I love a good ghost story.
Haunted is fun, in theory.
But what's great about a story or Dateline episode is the distance.
I know it may be real but it's far enough away to be safe.
And if my surrounding areas have creepy stories attached... I don't want to know.
But some Redditors are braver than me.
Redditor Scrambl987 wanted to hear about what towns in the U.S. may be skippable, so they asked:
"What’s the creepiest town in the USA in your opinion?"
Clowning
"Tonopah, Nevada. Clown Motel next to a cemetery full of infants and workers who died in a silver mine."
- Blixenk
"The owner of the clown motel upgraded me for free when I stayed - to the room where he keeps the paintings of clowns that he paints himself."
"To get there you need to drive through a few hours of pure desert and past Area 52 nuclear testing site. Fun times."
- emccaughey
Cemetary GIF by Rob ZombieGiphy
Sonny!!
"Shreveport is like The Last Of Us at night time."
- DaveMcElfatrick
"I was trying to find a gas station in a particularly sketchy part of Shreveport and not having any luck. I was on a lonely rural road when I finally ran out of gas. No cell service. Along comes a creaky old land yacht driven by a gentleman who introduced himself as 'Sonny.'"
"As a lone woman away from home (Baton Rouge) in a vast country landscape, I weighed my options and I took a ride with Sonny."
"He drove me about 20 minutes to a podunk gas station, let me borrow a can, then drove me back to my car."
"Thanks Sonny! You were the best part of that trip!"
- spingus
Freaky
"Barstow, California. It’s the convergence of highways in the middle of nowhere. It’s like an entire town of unhinged hitchhikers who got dumped there. Freaky sh*t."
- somehonky
"I had a breakdown in Barstow many years ago. When I found out the part we needed would have to be ordered, I was like, well, I guess I’ll find a hotel. The roadside wrecker crew was like, hell no, we’re not leaving you here. They limped my car to Tehachapi. Much nicer place."
- Putasonder
Abandoned
"Salton Sea, CA went to clean out a family member's house after they passed… didn’t see a single car on the road… or human…that whole weekend. Felt sooo creepy."
- Lessthancrystal
"This. There are a number of incredibly creepy/abandoned towns around the Salton Sea. In the mid-20th century, Resorts popped up all over the shoreline by developers who were trying to make it the next Palm Springs (the Ski Inn restaurant is a great remnant of this, check it out). However toxic runoff from surrounding farms and rising salinity killed off all of the wildlife in and around the lake. To this day, it smells like dead fish everywhere. Much of the area feels post-apocalyptic."
- bZesty84
All True
"Amboy, California."
"All of the stories are true. I lived out in 29 Palms while my husband was stationed there a few years back. I heard stories of people getting run off the road, people pretending to have gotten in a car crash so you stop and help, candles being set up in the middle of the road, etc. His chain of command even had a meeting with them before the Marine Corps ball about not stopping on Amboy because of how dangerous it was. I worked out there too and I know at least 10-15 bodies have been found in the last few years."
- WallalaWonka
Like a Novel
"Gotta say it. My wife and I were vacationing in Bar Harbor, Maine, and decided to drive to the easternmost point in the US. So we made it Lubec, Maine. It was kind of foggy and looked totally deserted. I get Stephen King novels now."
- AnybodySeeMyKeys
Stephen King GIFGiphy
Sad
"It's barely a town anymore but definitely Mineral Springs, Missouri."
"It was once a bustling town with a famous hot spring, but it dried up. Now various people live in very old houses with no electricity. No one knows their names but they send one person into town a month for groceries."
"If you're there very long at all, they WILL shoot at you."
- paddjo95
"There are definitely some places in Missouri where if you go to Walmart around the first of the month you will see people who truly live outside society. Extremely poor and dirty people. It’s sad."
- simulated_woodgrain
Dystopian
"East St Louis, IL. Never seen a town that looked post-apocalyptic before going through there."
- NagelEvad
"East St Louis is insane. Or at least it was ~ 10 years ago the last time I drove through. We saw a car on the side of the road on fire. Like an actual fire, a full-blown mad max burning car. And people walking by it like it was normal, driving casually as if it's a standard Thursday thing to see a car engulfed in flame. Also saw what I think was a mugging, but by then we were hightailing it out of there so didn't get a great look."
