What Not To Do In Salem

If you know me, you know that I really enjoy celebrating Halloween. While I am not a big fan of gore or horror, I enjoy the crisp, cool weather that Autumn brings, the changing colors of the leaves, spooky ghost stories told after dark while roasting smores over a fire, getting bundled up in sweaters and blankets and of course, dressing up in costumes on Halloween night. Maybe it’s the promise of mystery and suspense. Or the societal acceptance of being able to get in touch with my inner child and become someone – or something – that only the imagination can conjure. Or the acceptance of all things strange and weird and different. Either way, in a nutshell, I am quite fond of Halloween. And so, I created a Halloween bucket list. On that bucket list was visiting Salem, Massachusetts, which is, what some might call the Halloween capital. When we visited however, I was 12 weeks pregnant and unfortunately was struggling with bad morning sickness (I had planned the trip before I had gotten pregnant) and thus, didn’t have very much energy to plan the details of the trip and thought I’d just wing it. Alas, because of this, I don’t think we got the best experience. But hopefully, if you like Halloween just as much as I do, and are interested in visiting Salem, maybe you’ll learn from my mistakes. Read on for tips on what not to do (and maybe a few on what to do)!

If you’re going to go, actually visit on Halloween (or Halloween weekend)

So we visited about three weeks before Halloween and I honestly think it was a little too early to visit. The autumn leaves had only begun to change, which was unfortunate. It was also, surprisingly, still warm out (which being from Texas and traveling to the East Coast, I’d expected cool weather, but that wasn’t the case). Sure, it was less crowded than what I’m sure it would’ve been on Halloween weekend, but also, there weren’t many people in costumes, which was something I had expected to see more of.

Do not not plan a walking tour

We decided to walk and explore the area by ourselves, but wherever we went, we bumped into different groups of walking tours. We overheard snippets of the tours and honestly, I wished that we could’ve been guided to where the best places were to go to because it was honestly a little confusing and signage wasn’t the best. So if you didn’t prepare beforehand, I would vote to go on a walking tour. But that being said, there were literally hundreds of walking tours going on simultaneously so it’d be good to look into which ones were the best.

 Don’t forget to dress up

My sister did better on this than me. She wore a black dress, tights, and boots that hinted at witchy without being too in your face. Considering that I was planning on dressing up as Scarlet Witch that year, I totally missed out on the opportunity to bring my costume. Again, I blame the morning sickness. But I did bring a pumpkin shirt to wear. However, there are lots of opportunities for photo ops and if you’re into that sort of thing, I’d definitely think about what you’re going to wear beforehand. Believe me, there were people who did go all out. I saw a trio of friends who were all dressed up as the Sanderson sisters in full costume attire. Lots of people wore these cottage-core witch hats that looked pretty darn cute and I was tempted to get one but I was like, what the heck am I going to do with this besides wear it for today? Also, it was kinda expensive (like forty bucks). So bring your own costume, Bring your own witches hat. Or buy it from Amazon beforehand here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J4SYX6R?psc=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=fueledbywande-20&linkId=09f9eb8c2b7c4fc96818e1e3bc465f45&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl. Don’t have fomo like I did.

Prepare for things to be expensive and crowded. So go early and budget.

Unfortunately, like most touristy places, it seemed like almost everything had a cost or needed tickets or required long lines to wait in – even the stores had lines to get into. So either be prepared to fork out some money, or budget what you’d actually like to spend money on. Because unfortunately, everyone here wants your money.

You will be walking. A lot.

You will not be able to drive from place to place as traffic can be hectic and/or roads will be cut off from traffic. Luckily, we downloaded the Haunted Happenings App and it showed where there were places to park. On certain days, there were buses that could take you from the places you parked (we parked in a parking lot behind a hospital) that would drop you off in the middle of the action (essentially Essex Street).

If you’re going on Halloween, buy tickets in advance. Actually, just do this if you’re going at all in October.

There were several museums and things we’d thought about seeing (i.e. Peabody Essex Museum, Witch Museum, the Witch House) which were hard to get a time slot for even in early October. We could’ve gotten tickets day of, but they had to be done with at least several hours ahead of time in advance.

Plan where you’d like to eat.

There are lots of cool places to eat in the area. But there are also a lot of places that are just hyped up and the food is mediocre at best. We had the best pumpkin ice cream at one place we walked by (unfortunately, I don’t remember the name) and it didn’t exactly have very many reviews. One of the places that had the best reviews, Turner’s Seafood, was just kind of meh. I don’t know if they were having an off day but their lobster bisque was actually pretty awful. Which isn’t what you’d expect for a place with such good reviews. Now, if you’re just going for ambiance, then it was a pretty cool location, but otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend it.

What you should do.

1. Do download the Haunted Happenings App
   • This was really helpful in that it provided a map and daily activities and you could add these activities to a personalized schedule. Although a little hard to navigate in the moment, it was definitely helpful to see what was available in the area. 
2. Do bring snacks, water, an extra phone charger, and a cord.
   • If you’re planning on parking in one of the allocated parking lots, which will be a bit of a walk from the main areas of attraction, you should be prepared to have things on hand if you’re going to spend several hours walking around and exploring. 
3. Explore Chestnut Street to see homes decorated for Halloween and get away from the touristy crowd of Essex Street.
   • This was one of my favorite parts of exploring Salem and I wish I had more time to look at all of the haunted decorations. 

Overall, I think visiting Salem would’ve been a successful check off my Halloween bucket list if I had prepared more. Unless you want to just wander around the area without very much of a plan, you’ll miss out on things you’d wish you could’ve done.