Even though she had already been traveling for six years pursuing ghosts, it was a tour of an 1821 building in Savannah, Georgia, that left registered nurse Ashley Wiseman scared to tears.
During an organized ghost-hunt weekend in 2018, the 41-year-old Connecticut resident was already feeling uncomfortable during the group’s exploration in the city’s historic downtown of the building that housed the Moon River Brewing Company, which has since closed. But it was when she reached the second floor of the building, which was once home to the City Hotel, that she says she heard disembodied footsteps behind her, followed by a glimpse of “what appeared to be a haggard — nearly ancient — old woman,” she remembers.
When she caught a glimpse of a separate shadowy figure in the corner, she says she knew “something was brewing.” The sighting was almost immediately followed by what Wiseman describes as a featureless “dark, mad mass of energy” that rushed through a doorway with what she thinks was an intent to harm others.
“Remember, I’m a woman of science, (but) it scared me so badly, I cried later,” says the 13-year veteran nurse. Despite the fright, Wiseman has continued her pursuits into the strange and unusual, and estimates she has spent well over $100,000 since 2012 on approximately 80 trips revolving around ghosts.
Wiseman is not alone in her enthusiasm for this experience. She is a paranormal tourist, a member of an unofficial club of “spooky explorers,” as they are colloquially called. These travelers are not content with taking a two-hour ghost tour when they visit a city, but instead plan entire vacations, spending not-insignificant amounts of money, for a chance to encounter the unexplained — and maybe even get the bejesus scared out of them.
Since the rise of unscripted paranormal TV shows in the early 2000s and the proliferation of paranormal-themed YouTube channels and podcasts, ghosts have become good for business. And the locations are not all desolate cobweb-ridden buildings, but include nicely appointed hotel stays, such as The Stanley (aka the hotel that inspired Stephen King’s novel, “The Shining”) in Estes Park, Colorado, or The Lord Baltimore Hotel, in Maryland — site of at least 20 deaths during the Great Depression and reputed to be home of a little girl ghost called “Molly.”
Dozens jumped to their deaths in 1929 at this Baltimore hotel. Now it’s one of America’s most haunted
There are myriad appeals for these travelers, ranging from the opportunity to connect with “the other side” to mingling with like-minded folks, or pursuing the exhilaration of a scare at a notoriously haunted spot.
“It’s my thrill-seeking behavior,” says Wiseman, whose ghost-hunting outings have included a visit to historic Rhodes Hall in Atlanta.
She has been joined by her mother on some excursions and also met a boyfriend on one in Ireland.
“I won’t jump out of airplanes or ski down mountains, but I will investigate the paranormal; it gives me the biggest rush,” she adds.
“You’re sitting there in the dark with friends, and maybe nothing is going on, then suddenly a light flickers, you hear a whisper that shouldn’t be there, your heart beats a little faster, and you’re waiting for something to happen — wanting it to.”
David and Alysia Leonhardt, 52 and 49, respectively, are accountants from Robbinsdale, Minnesota, and have traveled to more than 30 haunted locations since 2013.
At the beginning of their “paranormal escapades,” David says that the couple was looking for new travel experiences as their kids got older. Over time, paranormal tourism hooked them.
The Leonhardts drive to destinations across the United States, spending approximately $5,000 yearly on travel expenses, as well as paranormal equipment.
Some particularly creepy locales have even inspired repeat visits.
In 2020, during a whirlwind investigation of six haunted sites spanning 10 days, David and Alysia stayed overnight at the Farrar School in Maxwell, Iowa.
One of the hauntings that has been reported at the landmark, recently purchased by paranormal YouTube sensations “Sam and Colby” (Samuel Golbach and Colby Brock), is a large and aggressive shadow figure known as “The Principal.” The night of their visit, David says he wondered if they encountered him.
They heard a spectral whistle emanating through the building, then witnessed a door violently shaking without anything visible acting upon it. He says it was a “huge factor” in several return visits to Farrar throughout the years.
This excitement of the ghost hunt, which hooks paranormal tourists and keeps them returning, is a recurring theme among these travelers.
Paul Roberts, 56, of Mandeville, Louisiana, has explored the ghosts of the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, nine times. He says he’s found the “energies” there to be generous and open to him. That wasn’t the case when he spent a night at the historic Gold Hill Hotel and Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada. Roberts was staying in the Miner’s Cabin, located near the wooden headframe above the entrance to the Yellow Jacket Mine where, in 1869, a fire took the lives of at least 35 men. That evening, Roberts says he was physically attacked by entities.
The experience left him “shocked, freaked, scared, bewildered. And years after the fact — glad it happened.”
“I love the adventure, the thrill of the interaction, the confirmation there are energies around us on another level,” says Roberts, who thinks he’s spent more than $25,000 on paranormal trips.
