What makes a place haunted? Those who believe in ghosts all have different theories, and I like to keep my mind open to each one. The more I explore haunted places, the more evidence I collect for each theory.
In July 2026, I took a ghost tour through Salem, Massachusetts with US Ghost Adventures. If you were to name five of the most haunted places in the US, Salem would make a lot of people’s top five lists due to its grim history and old (for this continent at least) buildings. So, I was eager to see if it lived up to the hype.
Below is my experience taking the Salem Ghost Tour. You can get a discount on your tour using my code LAURA10 at US Ghost Adventures, Salem Ghosts, or the Lizzie Borden website.
The meeting place
The tour started at the Salem Five Bank located at 210 Essex Street. This bank sits in the middle of the cobblestone square where many of the most popular museums, gift shops, and other attractions in downtown Salem are located.
It was mid-July, so our tour began while it was still daylight, but the sun was setting rapidly. We had a group of eight, and our tour guide’s name was Liv. She was dressed the part in her black dress and witch hat.
Though most of the stores were closed for the evening, Liv had to fight to be heard over the traffic on the nearby streets as well as the other tours that were going on around us at certain stops, but she was able to throw her voice well without sounding like she was shouting. She also had plenty of historical and paranormal stories to share about each location.
Being in Salem, a lot of the tour was focused on places significant to the famous witch trials. But it wasn’t restricted to the trials. After all, many of the buildings we toured were built after the trials, and they came with their own dark history.
A possibly paranormal pre-tour experience
One thing I love about US Ghost Adventures Tours is that there are some main stops and then there are some bonus stops along the way. The bonus stops are basically just briefly pointed out while enroute to the main attractions, and a few fun facts are shared about these locations, particularly on the paranormal side of things.
Prior to our first stop at Turner’s Seafood, Liv pointed out Rockafellas, a popular restaurant on the corner at 227 Essex Street. This building was once the site of a church where victims of the Salem Witch Trials were questioned.
I had eaten dinner in Rockafellas the night before. Before I left, I used the ladies room. A few other diners were in there with me, and as I exited the stall to wash my hands, the lights briefly went out. The others in the room with me screamed bloody murder. When the lights came back on, everybody laughed, including me, and I quickly washed my hands and left.
When I returned to our table, I asked my sister, who had come on the trip with me, if the lights had gone out inside the dining room. She said they hadn’t.
Turner’s Seafood
Our first official stop was at Turner’s Seafood located at 43 Church Street, one block over from Rockafellas. This old, brick, two-story building faces Church Street with a cobblestone walkway on the left which gives you a full view of the left side of the building.
It was at this corner where we stood listening to the history behind the property and its former use as the apple orchard belonging to the first executed victim of the witch trials, Bridget Bishop. A land dispute 12 years prior set off a chain of accusations which ultimately led to Bishop’s fate.
We were directed to look up into the second-floor window at the front corner of the building on the left side, as that is where the apparition of Bishop is said to appear. Unfortunately, neither our cameras nor our eyes caught sight of anyone in the window, but she’s probably not likely to appear with nine people looking up at her at once.
A female apparition has also been known to haunt the bathroom. Interestingly, I found some clips on Turner’s website where they show some evidence of paranormal activity captured by their security cameras.
The Witch House
After a brief stop at the Witch Dungeon Museum, we headed to The Witch House, one of the most famous structures in the town. This house, located at 310 Essex Street, is a dark gray, wood frame colonial home that once housed one of the judges of The Salem Witch Trails, Jonathan Corwin.
Earlier that day, I had been to Corwin’s grave at Broad Street Cemetery, and while we located no paranormal activity at that grave, an EMF reader app gave us a thrill when we asked, “Where are you?” to nobody in particular, and the app responded with “beside Joshua.” There to my right was an old headstone reading “In Memory of Joshua Cross, a Revolutionary Soldier.”’
It is said that the second floor of The Witch House is haunted, and an overwhelming number of disembodied voices can hit you as you ascend the stairs. I actually did tour the house the following day, and I did hear a cacophony of voices. Unfortunately, they were the voices of the tourists who crowded each room.
Temperature drops were also known to occur in the house. The home was kept cool with central air. So, it was difficult to tell if any chills I felt were due to it or spectral activity.
Ropes Mansion
Another quick stop on our way to our next site was to First Church in Salem, a Unitarian Universalist Church that looks like a medieval castle. It’s located at 316 Essex Street, just past the intersection with Summer Street. If nothing else, it set the mood as the streets grew darker.
Right next door at 318 Essex Street was our next stop, Ropes Mansion, another famous home in town thanks to the 1993 Disney Classic, Hocus Pocus, in which this home was featured. While in the film the location served as the home of the film’s heroine, Allison, the home actually belonged to Nathaniel Ropes Jr., a loyalist during the Revolutionary War who died of smallpox in the house. Another relative named Abigail Ropes died of severe burns after embers from a fireplace in the home caught her dress on fire. The two are now known to haunt the home and gardens.
