Voting Underway for 2018 USA Today 10 Best Haunted Places

Have you heard about the USA Today 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards?  I discovered it when curating links to add to this coming week’s Haunted Headlines.

Specifically, it was a link that led me to the vote for your favorite haunted destination. Of course I had to check that out and see who was on the list.

That’s when I discovered there were several races underway.

The Contests

I’ll get to the nominees, but first let’s look at the other seasonally spooky races to vote on. In addition to the Best Haunted Destination, there is the:

• Best Ghost Tour
• Best Haunted Hotel
• Best Theme Park Halloween Event
• Best Haunted Attraction

There’s even two for non-spooky, but still favorite, Fall season activities:

• Best Corn Maze
• Best Apple Orchard

For the purposes of this post, I’ll just share the nominees for the first three: Best Haunted Destination, Best Ghost Tour, and Best Haunted Hotel.

Best Haunted Destination Nominees

If you’re like me and can’t help but look every time you see a list of haunted places, then you can already guess the usual suspects that are on USA Today’s list of haunted places nominees.

There are 20 of them, including these 12 that almost always make most haunted places in America lists:

• Winchester Mystery House – San Jose, CA
• Whaley House – San Diego, CA
• Waverly Hills Sanatorium – Louisville, KY
• Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum – Weston, WV
• The Queen Mary – Long Beach, CA
• Ohio State Reformatory – Mansfield, OH
• LaLaurie Mansion – New Orleans, LA
• Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast – Fall River, MA
• Eastern State Penitentiary – Philadelphia, PA
• Villisca Axe Murder House – Villisca, IA
• The Shanghai Tunnels – Portland, OR
• St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum – St. Augustine, FL

But then there are also the remaining eight that are also well known haunted destinations, and they’re sometimes on haunted places lists, but not consistently. They are:

• Pittock Mansion – Portland, OR
• Poinsett Bridge – Greenville, SC
• Pine Barrens – New Jersey
• Merchants Cafe and Salon – Seattle, WA
• The Masonic – Detroit, MI
• Dock Street Theater – Charleston, SC
• Calcasieu Courthouse – Lake Charles, LA
• Bodie State Historical Park – Bodie, CA

Best Ghost Tour Nominees

It’s not as common to see a best ghost tour list, so bravo to USA Today for tackling this. Here are the nominees vying for the 10 Best status:

• Witches Brew Tours – New Orleans, LA
• Voodoo, Vampires, and Ghosts Tour – Salem, MA
• Voices of the Dead Tour – Savannah, GA
• Spooked in Seattle – Seattle, WA
• Sheriff’s Ghost Walk Tours – St. Augustine, FL
• The Salem Witch Walk – Salem, MA
• Nightly Spirits – Washington, DC
• New Orleans Ghost Adventures – New Orleans, LA
• Haunted SF – San Francisco, CA
• Haunted Manhattan – New York, NY
• Haunted Boston Ghost Tours – Boston, MA
• Goodsprings Ghost Hunt – Goodsprings, NV
• French Quarter Phantoms – New Orleans, LA
• Dearly Departed Tours – Los Angeles, CA
• Colonial Ghosts – Williamsburg, VA
• Boroughs of the Dead – New York, NY
• Blue Orb Tours – Savannah, GA
• Bar Harbor Ghost Tours – Bar Harbor, ME
• Banjo Billy Ghost Tour – Boulder & Denver, CO
• Bad Wolf Ghost Tour – San Antonio, TX

Best Haunted Hotel Nominees

There are only 19 haunted hotel nominees, and I’m frankly surprised a couple weren’t on here. (Like the Thomas House Hotel in Red Boiling Springs, TN, or the Historic Anchorage Hotel in Anchorage, AK.)

However, even for the couple that weren’t nominated, there were a few fun ones uncommon to most haunted hotel lists to join the rest of the regulars you may be more familiar with:

• The Stanley Hotel – Estes Park, CO
• The Sagamore Resort – Lake George, NY
• The Pfister Hotel – Milwaukee, WI
• The Myrtles Plantation – St. Francisville, LA
• Moana Surfrider – Honolulu, HI
• Mizpah Hotel – Tonopah, NV
• La Fonda on the Plaza – Santa Fe, NM
• Hotel Sorrento – Seattle, WA
• Hotel Provincial – New Orleans, LA
• Hotel Monteleone – New Orleans, LA
• Historic Boone Tavern Hotel – Berea, KY
• The Hay-Adams – Washington, DC
• Hawthorne Hotel – Salem, MA
• Emily Morgan Hotel – San Antonio, TX
• The Driskill – Austin, TX
• Bourbon Orleans Hotel – New Orleans, LA
• Black Bass Hotel – Lumberville, PA

Voting

You have until October 2, 2018 to vote.

You can vote once per day until then for your favorite haunted destination, ghost tour and haunted hotel.

So who are you going to vote for?

We’ll all find out the 10 Best in each category on October 12.