‘The intersection of fun and scary is big’
For sociologist Margee Kerr, author of “Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear,” it makes a lot of scientific sense why people are drawn to paranormal adventures.
While there are similarities to riding a roller coaster or walking through a haunted house attraction, she says there’s a unique combination of “fight or flight” response and playing hide-n-seek that differentiates ghost hunting.
“There are physiological changes related to ‘high arousal’ states that come with increasing activity in our sympathetic nervous system, which drives the ‘fight or flight’ response,” she says. “And there’s the context of the situation, i.e., a search-and-find scenario, which most of us have enjoyed since we were kids — we love the anticipation of the ‘hunt’ and the potential payoff that can come with discovery.”
Kerr adds that “the intersection of fun and scary is big,” from dressing up for Halloween to visiting haunted attractions, playing “spooky games,” and of course ghost stories — “which evolves into ghost hunting.”
Author David L. Sloan, owner of Haunted Key West, operates ghost tours at the Fort East Martello Museum, which is best known for housing “Robert the Doll,” an infamous doll in a sailor outfit that some believe moves on its own, stirs up mischief, or brings about misfortune to those who disrespect him. Robert is famous enough locally that the phrase “Robert did it” appears on merchandise around Key West, and allegedly dates back to the early 1900s when artist Robert Eugene Otto would attribute bad deeds to his childhood doll.
Sloan, who also holds tours at the Key West Firehouse Museum, reports return visitors almost every night on ghost-hunting tours. About 60 people have come every year in the five years he’s held the VIP tour, he says.
“They’re fanatics about the ghost stuff,” he says. “I think people want to know what happens after they die. We all have the curiosity about what’s next, and this gives them the chance to actually explore.”
Nicole Beauchamp, 36, of Bay City, Michigan, says her ghostly fascination began as a child with two parents who shared the same interest, and encouraged her explorations.
Since 2009, she’s joined a paranormal cruise to England, France and Spain, and takes about three of these themed trips each year with repeat visits to New Orleans, Belfast, Northern Ireland and Weston, West Virginia, the site of the old Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.
This paranormal hot spot, a former psychiatric hospital in operation from 1864 to 1994, was the site of a particularly compelling encounter.
While part of a public ghost hunt, Beauchamp and another investigator found themselves walking alone in the dark down a long hallway on the geriatric wards. She says she asked out loud if anyone was there with them, and “immediately, the sound of what seemed like hundreds of stretchers and medical carts rushed directly toward us.”
“It was deafening,” she adds. “And it felt as though it was barreling straight at us.”
Beauchamp says the sounds immediately ceased when she clicked on her flashlight, but her audio recorder captured the clattering of wheels.
In Sloan’s opinion, this type of paranormal encounter allows the curious to explore what they may have only previously seen on TV.
“When you get to try to do it on your own and be left alone to face your fears — and being in these historic places where the mood is right — you can try to discover for yourself what’s out there.”
Beauchamp says experiences like what happened at the asylum are one aspect that has led to her spending $100,000 — “if not more” — on paranormal trips. She says they allow her to combine that passion with her own historical research, and she values the community she has found at paranormal events, where she’s felt “truly seen for the first time.”
“It is a significant financial commitment, but one I have always considered worthwhile because of the experiences, history and community it brings.”
The community sentiment comes up a lot within this subculture. Paranormal travel is about more than revisiting haunted sites or chasing fresh evidence for participants; it’s about finding their spooky nerd tribe, and having a third space where they can trade stories, discuss ideas and share the thrill of the unknown.
“The investigations get people in the door,” says Amy Bruni, owner of Strange Escapes paranormal tourism company and a TV personality and executive producer of “Kindred Spirits.”
“They really want to get into these places and look for ghosts. But once they get there, they realize there’s an actual community here, and these are people they can talk about weird things with all weekend,” says Bruni, host of the “Haunted Road” podcast who is also a bestselling author, most recently of the “Food To Die For” cookbook.
Still, the possibility of a terrifying experience lures visitors back for repeat hauntings — such as when Leonhardt thinks he may have met “The Principal” at the Farrar School in Iowa.
“When I heard and felt the door shake, I was literally sitting right next to it,” he says. “With the reputation of The Principal, my mind went blank. If it could shake the door, what could it do to me?”
That kind of chilling question, along with the surge in popularity of Halloween and the chance to celebrate the season year round, suggest the appeal of paranormal tourism might continue to grow.
And dedicated spooky travelers won’t be giving up the ghost hunt anytime soon.
Aaron Sagers is a travel and entertainment journalist/author with a special focus on folklore and the paranormal. He’s also a TV host seen on Travel Channel’s “Paranormal Caught On Camera” and host of the “Talking Strange” paranormal podcast.