I had been in the garden earlier that day. It’s free to tour and is better than most paid gardens I’ve been to. Unfortunately, I didn’t see Abigail back there, but it was a sunny day and very crowded. So, I doubt she would have made herself known during that visit.
Salem Athenaeum
Cattycorner to Ropes Mansion at 331 Essex Street was another stop, Curwen House, one of three buildings that make up The Salem Inn. This home, built in 1854, has been converted into an inn for adults only that gives you the historical feel of the town with modern amenities. On their website, they even mention a paranormal room where you can do some interior ghost hunting.
Two doors down from the Curwen House was the Salem Athenaeum, a once private and now public library that once had Nathaniel Hawthorne as a member. It is famous for having housed those displaced by the great fire of 1914.
There is a theory that some paranormal activity is just residual energy that a space harnesses and replays like a broken record. I thought of this as Liv explained that the part that this building played in such a terrible moment in Salem history may have led to its paranormal history, as people have been known to smell smoke or fire nearby and have seen a figure sitting on the windowsill on the first-floor window on the front left side of the building.
Admittedly, I was drawn to this particular window when we approached the home. However, these windows had electric candles “burning” behind the glass, so that did draw your eye to it. I didn’t smell any smoke or fire, but my sister later admitted to me that she had detected the smell of smoke before this fact was mentioned by our guide.
Of course, smoke from some wildfires in Canada were making their way down to New England and would begin to create a thick haze in the coming days. So, it could have been the start of that natural phenomenon that she was smelling.
The Salem Inn
From there, we backtracked to the main building of The Salem Inn located at 7 Summer Street. This three-story, red brick building, also known as West House, was built by Captain Nathaniel West.
For ghost hunters, Room 17 would be the room to book, as it is known to have the most spirit activity. We learned about a young woman, a boy, and a black cat who haunt the rooms. So, don’t expect to get much sleep if your purpose for staying there is to see a ghost.
Two buildings down is the third building that makes up The Salem Inn, the Peabody House. In Salem, they pronounce Peabody as “pea-bud-dee.” We passed by this small, yellow bed and breakfast as we headed to our next destination.
Joshua Ward House
We turned the corner and headed to 148 Washington Street. There, we came across a three-story, red brick building surrounded by a white fence and covered by two large trees in the front yard. This building currently serves as The Merchant Hotel. However, it was once the home of another important figure of the Salem Witch Trials, George Corwin, the sheriff who imprisoned, tortured, and profited off of the victims and their families.
George Corwin is buried with his relative, Jonathan Corwin. So, I also saw his grave in Broad Street Cemetery earlier that day. However, it is believed that he was originally buried on the property before being exhumed. Interestingly enough, the name Joshua came up again in association with the Corwins without being directly related.
There’s known to be a spirit on the property who likes to “strangle” the living. However, it’s not clear if this is the ghost of George Corwin, as strangulation was not a known method of torture of his. Instead, some believe it could be the ghost of Giles Corey, the witch trials victim who is famous for being pressed to death instead of hanged for his crimes. Corey’s ghost has a history of wreaking havoc on the town, but it’s difficult to say if he’s really the strangler ghost or if it’s something, or someone, else entirely.
Town Hall
Our final stop was another famous Hocus Pocus filming location, the Old Town Hall located at 32 Derby Square. It’s said that the ghost of a former notable figure of Salem, famed merchant Elias Hasket Derby, haunts the Town Hall.
I had been inside the hall earlier that day. It’s free to walk through and is also one of the few places that have public restrooms in the town. Again, it was full of people on a bright, sunny day. So, other than its age, there was nothing ghostly or atmospheric about the building.
By the time we got to this stop on our tour, though, the sun had set, the streetlights had come on, and the building loomed ominously over us in the blue hour. I’d like to say that I captured something with my camera or saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye, but the building appeared to be at rest that evening.
Final thoughts on the tour
Here, the tour ended, and I felt a lot more knowledgeable about the layout of the town and the role that some of these historic homes have played in Salem’s larger story. I appreciated the wide range of eras that the tour covered and how well researched and accurate the facts of the tour were. I’ve heard that a lot of other ghost tour guides in Salem get many of their facts wrong for the sake of creating a juicier story for its group, but in researching the facts I wrote down from this tour, everything checked out as historically accurate.
These tours are just that, a tour, not a hunt. The point is to learn some information and apply this information to your own experiences. Even very known active places can go quiet when everyone is watching. So, you can’t expect any guaranteed experiences during the tour. But as I pointed out from other experiences in some of these places at different parts of my trip, these potential experiences happen when you least expect it to or when the activity wants to make itself known.
Have you ever been to Salem? If so, did you have any paranormal experiences? If not, which location on this tour would you most like to visit? Leave your answers in the comments below! And don’t forget to apply my code, LAURA10, if you sign up for a Salem tour with US Ghost Adventures!
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