10 Haunted Places in California to Visit — If You Dare
California has plenty of reasons to hit the road in fall: fewer crowds, changing leaves in the mountains, and enviable city weather in places like San Francisco.
But there’s another side to fall in the Golden State—Spooky Season. I’m no fan of pumpkin spice, but I do love a good ghost story and California is full of them.
Gold Rush ghost towns, Victorian mansions, notorious prisons, haunted hotels, abandoned reform schools, and lonely lighthouses have left California with an impressive collection of haunted hangouts and a few good stories to share during the fall, or any time of year.
Some of these spine-tingly tales have documented history behind them. Others have been passed down through generations of hotel guests, tour guides, employees, and locals.
Believe them or don’t. Either way, these 10 haunted California places are very real, and you can visit them…if you dare.
Bwahahaha!
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1. Bodie State Historic Park
Where: Eastern Sierra, about 45 miles from Mammoth Lakes
Bodie isn’t a building with a ghost story. It’s an entire ghost town.
Gold transformed Bodie into a booming mining town in the late 19th century, when thousands of people lived here among saloons, hotels, stores, churches, and mines.
Mining eventually declined, residents disappeared, fires destroyed much of the town, and Bodie was left behind. In fact, when you peer through some windows of abandoned homes and businesses, furniture, dishes, merchandise, and other personal belongings remain as they were when families up and left them.
Naturally, Bodie has accumulated plenty of ghost stories. There’s even a longstanding legend of the “Bodie Curse,” which supposedly befalls visitors who remove objects from the town.
Don’t test it. Bodie is a California State Park, which means it’s illegal to remove any artifacts. Just look and imagine the spirts still lingering around.
Must do: Visit during one of the limited Bodie Ghost Walks, when the park remains open after its normal closing time and visitors can wander Bodie after dark. They are only offered a few times a year, and the last one in September is the 26th.
👉Travel Tip: Bodie sits above 8,000 feet, and the final few miles of the main access road are unpaved. Go in early fall before winter decides to shut down your ghost hunt altogether.
2. Holbrooke Hotel
Where: Grass Valley, about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento
For a modern town that still thrives on Gold Rush history, Grass Valley is a must-visit. There are plenty of shops, restaurants, a saloon or two, and the Holbrooke Hotel.
The current hotel dates to 1862 and has hosted an impressive roster of guests, including Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant, and Grover Cleveland.
And then there are the guests who liked the place enough to stay indefinitely.
Room 9 is associated with stories of a female spirit who has reportedly unpacked guests’ luggage. Meanwhile, Black Bart’s ghost is said to make appearances around the room that bears his name.
The restored hotel is also a California State Landmark, so even if nobody from the afterlife bothers to appear, you get a handsome dose of Gold Country history.
Must do: Stay overnight. This is one haunted California experience where the accommodation is the attraction. Have a drink downstairs at the Iron Door, the hotel’s atmospheric bar, then head upstairs and see whether anyone has helpfully put away your socks.
I spent the night last fall and it was fabulous. Check out my review here.
3. Preston Castle
Where: Ione, about 40 miles southeast of Sacramento
A giant red-brick Romanesque Revival castle looming over a small Sierra foothills town?Nothing ominous about that, right?
Preston Castle opened in 1894 as the administration building for the Preston School of Industry, California’s reform school for juvenile offenders. Boys lived, studied, and worked here for decades before the building was closed in 1960.
Preston is also one of California’s best-known paranormal destinations, and its scary good looks have appealed to numerous ghost-hunting television shows, including Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters, and it hosts its own paranormal investigations.
Must do: Paranormal investigations are the ultimate experience here. The adult-only investigations run for hours after dark with experienced paranormal investigators and access to the castle.
If you prefer your ghosts with professional actors and considerably more screaming, come in October for The Haunt, when the castle becomes a full-blown Halloween haunted attraction. In 2026, The Haunt runs this year October 9–10, 16–17, and 23–24, 2026.
4. Alcatraz Island
Where: San Francisco Bay; ferries and tours depart from the waterfront.
