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The mascot of Salem, Massachusetts might be a witch, but when it comes to America’s spookiest cities, another destination is raising the dead. New Orleans has officially claimed the top spot in a new ranking of the country’s most haunted-feeling destinations, proving that the Big Easy has plenty of skeletons spilling out of its closet and into your peripheral vision.
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A study by vacation rental platform Bearadise compared 71 U.S. cities across six spooky metrics: ghost-related Google searches, reported haunted locations, ghost tours, Halloween attractions, cemeteries and metaphysical shops. The results suggest that some cities have considerably more supernatural street cred than others.
The Big Easy came out on top, with 686 ghost-related searches per 10,000 residents, the highest rate of any city in the ranking. The Louisiana destination also boasts 4.17 ghost and haunted tours and 3.19 reported haunted locations per 10,000 residents.
Charleston, South Carolina, took second place, recording 676 ghost-related searches per 10,000 residents. It also had the highest cemetery density among all 71 cities, with 2.11 cemeteries per 10,000 residents. No. 3 is Savannah, Georgia, which had the most ghost and haunted tours in the study: 4.86 per 10,000 residents.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, landed in fourth place, with 544 ghost-related searches per 10,000 residents, while Richmond, Virginia, rounded out the top five, recording 497 ghost-related searches and 1.50 cemeteries per 10,000 residents. Florida also made a strong showing, with Orlando ranking sixth and Miami coming in ninth.
And if you're not into spooky season, where's the best place to go? What's the least atmospheric city to spend Halloween in? According to the study, that would be San Jose, California, which ranked dead last, right after Fresno, California, and Mesa, Arizona. That's not to say these cities are entirely free of ghosts; they just aren't generating quite as much enthusiasm as their rivals.
So, while Salem remains perhaps the most obvious choice for October visits, others might give you more bang for your buck this time of year. Or, at least, more possible chains rattling in the night at your Airbnb.