Take a Haunted Holiday: Halloween Movie Vacation Rentals

Sometimes you need an excuse to plan a vacation and what better way to ring in the new fall season than visiting the iconic towns from your favorite Halloween movies? If getting hacked and haunted isn’t your idea of a good time, fear not. From Hocus Pocus to Harry Potter, these films are more magical than gruesome, which is a great goal for your next vacation (or your next bout of wanderlust).

If the Deetz’s can make a home here, there’s no reason you can’t. When Tim Burton’s 1988 film showed us the fantastically dark world of Beetlejuice contrasted with the quaint countryside of East Corrinth, orange leaves and rolling hills took on a new, bizarrely mysterious appeal. The movie is this sleepy town’s only real claim to fame, but the gorgeous surrounding farm towns are vacation-worthy. A 30-minute drive from East Corrinth is The Farmhouse Suite on Grandview Farm in Washington, Vermont, and is located near a number of museums, farmers markets, and antique stores.

The house from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video/short film is located in Los Angeles’ historic Angelino Heights neighborhood, surrounded by unbelievably gorgeous Victorian houses you can tour. This picturesque private Spanish Bungalow is locate within walking distance of the historic Thriller street, which also happens to be in walking distance to Echo Park lake and many of the hot hangouts sprouting up around the hauntingly hip Echo Park neighborhood.

Much of Anne Rice’s sultry Interview with the Vampire takes place in the French Quarter district in New Orleans, Louisiana. If you’re familiar at all with the area, you know that the haunting charm of New Orleans doesn’t stop there. Ghost tours and historic buildings are a dime-a-dozen in this gorgeously gothic city. This French chateau-style vacation rental is giving us some serious ’90s Victorian revival vibes, the perfect setting to drink in the romantic, magical sites.

Alnwick Castle is one of the most recognizable real life representations of everyone’s favorite fictional school of witchcraft and wizardry, Hogwarts. Harry’s first quidditch lesson was filmed on the grounds of the 12th century castle, located amongst acres and acres of forests sprinkled with a number of haunted medieval castles worth visiting. The West Acre House is a historic inn, complete with its own gardens, located walking distance to Alnwick Castle and some quaint countryside shopping (i.e. the used and antiquarian bookstore, Barter Books).

No magical Halloween movie list would be complete without at least two Tim Burton films. Unfortunately, Halloween Town from The Nightmare Before Christmas is, indeed fictional (sorry to burst your bubble). Luckily, the imagineers at Disneyland continue to do a hundred-and-nineteen-dollar-one-day-ticket-worthy job transforming the classically spooky Haunted Mansion into the film’s iconic Halloween Town. This cluttered and cozy Victorian vacation rental is Haunted Mansion-inspired, is likely to contain cobwebs, and is conveniently located near the happiest place on earth.