10 Festive Halloween Attractions & Activities

It’s that time of the year again when most of us can finally pack away the shorts & flip flops, turn off the air conditioning and feel the cool breeze coming in through the windows, and enjoy all types of pumpkin treats and festive fall and Halloween attractions. With an abundance of seasonal fun and treats including pumpkin spice lattes, fall color hikes, pumpkin patches and farmer’s markets, Halloween attractions, and more to enjoy, this time of the year offers an endless supply of fun for the fall lovers out there! I love fall weather, horror movies, everything pumpkin, hiking and leaf peeping, and most of all, seeking out festive local Halloween events!

Halloween is just around the corner and there is spooky fun to be had just about everywhere. No matter where you live, you can find fun fall and Halloween activities near you. Check out my list of several of the most festive Halloween events & activities throughout the US. A fall getaway to any of these areas will provide you with more than enough opportunities to get into the holiday spirit. Even if you cannot attend any of these events in person, just seeing the festive pictures will make you want to watch some fun Halloween movies!

1. The Jack O’Lantern Spectacular

Location: The Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island

The Roger Williams Park Zoo hosts one of most festive & elaborate Halloween celebrations in the country. Each October, over 5000 Jack O’Lanterns illuminate the grounds of New England’s top zoo. More than 100 artistic creations are incorporated into a special theme each year. The elaborate detail put into each pumpkin is simply astonishing. It takes 15-20 hours for an artist to create each one! And, as we all know, carved pumpkins go bad quickly, and thus, Jack O’Lanterns must be replaced each week!

The zoo does a terrific job organizing the creative pumpkin display. The entire setup is just gorgeous with glowing Jack O’Lanterns everywhere, even up in the trees. The best part of all is that the theme changes every year so you can come back again and again to view these artistic masterpieces. One of my favorites was “American Treasures,” a celebration of our nation’s history through commemorative postage stamps.

More info & pics from the Jack O’Lantern Spectacular

More Halloween fun in the Providence area: The Providence Ghost tours at Prospect Terrace Park, Scary acres haunted hayride in Cranston, and so much more. I also recommend trying out a great pumpkin dish like the delicious Pumpkin Ravioli at Pizzico, located in downtown Providence.

2. The Plymouth Night Tour

Location: Plymouth, Massachusetts

Plymouth is a city rich in history, and with this comes many spooky ghost stories passed down over the years. Plymouth Night Tours are not your ordinary ghost tours. Although many areas of the country offer these spooky tours as soon as October rolls around, few have the creepiness factor & haunted history of this amazing Plymouth tour. For starters, this walking tour takes you through one of the country’s oldest & most haunted cemeteries: Burial Hill where the oldest gravestone dates back to 1681! Additionally, as one of the country’s oldest cities, Plymouth has a long history of paranormal sightings. You will hear many spooky stories during the course of your tour.

The tour guides are lively and personable and more than willing to share their personal ghost stories. This tour does not feel like one out just to take your money, rather the staff seem really passionate about what they do, the Plymouth area, and Halloween & ghosts in general. It’s by far the best ghost tour I’ve ever taken. Hearing stories of local ghost sightings will truly make you question whether or not ghosts really exist! If you once doubted the presence of ghosts, you might reconsider your stance! On this ghost tour, you will get to test out real ghost hunting equipment such as EMF meters – these just happened to go off like crazy in the cemetery during my tour! Throw in fall foliage, chilly fall weather, creepy historical architecture, and you have one spooky Halloween tour!

More info about the Plymouth Night Tour

More Halloween fun in the Plymouth area: Halloween on Main Street (a free event held each year on Halloween night featuring an abundance of festive free seasonal activities to enjoy), lots of festive Halloween parties, Sauchuk Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch in Plympton, Ghost tours at Town Hall, and much more. I also highly recommend a fall hike at beautiful Myles Standish State Forest – the colors are amazing this time of year!

3. Mickey’s Halloween Party

Location: Walt Disney World Resort’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida

Halloween and theme park fanatics will be absolutely delighted with Disney World’s super festive annual Halloween celebration. This special ticketed festival runs select nights from mid-August through Halloween. This is the most festive and fun time to visit the park for Halloween lovers as there is just so much decor and fall treats to enjoy. Other benefits of attending this event include fewer crowds, shorter ride wait times, and slightly cooler temperatures.