- whitesuburbanmale
Unsettled
"Colorado City, Arizona. F**k you, Warren Jeffs."
- HeaviestMetal89
"I stayed there once before I knew its backstory, I was on a road trip to Zion NP, and there were cheap Airbnbs. Well, the Airbnb was total trash because the owner was also on vacation and forgot to clean and unlist it??? It was quiet and small town, but in a weird unsettling way."
"Then the Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey documentary came out. Turns out that the town is an FLDS center. Gross. At least they've been building new houses and a fancy new grocery store/rest stop at the south end of town in recent years."
- CaseyGuo
Docuseries Waiting
"This would be a cool Netflix series to watch."
- PalaSS9
Ghost Town Halloween GIF by BANDAI NAMCO EntertainmentGiphy
Burning Up
"Centralia, PA. Has been on fire for over 50 years."
- woman_thorned
"This was my first thought too. My grandparents are buried at the top of the hill in Aristes, PA. It’s creepy as s**t. Still a few houses but no 'legal' residents. Just squatters and partiers. Very eerie driving through. So still and quiet. Most of the houses are gone and smoke coming out of random lawns and sidewalks."
- Daves-crooked-eye
"There are five legal residents that made a deal to stay in their homes till they die, then the last will be Demolished."
- brenobah
Somewhere
"Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The Moth Man is hiding there, somewhere."
- Rolly_Pollys
"I visited Point Pleasant on a road trip in 2021. There is a very weird aura around the town for sure. I didn't go during peak hours, but it felt very macabre to be there. Knowing about the tragedy of the silver bridge and the history from Keel's The Mothman Prophecies really put it into perspective too."
"The town felt very destitute and empty really. A few people wandering around but I didn't stick around for very long. Went across the river for dinner and it was more lively there. Honestly I don't think I'd ever spend much longer than a few hours there. Lots of tourist traps around there too. With the context of the tragedy I felt like it was in poor taste, but hey why would anyone else visit the town?"
"West Virginia as a whole has a very mysterious and melancholic feeling to it, but that is shared by a lot of deep Appalachia where sometimes sunlight can be scarce in certain hollers."
- TacticalDoge
War
"Picher, Oklahoma. Abandoned lead mining town that produced most of the lead for the world wars. The town is riddled with sinkholes from poor mining practices and is the largest EPA superfund clean-up site. It’s now abandoned from a combination of people dying of lead poisoning, orange sulfuric acid waters, and a large tornado a few years ago."
- Discipline-Salty
"The very last dude to live there died not too long ago at the age of 60. He was a pharmacist and a really good guy, by all accounts. Apparently gave free meds to people if they couldn't afford their prescriptions. Really sad that he stayed there to die."
- lelebeariel
Out of Place
"Elgin Kansas. The motto of the town is 'A town too tough to die.'"
"A person told me a story about a time they stopped there on a cross-country motorcycle trip. When they parked they could see people peaking round the corners of buildings. Shortly after a woman in an old dirty wedding dress came around a building pushing an old Victorian baby stroller. There wasn’t a baby in the stroller it was a toy baby."
"There are trees growing out of buildings. The Main Street is an out-of-place, super wide, brick road for herding cattle through the town back in the way back times. For such a small town of nothing, in the middle of nothing. It was for a short time 'one of the World’s busiest cattle shipping towns.'"
"It’s a creepy place."
- Stephenhawkwing
Nothing There
"Whittier, Alaska."
"Most of the town’s residents live in a single apartment building. There’s nothing else there. The town is accessible by water and a one-way tunnel through the mountain."
- anannanne
city sunset GIF by South Park Giphy
As much as I love to travel, I don't have to see everything.
I appreciate this list of places to skip.
Haunted houses are not part of my favorite things, so haunted towns... no thank you.
No disrespect to anyone living in these places, but maybe a move isn't a terrible idea.
Not that whole towns should be left behind or vacated, but a revamp sounds in order for many of these sites.
Cue the next season of "Queer Eye."