Explore These 3 Places to Celebrate International Mermaid Day

For International Mermaid Day, I thought it’d be fun to explore a few mermaid-themed places, including a haunted hotel and a haunted historic site. Ready? Let’s go!

International Mermaid Museum – Aberdeen, Washington

What better place to start the International Mermaid Day celebrations than at the International Mermaid Museum? It was among the museums I talked about in the Monster Museums episode of the Macabre Museums season on the podcast. Not that they’re monsters, but some considered mermaids, or more specifically sirens, as such since they seduced sailors with their songs and lured them to their deaths in treacherous waters. A myth perpetrated to protect fragile male egos that couldn’t admit to making navigational mistakes and miscalculations.

Anyway, the International Mermaid Museum’s mission isn’t to vilify mermaids (or misguided sailors). Rather, as they state on their website, they’re “dedicated to teaching ocean ecology from seashore to sea floor.”

I love their “seashore to sea floor” mission and tagline. And they “wrap” it in mermaid mythology to teach about the ocean’s ecology, which “creates a vivid and inviting learning opportunity for all ages and abilities.”

Admission to the small museum is very reasonable. (Around $3.) They waive it, however, when they hold their annual Mermaid Festival. This is also a great time to see a mermaid in action. Una the Mermaid performs in her tank and is even available for photos. Which is pretty cool. It’s not every day you get to pose with a mermaid, after all.

For more info, visit https://www.mermaidmuseum.org.

The Mermaid Inn – Rye, East Sussex, United Kingdom

The Mermaid Inn has welcomed travelers for over 600 years. In addition to two lounges, you can grab a drink in the Giant’s Fireplace Bar, or breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the Linen Fold Panelled Restaurant. As far as rooms, they offer 31 unique ones to choose from.

The “sloping ceilings” and “creaking floorboards and numerous staircases” caught my eye in their hotel description. (I love staircases!) And, of course, the part about how it’s filled with lots of “history and rich tradition.” Which may contribute to the rumor that it’s haunted.

On their About page, the inn lists eight rooms and the paranormal activity encountered there, including dueling apparitions in Room 16 (The Elizabethan Bedchamber), a Lady in White in Room 5 (The Nutcracker Suite), a gentleman in old-fashioned clothes in Room 19 (the Hawkhurst Suite), another Lady in White (or grey) as well as a family (mom, dad, and child) of ghosts in Room 1 (the James), and a man who walked through the bathroom wall in Room 10 (the Fleur de Lys).

They also share a few stories guests have sent in.

However, as Sussex Live reported, some of the ghostly activity moves beyond the docile realm of seeing apparitions and into the more active one of experiencing poltergeists. People have reported feeling cold spots, being touched and poked or prodded, things (like rocking chairs) suddenly moving on their own, and bottles flying off tables.

But what I wondered was why it’s called the Mermaid Inn. It would’ve been even more exciting to discover tales of ghostly mermaids. Alas, I didn’t find any of those. I’m pretty sure the inn received its moniker simply because it’s located on Mermaid Street.

For more info, visit https://www.mermaidinn.com.

The Mermaid House Inn – Lebanon, Illinois

Unlike the Mermaid Inn in the U.K., the Mermaid House Hotel in Illinois was named for the mermaids its builder purportedly encountered at sea. Retired New England sea captain Lyman Adams built it in 1830.

These days it’s no longer a hotel. The Lebanon Historical Society owns it and has partially restored it. However, judging from its website, COVID has impacted that process.

One of its big claims to fame is that author Charles Dickens wrote about his stay at the Mermaid House Hotel in his travelogue, American Notes for General Circulation. He visited the hotel in 1842, which he did about 25 years before he made a visit to what is today an allegedly haunted hotel you can stay at, the Omni Parker House. It’s rumored he haunts a mirror hanging there, but it doesn’t appear he haunts the historic site in Lebanon, Illinois.

In fact, info is scant about what kind of paranormal activity occurs there. However, the Creepy Club Podcast shared information about its host, Heidi, who spoke with ghost hunter and author Len Adams about the Mermaid House Hotel and Rissa, who I’m inferring is its resident ghost. Apparently, some of the activity includes people spotting someone looking out of an upstairs window, a bed that “unmakes itself,” and books that “unshelve themselves.”

For more info, visit https://historiclebanon.org.

For More Info

March 29 is International Mermaid Day, which is actually one of two mermaid days. The other is National Mermaid Day on September 8.

To explore other unusual days, check out the Weird Holidays & Observances page.

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Have you ever visited any of these places? Or do you know of any other places (haunted or not) that have a mermaid connection?