Alcatraz knows how to manufacture atmosphere.
From 1934 to 1963, the island housed the infamous federal penitentiary where inmates included Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, and Robert Stroud, better known as the Birdman of Alcatraz.
Before that, the island served as a military fortress and military prison.
Over the years, stories have circulated about unexplained footsteps, voices, clanging cell doors, and strange sensations inside the former prison. Cell Block D, which included solitary-confinement cells, features prominently in Alcatraz ghost lore.
You can decide for yourself whether it’s haunted, but there’s no question those empty cellblocks feel pretty eerie once you know what happened inside them.
Must do: Book the Alcatraz Night Tour rather than the standard daytime visit.
You’ll experience the island as daylight fades over San Francisco Bay, and the excellent Cellhouse Audio Tour uses stories and voices from former inmates and correctional officers.
👉Traveler Tip: Book well ahead. Alcatraz isn’t exactly one of San Francisco’s best-kept secrets.
5. Winchester Mystery House
Where: San Jose, about 50 miles south of San Francisco
If any California house looks as though it should be haunted, it’s the Winchester Mystery House in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Sarah Winchester, widow of firearms magnate William Wirt Winchester, purchased the property in the 1880s and spent decades expanding the sprawling Victorian manor until her death in 1922.
The result is truly bizarre.
There are 160 rooms, doors that lead nowhere, staircases that end unexpectedly, oddly placed windows, narrow passages, and plenty of head-scratching architectural peculiarities.
Legend has it that Sarah believed she was haunted by the ghosts of people killed by Winchester repeating rifles and kept building to appease or confuse their spirits. The historical evidence for that story is shaky, but why let that ruin a perfectly good ghost story?
Visitors and employees have also reported footsteps, voices, strange lights, and apparitions over the years.
Must do: Take the Guided Mansion Tour, which travels through more than 100 rooms.
From mid-September to November 1, Winchester rolls out eery fun with Festival Fright Nights.
6. Columbia State Historic Park, Columbia
Where: Columbia, roughly 50 miles from Yosemite National Park’s Big Oak Flat entrance
Columbia State Historic Park is very much alive—but apparently not for everyone. This remarkably preserved Gold Rush town in the Sierra Nevada foothills, about three miles north of Sonora, never became a ghost town.
Today, its historic streets are still lined with shops and saloons to dip into, while costumed interpreters bring 1850s California back to life.
But after dark, Columbia leans into its other residents.
Several times a year, The Friends of Columbia State Historic Park hosts Ghost Stories Tours and In the Shadows of Columbia, an evening paranormal investigation that takes visitors inside historic buildings with researchers and ghost-detecting equipment.
In fall, the wonderfully creepy Stories in Stone (this year September 25, 26 October 2, 3 2026) leads visitors by lantern through Columbia Cemetery, where interpreters stationed at gravesites recount the lives—and deaths—of people buried there.
7. Point Sur Lightstation
Where: Big Sur, about 19 miles south of quaint Carmel-by-the-Sea
Perched 361 feet above the Pacific atop an enormous volcanic rock, Point Sur Lightstation looks like somewhere a ghost would choose to haunt.
The lighthouse was first lit in 1889, guiding ships along one of California’s most rugged stretches of coastline, and a long history of shipwrecks.
Over the years, visitors and volunteers have reported unexplained voices and apparitions of former lighthouse keepers. Paranormal investigators and TV shows like Ghost Adventures have featured the site, too.
Special seasonal moonlit ghost tours are occasionally offered from April through September. Ticket Availability: First come, first served only (no online reservations).
See the website or call Call (831) 625-4419 for info
8. The Queen Mary
Where: Long Beach, about 25 miles south of downtown Los Angeles
Few haunted attractions can compete with a 1,000-foot ocean liner, and this one brings me back to childhood when I first visited on a school field trip.
The Queen Mary spent 31 years crossing the Atlantic before retiring to Long Beach in 1967—and apparently, not everyone disembarked.
