Halloween tours in 2014 are even scarier than last year, with more ghouls, goblins and ectoplasmic goo than ever before. It’s probably because the Earth is hurtling closer towards immanentizing the eschaton, so it’s best to enjoy some spooky Halloween fun while you still can. Here’s a selection of hideous horrors to enjoy this Halloween around the world.
UK HALLOWE’EN TOURS
London
The world-famous creepy pit that is the London Dungeon is doing Halloween 2014 in style this year. They have a new bag of tricks and treats courtesy of the malevolent Master of Tricks and bookings are going fast.
Elsewhere, Richard Jones’s Halloween London Ghost Walk will be marking its 32nd year in 2014. Jones is the author of 20 books on the paranormal and a popular TV pundit on real-life ghostly experiences, so he’s the perfect guide to a distinctly chilly Halloween in London.
Declan McHugh’s Blood and Tears Walk runs much of the year and is unsurprisingly an extremely popular attraction over Halloween too. McHugh’s tales centre on the more gruesome aspects of central London’s past, so be prepared for shocks.
For those too afraid to walk, you can ride a London icon instead and keep it spooky with Ghost Bus Tours London. The rotting corpse of a routemaster bus will be raised from the dead just for you.
Stratford-Upon-Avon
For something a bit more thespian this Halloween, how about the Halloween trail at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre? This half-term week’s events include a costume and make-up expert showing visitors how to perfect that Tudor corpse look.
Liverpool
The Shiverpool team are well-known for their spooky antics and excellent ghost tours. Halloween in Liverpool is sure to be a pleasingly sinister time in their company.
York
The York Ghost Walk Experience provides eerie goings on aplenty and they always do events on Halloween.
Manchester
How do you make your Halloween tour even scarier? Make it all underground like Jonathan Schofield’s Haunted Underworld. What with the Manchester setting to boot, that’s guaranteed terror.
Mainland Europe Halloween tours
Countries that haven’t been imbued with a strong concoction of Americanisation like the UK have fewer options when it comes to Halloween. But that doesn’t mean these places aren’t riddled with horrible demons – on the contrary!
Paris
If you’re in Paris and looking for an English-language spooky tour, then the premier option is Mysteries of Paris. Set up by an ex-pat American, the tour guides are all French and well versed in scaring the bejeezus out of visitors.
For something friendlier, the centre for the American life in Europe is Disneyland Paris, where they reassuringly go the extra mile for Halloween every year.
Berlin
If you’re on a boat going down the River Spree on Halloween, then that technically counts as a tour. It’s probably the closest you’ll get to a Halloween tour in Berlin anyway, unless you prefer trying to find your way out of a club night with 9 spooky-themed dancefloors. Scary.
USA Halloween tours
It’ll come as no surprise that the country which came up with the whole concept of stuffing children with sweets on Halloween offers the barmiest choices for Halloween tours.
New Orleans
The capital of Louisiana is saturated with ghostly goings-on, what with its world-famous above-ground graves and voodoo shenanigans. If you’re looking for a ghost tour, there’s plenty to choose from, most with wonderful names such as Voodoo Bone Lady, Bloody Mary, and Witches Brew.
Disneyland
Both Disneyland in California and Disneyworld in Florida offer children of all ages plenty of Halloween fun with their Happiest Haunts event each year. Park favourites become Halloweenified (is that a word?) but the tours of it all probably won’t end up giving your children nightmares.
Boston
In USA terms, Boston is pretty much an ancient city, so it’s had time to build up plenty of tales from beyond the grave. Ghosts & Gravestones have a number of “frightseeing” options and they always wake the dead for Halloween.
Elsewhere, other popular terror-tinged tours can be taken with Haunted Boston and Boston by Foot.
Los Angeles
The home of the American movie industry loves to showcase its horror specialities during Halloween, with many make-up and special effects professionals taking part.
The biggest and most film-like experience is almost certainly The Purge: Breakout, an immersive puzzle-filled scare-athon running throughout October and linked with the recent film of the same name.
In the Glendale area, you’ll find the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride set in the former zoo, where empty cages are guaranteed to rattle.
If you want to genuinely freak yourself out, how about getting stuck in a pitch-black basement alone for Halloween? The Alone Experience is offering this particular brand of “existential haunting” and it’s not for the faint-hearted. For the full American Halloween experience, The Empty Grave is offering scares in a shopping mall in Laguna Hills.
(The Empty Grave – scaring people who only want to take their purchases to the checkout counter)
If you’re looking for a more traditional tour, Orange County, with its pumpkin colouring, hosts a range of tour options via Haunted Orange.
For something more parapsychological, Michael J Kouri’s Haunted House Walking Tours around Pasadena will be right up your spine-shivering street.
New York City
If you’re normally a healthy type and want to work off that Halloween candy you’re going to stuff into your face, perhaps try Bike the Big Apple’s Halloween bike tour.
The very thought of cycling around Manhattan, New York, can be rather frightening to some, but perhaps the scares will keep you pedalling.
Sleepy Hollow, New York
The town of Sleepy Hollow, made infamous by Washington Irving’s tales, hosts cemetery tours six months a year, but they go all out for Halloween. This year’s big event is Horseman’s Hollow, but there are plenty of other options if that’s a scare too far.
(Feature image: Pumpkin Festival, Franklin County by Geoff Bluh / Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism)
