The Great Hauntway
A community-powered, car-free Halloween celebration at the beach.
9 haunted experiences near Daly City.
This Halloween season, venture beyond your usual haunts. For a grand spectacle, consider SuperNatural at the California Academy of Sciences. If a more intimate, spectral encounter calls to you, the Ship of Spirits paranormal dinner and tour in Alameda offers a different kind of eerie experience.
From ticketed explorations in San Francisco to journeys just a short drive away, the Bay Area holds many shadowed corners waiting to be explored.
Fall harvest displays, scarecrow field, pumpkin meadow, and redwood railway.
Five themed rooms and 10 DJs for a mega Halloween party
Live performance of Schubert's Cello Quintet in the Mozart Room.
San Francisco's longest-running haunted walking tour through historic Pacific Heights.
See all haunted houses, trails, and scare attractions in your area.
Book a mid-evening timed slot, eat dinner first so the queue isn't hangry, and pick one flagship haunt plus the midway rather than a four-attraction death march. Shared adrenaline is the whole point: the queue is the conversation time, so skip fast passes on a quiet night. End somewhere warm and lit for the debrief, and check closing times before planning dessert.
Closed-toe shoes with real tread are non-negotiable; trails are dark, rooted, and often muddy after rain. Add layers you can zip while standing in outdoor queues, and skip dangling scarves, heels, and anything you'd mourn if it snagged a cornstalk. Leave costume masks at home, since most haunts ban them for guests, and keep hands free for railings and unexpected sprints.
Haunts send guests through in pods of 4-8, so a group of 12 will get split; pre-sort your pods so nervous friends aren't stranded with strangers. Pick a lit landmark as the regroup point after each attraction, since phones are useless inside. Buy tickets in one order for the same time window, and agree on the night's attraction order before anyone queues.