10 Terrifying Real-Life Vacations-Gone-Wrong That Are Scarier Than Any Movie
When you go on vacation, the last thing you may expect to experience is a supernatural encounter. So, since it's Halloween season, I thought I would ask the BuzzFeed Community: "What is the spookiest thing you've experienced while traveling?" Here's what they said below.
1."In 2023, I went to the Conjuring House in Rhode Island. I was not a believer. I was there mostly to humor my daughter, who is a fan of the movies, because I love history, and it's a really old house. The house is sitting in the middle of a beautiful clearing surrounded by huge fall-colored trees with ferns all over the ground. We started the tour in a lovely old room and then went upstairs. I use a cane, and while walking through a closet-like room, I felt a hand on the small of my back. I entered the next room to discover that there was nobody behind me."
"A rocking chair started rocking on its own. A toy train rolled across the room. We went downstairs to the basement, and I could smell a dead animal, but nobody else did when I mentioned it. Then, we turned into the long boiler room area. I was in the front, and I saw a figure that was pure evil. Female, dark, slender, and alien-ish. It was just a flash, and then it disappeared. My daughter had to drag me through the room because I thought I would pass out.
We ended the tour and were given time to collect pictures. I went into the dining room to take pictures of the huge fireplace. Rocks began falling from the chimney onto the floor, and I heard my name. I picked up my cane and ran to my daughter in the library. She calmed me down and then took a picture of me at the window. There was a white, misty figure beside me in the picture.
We then went to the gift shop, and she tried out the ghost rods. They pointed right at me. I still have nightmares a year later about the thing in the basement and the voice in the dining room. I started going to mental health care because I was having panic attacks before bedtime. I take meds that help, but I still occasionally get a sense of doom or that something is watching me."
—Amy, 48, Conjuring House, Burrillville, Rhode Island
2."On a work trip, we were all staying at the same hotel. We returned from work one day to find the whole hotel swarming with police, ambulances, and a coroner’s van. Apparently, there had been a murder-suicide that day while we were all at work. We were all pretty creeped out by it but there wasn’t anything we could do, so we all went to dinner as planned. Upon returning to the hotel after dinner, I and two other coworkers walked into the lobby of the hotel right as they were wheeling the bodies out. No warning, nothing shut down, they just wheeled them past us so closely that we could have touched them! Now thoroughly creeped out, we had no choice but to go back to our rooms and get ready to work the next day."
"That night, I was having trouble falling asleep. I kept hearing weird shuffling noises and whispers, and the ceiling fan that I had not used at all kept turning on and off by itself. Overall, the vibe in my room just felt really off. We had been staying there for several days prior to the incident, and I had not had any issues before that night. It continued the rest of the time I was there. I found out at some point before leaving that the room where the incident happened was literally right above mine. I was so happy when the trip was over and declined work trips for a while after that."
3."I was traveling in Rome with my aunt for a fabulous girls' trip. Everything seemed perfect, and the trip went off without a hitch. On our last night there, we happened to be walking back to our hotel late at night, drunk on wine and gelato and joking about our school-level knowledge of Ancient Rome. Through this conversation, we realize the date is the Ides of March! After some quick googling and a short detour, we ended up in the place Caesar got stabbed by Brutus on the anniversary of Caesar getting stabbed by Brutus! It was like a switch flipped — all of a sudden, the warm spring air got chilly, and clouds covered the moon."
"Both our phones started glitching, and all the pictures we tried to take of the ancient senate ruins became blurry. We quickly raced back to the hotel, but it felt like there were eyes on us for the rest of the walk. I've traveled a lot and had quite a few close calls, but that night in Rome was the only time I've ever been that creeped out!!"
—Anonymous, 21, Rome, Italy
4."Not my story but my mother's. She was working at a plant out of our small midwestern city where there wasn't much out there but soybean fields. It's pretty remote. As she and her friends were driving home one night, they saw an older Black man walking by himself, his belongings packed up with him. They felt sorry he was trekking so far out in the cold alone and turned the car around as soon as they could to offer him a ride. When they looked for him, he was nowhere to be found. 'That's odd,' she thought, and it became even odder when she discovered a local legend about people seeing a fugitive enslaved person fleeing north carrying everything he owned along that road to freedom. She swears up and down that he must've been who she saw."
5."San Francisco, this September. I was at Alcatraz, and I was alone in the D cell block, which was the solidarity block (weekday early morning, so low tourism, I guess), and I was looking around. I suddenly heard loud screaming and banging from above. It sounded like a man, and he was screaming bloody murder. He yelled, 'The button! The button! My button!' Multiple times. I went to find a ranger, and they came to look. There was no one in any cells. But apparently, the prisoners in solitary confinement would throw a button in their dark cells and find it to entertain themselves. Absolutely the scariest thing I’ve experienced."
