5 Most Haunted Hotels in America: Spooky Places to Stay for a Paranormal Experience

Some people book a hotel room and just want a clean bed and a good shower. Others want the room to have a story ideally a spooky one. Across the U.S., a handful of historic hotels have built reputations (whether they wanted to or not) around ghost sightings, strange noises, and tragedies that never quite left the building. Here are five of the most famous haunted hotels in the country. Nobody can prove any of it, of course but that’s never stopped people from booking a room anyway.

1. The Stanley Hotel Estes Park, Colorado

If you know one haunted hotel by name, it’s probably this one. The Stanley opened in 1909 up in the Rockies, and it got its spooky reputation the old-fashioned way: Stephen King stayed there, got the creeps, and wrote The Shining. These days the hotel leans into it fully, running ghost tours and other experiences built around its eerie legacy. It’s also about to enter a new chapter. The property is mid-renovation as it gears up for the Stanley Film Center, expected to open in early 2028. You can still book a stay while the construction happens around you.

2. 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa Eureka Springs, Arkansas

This one might have the darkest backstory on the list. Built in 1886, the Crescent later spent time as a hospital in the 1930s run by a man named Norman Baker, who claimed (falsely) to have found a cure for cancer. Some patients died during that era, and that history is a big part of why the hotel has such a heavy reputation today. The Crescent now runs ghost tours alongside its regular hospitality business, and archaeological finds tied to the Baker years have only added more weight and more unease to the stories.

3. Hotel del Coronado Coronado, California

At first glance, the Hotel del Coronado looks like it belongs on a postcard, not a ghost-hunting itinerary white Victorian towers, right on the beach. But it’s home to one of the best-known hotel ghost stories in the country. Back in 1892, a young woman named Kate Morgan checked in under a fake name. Five days later, she was found dead on an outdoor staircase. Officially it was ruled a suicide, but the circumstances have never fully added up for everyone, and questions still linger. The hotel actually commissioned a year-long paranormal investigation in 1992. Investigators reportedly logged unexplained voices, footsteps, objects moving, doors opening on their own, and sudden cold spots the greatest hits of ghost-story phenomena. On a less spooky note, the Del also just wrapped a massive restoration north of $550 million in June 2025, so the historic bones are intact but the resort itself is thoroughly modern now.

4. The Driskill Austin, Texas

Cattle baron Jesse Driskill opened this hotel in 1886, and over the decades it’s hosted politicians, celebrities, and no shortage of major Austin events. That kind of history tends to come bundled with ghost stories, and The Driskill has plenty of guests and staff have reported mysterious figures and activity they can’t quite explain. Believer or skeptic, the hotel’s ornate, old-world architecture makes a night there feel like a trip back in time regardless of whether anything otherworldly shows up.

5. Mizpah Hotel Tonopah, Nevada

Built in 1907 during Nevada’s silver rush, the Mizpah was once the tallest building in the state, a five-story landmark from the mining boom days. It’s still one of Tonopah’s most recognizable buildings. Its most famous legend is the “Lady in Red,” a ghost said to wander the hotel’s rooms and hallways. The restored hotel now markets itself squarely on that mix of frontier history and folklore for travelers chasing something a bit different from the usual vacation.

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Why Haunted Hotels Keep Pulling in Travelers

Haunted hotels are really a sign of how tourism has blended history and entertainment. Most visitors aren’t actually trying to prove ghosts exist; they’re drawn in by the stories, the architecture, and the novelty of staying somewhere with a reputation. That’s good business, especially for historic hotels in smaller towns. Ghost tours, themed events, and seasonal promotions give people a reason to book a night, eat at local restaurants, and stick around the area a little longer than they might otherwise. That said, it’s worth separating the documented history from the folklore. A building can have a genuinely tragic past without any of the paranormal claims being scientifically verified. But for a lot of travelers, that gray area is the whole point. The best hotel stories are the ones where you’re still not totally sure what that noise in the hallway was at 2 a.m.

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