20 Supposedly Haunted Hotels You Can Visit Overnight

Who said sleep is for the weak? A night at this hair-raising hotel requires nerves of steel, but at least you'll check out with a good scary story for your friends. The hotel has a long, dramatic history: It stands on land that was part of a grant from Louis XV in 1725.

Built in 1886, the Crescent Hotel was a originally a grand destination near the area's famed hot springs. By 1908 it had become a women's college.

Then, in 1937, it was purchased by Norman Baker, an inventor and medical charlatan who turned the building into a hospital that promised cures for various ailments, including cancer. Victims of his ineffective "treatments" ended up in the basement, where the mortuary was located. Spirit sightings have been reported there as well as in Rooms 202, 419, and 424. It’s said that you can even hear the ghosts of former nurses pushing wheelchairs through the hallways.

With musical greats the likes of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller once having played at this Beaux Arts-style hotel, you might assume that a wedding held at the venue would be a real swingin’ affair. Yet one former guest never even got to dance at her wedding.

Related: 12 Things to Do As Soon As You Check Into a Hotel

When her fiance became a no-show at the nuptials, the jilted bride is rumored to have hanged herself at the hotel, just a few feet from where the vows were to be exchanged. To this day, her spirit is said to stalk the hotel hallways, searching for her groom-to-be. Pray she doesn’t find you instead!

Situated in the city made infamous for the Salem witch trials in the 17th century, this stately Federal-style building that dates back to 1925 is said to have been built on an apple orchard once owned by Bridget Bishop, the first person to be hanged for witchcraft as part of the trials.

Evidently unhappy with her sentence, Bishop’s ghost has been spotted lurking outside Room 612. As if that weren't sinister enough, guests have reported the sweet scent of apples wafting through the corridors.

Related: The Best Small-Town Inns in All 50 States

While many teetotalers are comfortable with others drinking in their presence, this isn’t so with the founding owner of this Second Empire-style hotel, built in 1912, who is said to haunt it.

The ghost of Mr. Benson, who was in life a staunch prohibitionist, has been known to knock over visitors’ drinks—so swig swiftly!

This Spanish Mission Revival-style hotel, built in 1923, was named after Flanders Fields, the World War I battlefields in Belgium where so many soldiers lie at rest. Mob bosses allegedly used to congregate in the hotel's basement, known as "The Catacombs."

Not surprisingly given its colorful past, the hotel is packed with poltergeists. Guests have heard disembodied laughter and seen the shades of a red-haired woman, a middle-aged man, and Emily, a dark-haired woman in white who has been known to disappear into walls, tamper with door locks, and unscrew light bulbs.

At this former tavern built in 1722, even if you check into Room 6 all alone, you might end up with company. The restless ghost of Emily, the mother of the inn’s former owner, has been known to float across the room as a white specter, pull pillows out from beneath guests’ heads, and wail into the wee hours of the night.

If you can’t sleep, roam the halls to search for the seven other ghostly apparitions that have been spotted at Logan Inn, including that of a little girl who drowned near the inn and now haunts the parking lot, a Civil War soldier marching to an audible drumbeat, and a portrait of a couple in the lobby that smells of lavender, thought to be the favorite scent of the woman pictured.

Built in 1855, the Omni Parker House is not only the longest continuously operating hotel in the country, but also one of the most haunted. Founder and hotelier Harvey D. Parker was known for being a perfectionist, a trait he evidently retained even after his death in 1884.

Parker’s shade is said to prowl the property, ensuring everything is in its proper place. You’re most likely to face the finicky founder on the 10th floor. He was once seen in Room 1012, sitting on the edge of the bed staring at a guest as if to inquire whether all was well with his stay.

Related: 11 "Real" Haunted Houses to Visit—If You Dare!

Have a few hours to kill in downtown Nashville? Rest in peace at this haunted hotel. Built as a railroad terminal in 1900 in the Romanesque Revival style, it was transformed into a hotel in the 1980s and is now a popular stopover—for both the living and the dead.

Guests have heard the chugging of locomotives and spotted specters of travelers waiting for a train that never arrives. Paranormal aficionados should book Room 711 to glimpse the ghost of Abigail, a woman who threw herself in front of a speeding train during World War II upon learning that her soldier beau wasn’t returning home.

Fans of the macabre flock to this 114-year-old hotel in hopes of solving the cold case of Patricia Wilson, a guest who was found at the bottom of the hotel’s elevator shaft in 1936 after learning that her husband had died in a car accident. No one knows whether the death was an accident or suicide or even foul play.

The only one to ask is Wilson herself, the "Lady in Blue,” who is said to wander the French Renaissance-style hotel.

Though your instinct might be to call the front desk when you hear the inexplicable sound of water running while you're trying to sleep in Room 505, blame the resident poltergeist, not the pipes.

The ghost of Betsy Ward, a guest who died in the bath during her stay at the hotel in the late 1800s, has made her presence known through the sound of taps turning off and on and music playing in the unoccupied room. Heading downstairs to escape the ghoulish antics is of no avail; the fourth floor is said to be haunted by a little girl cloaked in Victorian garb.

A posh retreat for A-list stars including Bing Crosby and Judy Garland, this Mediterranean Revival hotel, built in 1926, was converted into a hospital during World War II, and then served as a VA hospital and medical school until it again became a luxury hotel.

Guests have observed a spike in paranormal activity since its relaunch in 1987, reporting lights turning off and on, doors opening and shutting by themselves, a woman in white skulking in the guest rooms, and sightings of the infamous gangster Thomas “Fatty” Walsh, who was shot and killed in 1929 during a gambling-related incident and is now said to lurk in the lobby.

Built in 1898, this hotel with a distinctive golden dome offered food and board to the more than 1,000 prospectors who passed through Skagway every week at the peak of the Klondike Gold Rush. Some, however, checked in and never left.

Local lore has it that a prospector called “Klondike Ike” booked Room 23 at the hotel for him and his fiancée, Mary. He then went off gold-hunting while she took up shelter in the room. While awaiting his return, either worry or pneumonia is said to have killed her, and “Scary Mary,” as her ghost is known, has since been seen looking out the window for her betrothed.

A salesman who lost his money at a nearby gambling hall reportedly leaped to his death into a well that once stood in the courtyard of this hotel. Guests at La Fonda, which opened in 1922, have since observed a ghost jumping through the floor as if reenacting the death, and he's not the only ghostly apparition at this Pueblo Revival hotel.