The level of Halloween related fun is hard to top here. One would think Halloween in Orlando does not sound like the ideal place to be, however, so much effort is put into this celebration, you won’t even care about the lack of foliage and unusually warm fall climate. From the moment you walk in, it’s all Halloween. Main Street USA is decorated gorgeously with autumn decor and 100’s of glowing Jack o’lanterns.

Additional Halloween activities including Trick R’ Treating stations throughout the park (yes adults can trick or treat too!), a haunted stage show, an incredible Halloween themed fireworks show at the castle, a special Halloween parade with a headless horsemen, special fall pumpkin treats, Halloween music, and so much more! Rides like Pirates and The Haunted Mansion are even more fun this time of the year. There is a ghost lady entertaining guests in front of The Haunted Mansion as well as many other costumed characters including your favorite villains from both new & classic Disney films.

Best of all, the wait times for the rides are virtually non existent. Most guests are spread throughout the theme park enjoying the various Halloween festivities, and thus, traffic is not centered just around the rides.

Check out the amazing Halloween themed fireworks show! 

More info about Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party

More Halloween fun in the Orlando area: Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios, Zoo Boo Bash at the Central Florida Zoo, and the Pumpkin Harvest at Green Meadows farm.

4. Haunted Harbor Cruise

Location: Salem, Massachusetts

How does a relaxing boat cruise, chilly overcast weather, pretty fall foliage, local ghost stories, & festive seasonal decor and Halloween activities sound? If this sounds like the ideal fall/Halloween activity to you, then you may just want to plan a vacation to Salem for the seasonal Haunted Harbor Halloween Cruise. There is so much to do in Salem for Halloween (they have a whole webpage devoted to Halloween events!). Salem truly is the Halloween capital of the US!

You won’t find a Halloween cruise anywhere near as festive at this one. Seriously, they have just about everything on board including seasonal pumpkin beers, spooky music, and lots of Halloween decorations. And if that isn’t enough, you will also get to enjoy a number of fun Halloween activities including tarot card readings, face paintings, and listening to spooky legends of Salem ghost hauntings.

Asides from the fantastic Halloween ambiance, it’s also a nice place to take a relaxing fall foliage cruise. While hiking is an excellent way to soak in the beauty of New England’s gorgeous fall color season, sometimes it’s nice to relax and take in the colorful foliage from another viewpoint.

More fun things to do in Salem for Halloween

More Halloween fun in Salem: Salem has a full lineup of Halloween fun for the entire month of October. A few must-do’s include a visit to Count Orlok’s Horror Nightmare Wax Gallery, the Salem Haunted Magic Show, Tours of the haunted House of Seven Gables, and visiting the Salem Witch Trials Memorial & reportedly haunted Old Burying Ground Cemetery.

5. The Lizzie Borden House

Location: Fall River, Massachusetts

Fall River, a historical town just an hour outside of Boston, is most well known for the infamous Lizzie Borden case. This home is reportedly haunted, most likely due to the gruesome nature of the murders that occurred in this house in the late 1800’s. Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the gruesome murders of both her parents, however, to this date the case remains a mystery. Many still believe that she murdered them and continues to haunt the house.

Have you ever heard the Lizzie Borden rhyme?

“Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.”

The house now operates as a bed and breakfast. Because of the hauntings, many who attempt to spend the night in this eerie residence are just too creeped out and end up checking out before the night is over. Those who would like to keep the experience a bit more tame can sign up for a guided afternoon tour.

As soon as you step into this eerie old house, you can almost feel that something went terribly wrong here. The tour guide passing around bloody case pictures & sharing stores of the gruesome details doesn’t help all that much. It really is not shocking that so many people have claimed to have seen ghosts here. Touring the Lizzie Borden house is a must do when visiting Fall River or nearby cities like Boston and Providence (it makes for a great day trip!). Of course, tours are all the more spooky during the Halloween season. For a little extra holiday fun, the house now offers ghost cams on select dates.

More info & pics from the Lizzie Borden house tour

More Halloween fun in Fall River: The (incredibly scary) Factory of Terror haunted house, Battleship Boo Bash at the USS Massachusetts, and various ghost tours.