Spookiest Cities in the US Ranking 2018

In preparation for Halloween, FlixBus has mapped haunted houses, spooky tours, and parades across the US to rank the country’s Top 100 Spookiest Cities. Check out these spooky charts below!

(photo source)

• Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, offers the #1 spookiest experience in the US, boasting 131 haunted places and 13 Halloween parades per 100,000 people.

Have you ever visited Gettysburg? My son was really into ghosts and civil war history as a tween and teen, so we took a weekend vacation to Gettysburg and did the walking ghost tours. I had such an eerie feeling the entire trip. I also heard strange noises at night in the hotel. If you like spooky and history, I highly recommend a visit.

• Of course, you shouldn’t miss the notoriously fright-inducing Salem, Massachusetts. The city of witches is part of the Top 3 offering 43 haunted places, 19 spooky tours and 5 halloween parades.

Last year, this was my son's Halloween destination. He loved it. There is so much going on in Salem, especially this time of year.

• Chandler, Arizona, ranks as the least-scary city, with just 0.3 haunted places per 100,000 people. This may be a pitstop to pass on this year’s terror tour.

Berlin, Germany (October 30th, 2018) -  The affordable intercity bus service, FlixBus, has released a comprehensive ranking of the scariest cities in the United States in time for Halloween. To find out which cities are the most frightening the company conducted a comprehensive analysis resulting in the Spookiest Cities in the US Ranking 2018. This Halloween, whether you want a ghostly adventure or prefer to stay away from the eeriness, this analysis will help you map the most-chilling travel destinations

To create the ranking, FlixBus researched and compiled a list of the most haunted places and events across the country to narrow down the Top 100 scariest cities. The list takes into account the total number of haunted houses, spooky tours and Halloween parades for each respective city. The final ranking was then calculated with the city which has the highest sum amongst the criteria per 100,000 people taking the first place.

“We’ve pulled together the spookiest ranking to give our customers the chance to plane their Halloween with experience at the forefront. We know holidays are often a time for adventure, new experiences, and to give yourself a thrill: at FlixBus, that’s what we’re all about,” says Pierre Gourdain, Managing Director of FlixBus USA. “We’ve ranked a range of exciting destinations along our usual routes to make your planning - and your journey - as smooth yet thrilling as possible this Halloween season.”

The Top 10 Spookiest Cities are revealed below. Find the full results for 100 US cities here.

The Top 10 Spookiest Cities:

RANK	CITY	STATE	HAUNTED PLACES (per 100.000 people)	SPOOKY TOURS (per 100.000 people)	HALLOWEEN PARADES (per 100.000 people)
1	Gettysburg	Pennsylvania	131,234	0,000	13,123
2	Saint Augustine	Florida	70,028	49,020	7,003
3	Salem	Massachusetts	48,379	19,352	4,838
4	Savannah	Georgia	6,146	6,146	0,683
5	Des Moines	Iowa	4,597	4,138	0,919
6	Cincinnati	Ohio	4,315	3,319	1,328
7	Norfolk	Virginia	2,452	4,087	2,043
8	Chesapeake	Virginia	1,664	4,576	1,248
9	Jersey City	New Jersey	3,693	0,000	3,693
10	Richmond	Virginia	5,726	0,440	0,881

The cities that rank in the bottom 10 for spookiness:

# RANK	CITY	STATE	HAUNTED PLACES (per 100.000 people)	SPOOKY TOURS (per 100.000 people)	HALLOWEEN PARADES (per 100.000 people)
100	Chandler	Arizona	0,395	0,000	0,000
99	Scottsdale	Arizona	0,000	0,000	0,400
98	New York	New York	0,244	0,116	0,116
97	Los Angeles	California	0,500	0,125	0,050
96	Oakland	California	0,470	0,000	0,235
95	Irvine	California	0,360	0,000	0,360
94	Chicago	Illinois	0,479	0,110	0,147
93	Gilbert	Arizona	0,413	0,000	0,413
92	San Jose	California	0,580	0,097	0,193
91	Santa Ana	California	0,898	0,000	0,000

A few findings from the analysis:

• With 10 haunted locations per 100,000 people in total, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is the spookiest city in the country, ranking first.
• The city of Chandler, Arizona, is the least spooky city of the analyzed 100 cities, with one haunted house in total and zero spooky tours and parades.
• Houston, Texas, has the most haunted places. 23 in total, but just one per 100,000 people.
• You will find not a single haunted house in Chula Vista, California or in Scottsdale, Arizona.
• The city of Virginia Beach, Virginia, offers the most spooky tours, with 16 in total and 3.5 per 100,000 people.
• In 23 of the 100 analyzed cities across the US, there is not a single spooky tour.
• New York City, New York, and Jersey City, New Jersey, each respectively organise 10 Halloween parades in total. In the case of hosting parades they are rank first.
• 10 from 100 US cities do not host any Halloween parades.

For More information, visit https://www.flixbus.com/spooky-cities-ranking

About FlixMobility

FlixMobility is a young mobility provider, offering new alternatives for convenient, affordable and environmentally-friendly travel via the FlixBus and FlixTrain brands. Thanks to a unique business model and innovative technology, the startup has quickly established Europe's largest long-distance bus network and launched the first green long-distance trains in 2018 as well as a pilot project for all-electric buses in Germany and France. Since 2013, FlixMobility has changed the way over 100 million people have traveled throughout Europe and created thousands of new jobs in the mobility industry. In 2018, FlixMobility launched FlixBus USA to bring this new travel alternative to the United States.

From locations throughout Europe and the United States, the FlixTeam handles technology development, network planning, operations control, marketing & sales, quality management and continuous product expansion. The daily scheduled service and green FlixBus fleet is managed by bus partners from regional SMEs, while FlixTrain operates in cooperation with private train companies. Through these partnerships, innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and a strong international brand meet the experience and quality of tradition. The unique combination of technology start-up, e-commerce platform and classic transport company has positioned FlixMobility as a leader against major international corporations, permanently changing the European mobility landscape. Further company news and pictures can be found in the newsroom.

Methodology

For the Spookiest Cities in the US Ranking 2018, the 100 biggest cities in the US were analysed, in addition to  some of the most famous spooky cities, such as Salem and Gettysburg. While 105 cities were analysed, the final ranking only shows the top 100 cities.

Haunted Places

The first factor used in order to determine how spooky each city is was the number of ‘haunted houses’ in each location. This data was sourced from Google, Google Maps, Yelp and Tripadvisor.

Spooky Tours

The total number of haunted or spooky tours each city has serves as an additional indicator of how ‘haunted’ a city is. This data was sourced from Google, Google Maps, Yelp and Tripadvisor.

Halloween Parades

Furthermore, the number of halloween parades in each city were counted and used as a final factor in determining a cities’ ‘spookiness’. This data was sourced from Google, Google Maps, Yelp and Tripadvisor.

Ranking

The final ranking is the sum of these three factors, measured per capita, multiplied by 100,000, resulting in the final ranking of "spooky factors" per 100,000 people.