San Francisco
We stayed at the Fairmont San Francisco in December which was particularly festive during the holiday season. It was on the pricy side but worth the extra cost to experience the Christmas splendor. Plus, it’s haunted and the employees did not seem to shy away from speaking about their resident ghosts. Even if you cannot stay at the hotel, you should definitely have dinner or get drinks at The Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar which is housed in the hotel’s old indoor pool. It’s got personality in spades! Make reservations!
San Francisco, famous for the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island, cable cars and Fisherman’s Wharf, the “City by the Bay” is a freakin’ hub for technology, tourism, and progressive culture! Over seven million people call this place home, but what many don’t realize is that they share this city with a literal crapload of spiritual entities!
One of the most haunted cities in the U.S. (according to scientific documents which we will happily provide for the right price), San Francisco is riddled with ghosts of the infamous Gold Rush, the tragic 1906 earthquake, and the unseen horrors of Alcatraz.
We visited the Bay Area with one goal in mind: uncovering the hidden secrets of the dead who refuse to stay buried and the spirits who resist moving on from this world. It may be true that I left my heart in San Francisco, but I also left behind the specters and spirits of a very haunted metropolis, and there are only two ways YOU can see them: 1) Go to San Francisco yourself (pricey, time-consuming). Or 2) Watch Ghost Tourist Season 6 (free, short, only mildly offensive)! The choice is yours!
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Our first full day in San Francisco was spent in the beautiful hills of Pacific Heights. Also known as Billionaires’ Row. Lofty mansions, well manicured lawns, nicely pruned bushes and ghosts aplenty! We drove to the Pacific Heights area from our hotel and parked nearby and were able to walk to all the mansions we mentioned without having to get back into the car. We definitely got our steps in that day! We also saw some celebrity homes that are NOT haunted. And why not? We were in the neighborhood! Worth the visit!
Pacific Heights also boasts of multiple hotels with spectral visitors. Our next stop included Pacific Height Hotels rumored to be full of phantoms. The Hotel Majestic is the oldest hotel in San Francisco and The Queen Anne Hotel is a quaint hotel beautifully decorated for the holidays both which welcomed questions about their ghosts.
Alcatraz Island was the highlight of our trip to San Francisco. But be warned, you MUST buy tickets ahead of time. Buy them early. They always sell out! We went on the Night Tour which we thought added to the creepy factor. It was great! Highly recommended! But be sure to wear comfortable walking shoes, long pants and a warm jacket. It gets very cold at night. Give yourself plenty of time to see everything. You may get lucky and get to see the underground areas like we did!!
One of our favorite places to visit was The San Francisco Columbarium. The Columbarium is in the middle of a posh neighborhood so beware, you may not think you have reached your destination when you get there. Its hidden at the end of a cul-de-sac behind a wrought iron fence. The Columbarium itself is a beautiful indoor circular multileveled mortuary. That alone gives it an interesting feel, the energy of all its inhabitants adds to its aura. You’ll enjoy looking at the pictures, dioramas, nicknacks and special artifacts of the people laid to rest there. And yes, it is haunted! There is no cover fee to get in.
We had never heard of The Cliff House & Sutro Baths until we started researching San Francisco for Ghost Tourist. We loved it so much we ended up using photos taken here for our YouTube channel! Go figure! The ocean view here is so beautiful, you can actually imagine the grandeur of The Baths as they would have been in operation. The ruins still exist and it looked vast! You can walk through caves embedded in the rocks (where you can feel some energy) and the power of the breaking water is intense. Read up on the history of The Sutro Baths before you go as there is no information there to tell you about it. Take good walking shoes. While it is not a long walk, your shoes could get wet or muddy. There is no cover fee to get in.
We drove to Blue Heron Lake (Formerly Stow Lake) which is on the easternmost side of Golden Gate Park. We found this information regarding the change in the lake’s name: In 2024, Stow Lake Boathouse, Stow Lake and Stow Lake Drive, were officially renamed to remove mention of their namesake, former Speaker of the California State Assembly William W. Stow, due to his anti-Semitic views. The new name, "Blue Heron Lake," references the indigenous birds often found nesting by the lake.
We only stayed briefly as the day was rainy and cold so there were definitely no ghosts roaming about! But on a clear and warmer day, we can see how this would be a great destination for an afternoon walk and possible ghost hunt. Its worth a visit.
On our last night we went on a ghost tour with The Haunt Ghost Tours. We have taken many ghost tours in our day and this was one of our favorite tours to date. We have taken one other tour with The Haunt since then and have enjoyed that one too. We like The Haunt because the guide sticks to actual ghost stories and tells of ghost sightings. We do like tours that focus on crime sites and murder mysteries (unless its followed up by a ghost!). Give us paranormal, specters and haunts or we don’t want it!!! The Haunt tour guides also indulge you with EMF detectors and dousing rods so you actually do a little ghost hunting on the tour. That makes it extra fun! We highly recommend these tours. In addition to San Francisco, they have tours in Los Angeles, Solvang, North Hollywood, Temecula and Lompac, California.