Visitors and staff have reported unexplained footsteps, knocks, doors opening and closing on their own, faucets turning on mysteriously, and voices in empty rooms.
Among the ship’s paranormal hot spots are the old First-Class Pool, where some claim to have heard a little girl known as “Jackie,” and the Engine Room, where visitors have reported the sound of a wrench banging near the infamous watertight Door 13.
Stateroom B340 has an especially spooky reputation, with reports of nighttime knocking, flickering bathroom lights, and faucets operating by themselves. You can even book the room overnight, should sleeping peacefully feel overrated.
Don’t Miss: The daily, hour-long Haunted Encounters Tour is a fairly tame introduction to the ship’s ghost lore.
For something creepier, the two-hour Paranormal Ship Walk takes place after hours and ventures into rooms and compartments normally closed to the public.
And for committed ghost hunters, the two-hour Graveyard Tour departs after midnight on Friday and Saturday nights, exploring some of the ship’s least-accessible spaces and most notorious paranormal stories. It’s restricted to ages 16 and older.
Want to spend the night? The Queen Mary is also a hotel.
9. Hotel del Coronado
Where: Coronado, across San Diego Bay from downtown San Diego
California even has a haunted beachfront resort.
The grand Victorian Hotel del Coronado opened in 1888 and has hosted presidents, royalty, and Hollywood stars. It also provided the memorable seaside backdrop for Some Like It Hot.
But its most enduring resident may be Kate Morgan.
Morgan checked into ‘the Del’ in November 1892 and was found dead several days later. Her mysterious stay and death became part of the hotel’s lore, and guests and employees have since reported flickering lights, unexplained footsteps and voices, moving objects, and sightings of a woman believed to be Morgan.
Spoooookkkyyy.
Even if Kate fails to materialize, booking a stay at one of California’s great historic hotels on a gorgeous San Diego beach isn’t a total loss.
Must do: Take the hotel’s nightly Haunted Happenings Tour, an evening experience that follows the story of Kate Morgan and explores paranormal tales associated with the resort.
10. Whaley House
Where: Old Town San Diego, about 4 miles from downtown
The Whaley House doesn’t merely tolerate its haunted reputation. It has built an entire business around it, boasting itself as the Most Haunted House in America.
Businessman Thomas Whaley constructed the handsome Greek Revival house in 1857. Over the years, it served as the Whaley family home, a courthouse, a general store, and San Diego’s first commercial theater.
Adding considerably to its spooky credentials, the property is associated with the site of early San Diego gallows.
Members of the Whaley family died in the manor, and generations of visitors have subsequently reported footsteps, voices, strange lights, and apparitions.
Must do: Come back after dark for the Evening Guided Tour, for a walk through the dimly lit Whaley House and grounds, ghost stories, and tales of paranormal encounters—including the possibility of experiencing one yourself.
📍San Diego embraces its spooky side, with numerous ghost tours exploring the eerie histories of Old Town, the Gaslamp Quarter, historic cemeteries, and other notoriously haunted spots.
Haunted California Road Trip Ideas
California is far too large to tackle all 10 places in one sensible weekend, but they fall neatly into several spooky getaways. Here are a few Road Trip Ideas
👻 From San Francisco, combine Alcatraz with the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose.
👻 For a Gold Country road trip, pair a stay at the Holbrooke Hotel with Preston Castle, then continue toward Columbia State Historic Park.
👻 An Eastern Sierra fall trip can combine Bodie with Mammoth Lakes, Mono Lake, and the spectacular fall colors along Highway 395.
👻 On the Central Coast, Point Sur gives you an excuse to combine your ghost hunting with Carmel, Monterey, and a Highway 1 drive through Big Sur.
👻 In Southern California, the Queen Mary is an easy Los Angeles-area getaway, while San Diego gives you a paranormal two-for-one with the Whaley House and Hotel del Coronado.
The best part is that you don’t have to believe in ghosts to enjoy any of these historic California destinations, as each is worth visiting in its own right, any time of year.
📸 Lead image from Kenzo75/iStock
