukappara Execution Grounds. Every time this area is developed, they find human remains left by the >200,000 executions that took place in the Edo period until 1873. Skeletons literally pave the road to what is now two temples split by a JR Line. By the Enmei-ji temple you’ll find the Kubi-kiri Jizo (Beheading Buddha) - pictured here - that was erected to serve as the last thing the condemned would see before losing their head.


Fast forward to the Dutch and other westerners building relationships with Japan, and the Tokugawa Clan turned the site into a memorial for those harshly convicted as an effort to distance themselves from this bloodied past. However, history never forgets, and after the 2011 tsunami, the Beheading Buddha required renovation as its own head had broken off.

View all Japan trips

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

New Orleans is well known for its vibrant nightlife, lively festivals and Creole and Cajun cuisines. But, thanks to its tumultuous past, it’s also considered one of the most haunted cities in the United States. So, with a 32oz Hurricane Slushie in hand, I joined a local-led ghost tour. A Catholic missionary locked away with beautiful vampire schoolgirls, Madame LaLaurie’s murder mansion, voodoo museums and shops were highlights of our route, but my favourite story involves Caesars Superdome Stadium.
 

The stadium was built on a cemetery site and is home to the Saints NFL team. The team had a string of losses, to the extent that fans attended games with bags on their heads to avoid being seen as “Aints” fans. During his 1987 visit, Pope John Paul II was asked to bless the stadium and rid it of its haunted origins.
 

Perhaps taken in by southern hospitality he agreed. That year the Saints finally won their first championship, 12 years after the stadium was built. Pope Francis I then tweeted his blessing to The Saints in 2019 (an unintentional hashtag mishap) leading to yet another win. Is there something supernatural happening at the Stadium that only the Pope can fend off?

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Don't just travel, Explore!

Inspired to explore the unexpected, lesser-known or downright unusual? Wherever you choose to go, we've got you covered. Contact us today to start planning your next dream trip.

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