I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.
Authors Kelly Florence and Meg Hafdahl share with readers a collection o the spookiest places in America in the book “Travels of Terror: Strange and Spooky Spots Across America”.
The Synopsis
Grab your flashlight, garlic, and ghost hunting equipment. We’re taking you on the ultimate road trip of the spookiest places around the U.S.
Horror lovers, lifelong best friends, and co-hosts of the Horror Rewind podcast, Kelly Florence and Meg Hafdahl, have traveled around the U.S. to bring you the most thrill-inducing spots for horror, history, and true crime. They’ve compiled a list of what to do, where to stay, where to eat and drink, and where to shop to make your vacation-planning a breeze.
They’ve also delved into the history and pop culture of each spot, revealing hidden gems, most notorious true crimes, women you should know, horror books and movies set in the state, and other strange facts about some of the scariest places around the nation.
Here’s a small sampling of what you can expect to find in Travels of Terror:
- St. Augustine, Florida: Take an open air trolley on the Ghosts & Gravestones Tour to the Old St Augustine Cemetery, Potter’s Wax Museum, Old Jail Museum, and a bevy of churches with their own macabre past.
- Los Angeles, California: Stay at the haunted Hotel Roosevelt, where you may be visited by the ghosts of actors Errol Flynn and Montgomery Clift.
- Portland, Oregon: Grab a cocktail at Raven’s Manor, a horror-themed bar with drinks like the Black Widow, Lilith, and Draught of Asphyxiation.
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Learn about the most famous true crime to happen there, when the wife of the Allegheny County Jail warden fell in love with a convicted murderer.
- New York, New York: Celebrate Nia DaCosta, the first Black female director to have a film debut at the top of the box office, with the supernatural horror-slasher film Candyman in 2021.
- Austin, Texas: Pick up souvenirs for friends and family at The Glass Coffin, a vampire parlor and horror shop.
- Duluth, Minnesota: Visit Glensheen Mansion on the shores of Lake Superior, where Duluth’s most notorious murders occurred in 1977.
From big cities to small towns, get inspired to plan your own ghoulish getaway.
The Review
This was such a memorable and remarkable book. When I am not reading or writing, my specialty is paranormal investigation. I have always been into everything from UFOs to cryptids and ghosts. We recently featured an episode of our latest paranormal investigation with my team, Phenomenon Paranormal, on our YouTube channel. So when this book came across my path, I knew I had to dive head first.
The level of detail and insight the authors can give to this book drove me into the stories found within. The thing that stood out immediately was the level of different things the authors included in each city’s history, from the paranormal sightings and the infamous true crimes that put these cities on the map to the local sightings, films, and shows made there, and even the places a person will want to stay at and eat. The authors do an excellent job of not just presenting the information to the reader but instigating a sense of adventure and the need to hit the road, inspiring so many to delve into the strange, the macabre, and the unknown.
The Verdict
Insightful, engaging, and beautifully haunting, authors Kelly Florence and Meg Hafdahl’s “Travels of Terror” is a must-read paranormal nonfiction read meets travel guide. The knowledge and excitement that the authors bring to this subject matter and the adventurous tone the author’s writing strikes in the reader will have them returning to this book repeatedly. If you haven’t yet, be sure to grab your copy today!
Rating: 10/10
About the Authors
Kelly Florence teaches communication at Lake Superior College in Duluth, MN and is the creator of the Be a Better Communicator podcast. She received her BA in theatre from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and her MA in communicating arts from the University of Wisconsin-Superior. She has directed, produced, choreographed and stage managed for dozens of productions in Minnesota including Carrie The Musical through Rubber Chicken Theatre and Treasure Island for Wise Fool Theater. She is passionate about female representation in all media and particularly the horror genre.
Bram Stoker Award nominated Meg Hafdahl is the creator of numerous stories and books. Her fiction has appeared in anthologies such as Eve’s Requiem: Tales of Women, Mystery and Horror and Eclectically Criminal. Her work has been produced for audio by The Wicked Library and The Lift, and she is the author of three popular short story collections including Twisted Reveries: Thirteen Tales of the Macabre. Meg is also the author of the three novels; The Darkest Hunger, Daughters of Darkness, and Her Dark Inheritance called “an intricate tale of betrayal, murder, and small town intrigue” by Horror Addicts and “every bit as page turning as any King novel” by RW Magazine. Meg, also the co-host of the podcast Horror Rewind and co-author of The Science of Monsters, The Science of Women in Horror, The Science of Stephen King, The Science of Serial Killers, and the upcoming The Science of Witchcraft lives in the snowy bluffs of Minnesota.