—Sadie, 23, San Fransisco
6."My husband and I went on a vacation to Savannah about nine years ago. I found this cute hotel downtown that had great reviews and an even better price. When we arrived, I finished checking in while my husband grabbed our bags and went upstairs with the bellman. He asked my husband if we had purposely asked to stay in one of the most haunted rooms in the hotel. When I met my husband upstairs, he asked me if I knew about the hotel being haunted. I did not, and he told me we were staying in an old Civil War hospital, and our room was right next to the most active room on the property. I blew him off, but when we went on the ghost tour of Savannah that night, the tour guide told us the same thing."
"That night, we came back to the room, and I took a sleeping pill because I was freaked out. In the middle of the night, my husband (who is the most laid-back, chill human you will ever meet) was shaking me and crying. He saw a woman dressed in a Civil War-style nurse outfit taking my vitals, and then she suddenly disappeared.
We were both spooked, so in the morning, we asked the front desk, and they were like, 'OH! You saw the nurse!' My husband will never let me live it down, and now I must know where we're staying and the history behind it."
—Danielle, 40, Savannah, GA
7."I was at an Airbnb just outside of Boston. We had the place rented for four days. We barely made it one night. We should have known something was wrong with the area when our Uber driver said that we shouldn't go out at night. We got to the location, and it was in the basement level of a house; the listing made it sound so wonderful, and the pictures looked good. We got inside, and it was dirty and gave us the creeps. After about 30 minutes, some random lady walks in to 'switch laundry.' I called the host, and they said it was the cleaning lady. I told him that, as a courtesy, he should have warned us. We were starving but didn't trust the area to leave or even order in. We heard what sounded like a party in the next room, which had a locked door."
"The host assured us that it was neighbors upstairs and not in the room next door. At this point, we started looking at hotels closer to Boston to go to. We decided to wait until the next day because we were so exhausted from travel, so we all went to bed.
I wore sweatpants, a hoodie, and socks. Not one part of my body was going to touch any of the bedding. I got woken up around 6 a.m. to someone screaming bloody murder, 'OH MY GOD, STOP!' in the room above me. I jumped out of bed, and that's when I noticed the blood splatter spots on the mirror in the room I was staying in. I noped out of that, and we booked a hotel and got the Hell out of that Airbnb. Had to fight a bit with the host to get a refund, but they gave me one. The rest of the vacation in Boston was amazing."
8."I'm pretty sure I traveled from Chicago, IL, to Fort Wayne, IN, with a ghost. I was traveling from Kansas to Indiana to be with my boyfriend. I was 22 years old and had three suitcases plus a backpack. I got stuck in the Chicago bus station in the middle of the night, and there was this man who kept following me around the station, and when we'd make eye contact, he'd thrust his hips at me and rub this 'area.' It was terrifying and disgusting, and I had no idea what to do. I couldn't just run across the terminal because I had so much luggage I had to balance and roll/carry. This elderly gentleman came up to me and started talking to me like he had known me forever. He left his bags with me and ran across the street to buy White Castle, and he came back with a whole meal for me, too. He stayed next to me the rest of the time (he should have creeped me out, too, but he didn't at all; he made me feel safe immediately)."
"He was on the same bus that I was and rode it with me all the way to where my boyfriend was waiting for me (the creepy guy was also on this bus. He sat across the aisle, and the older man kept himself between us). When we got to the stop, the older man didn't have a ride, and after I told my boyfriend about how he basically protected me, my boyfriend offered him a ride.
He had us take him all the way out to the country, and we dropped him off on the side of the road near a big cornfield (where he asked to go). By the time we turned the car around to head back, he was gone. I firmly believe that if not for him, something terrible would have happened to me. The Chicago bus station in the middle of the night is no place for a young, single woman to be alone."
9."I was in Adelaide, South Australia, to attend a convention a decade ago. I stayed in a historic hotel built in the late 19th century. The staff were friendly and cordial, and they showed me my room, which was at the farther end of the hallway. I'm not even sure if there were guests in the other rooms since I never saw anyone during my three-day stay. I would wake up past midnight by the sounds of a couple arguing next to my room. It went on for about 30 minutes, and I could hear thumps and bumps on the wall, like some objects being thrown around, and then everything would turn quiet."
"On my second night at the hotel, the same thing happened, and I went to reception to complain about the noise next door. The concierge assured me that there were no guests booked next to my room and that there were only three guests (including myself) occupying the same hallway rooms. The housekeeping lady I spoke to also mentioned that she heard the same voices in the room even though it remained unoccupied for months. I checked out right after the convention and flew back to Sydney."
—Ron, 60, Adelaide, South Australia
10."I was in Little Rock, AR, for a conference. During some off time, I went to the state capital building next door. They were exhibiting crime and punishment in AR, including famous crimes (Bonnie and Clyde), prisons around the state, uniforms, etc. It was pretty interesting. I walked into a room and immediately felt a sense of heaviness and tightness in my chest and a feeling like I wanted to breathe but just could not. I wanted to get out of that room ASAP. I turned around to go out, and right behind me was a retired electric chair that had been used in more than a few executions. Just sitting there, with all of its terrible history. I hauled ass out of that room as fast as I could!"
—Jenn, 49, Little Rock, AR
Do you have a scary supernatural travel story? Tell us what happened in the comments below or fill out this Google form.
