Spooky Savannah: A Guide to the City's Haunts

Savannah has every ingredient for a spooky getaway: ghosts, graveyards, gloomy underground tunnels and graceful mansions with grim histories. Gather up your ghostbusters and head for Savannah's haunted halls to encounter things that go bump in the night—and in broad daylight. For non-spooky activities see our Savannah travel guide.

Haunts in the House

There's nothing like a Gothic mansion for ghostly goings-on, and Savannah's historic district is full of them. You can visit houses and taverns dating to the 1700s that creak, rattle, moan and whisper of an unquiet past. Drop by the Hampton Lillibridge House, the scene of an exorcism that did nothing to stop the voices and footsteps. You might hear a woman screaming, see a man in a dark suit in a window and witness other disturbing evidence of the paranormal. A crypt was discovered under the foundation during renovation, adding to the home's infamy as the most haunted house in Savannah.

Ghostly Goings-On

The Olde Pink House, built in the late 1700s, is a restaurant now. Stop by for a meal and you might glimpse the ghost of original owner James Habersham, who took his life in grief over the death of his wife. He likes to waft in, unseen, and straighten place settings and chairs. Legend has it that the Habersham children delight in locking guests in the ladies bathroom.

A Tragic Regency Romance

The imposing Sorrel-Weed House, built in the mid-1800s by a wealthy shipping merchant, is an extraordinary example of Greek-Revival and Regency architecture. It's also the setting for lurid tales of infidelity, a young wife's suicidal jump from a second-story balcony, a slave mistress found hanging in the Carriage House, and phantom figures seen wafting about the windows and murmuring unseen in nearby rooms. You can take a history tour to see fine architecture—or a mystery tour to experience phantom apparitions.

Shanghaied Specters

The Pirates' House was connected to the rowdy waterfront by a tunnel from the rum cellar, or so you'll hear when you drop by this spooky lunch spot for chicken gumbo and shrimp Parmesan. The 1753 seaman's hangout supplied unwilling recruits for merchant and pirate ships—inebriated patrons were spirited through the tunnel and woke up aboard, shanghaied to a sailing crew. Captain Flint of Treasure Island is said to haunt the upstairs rooms, leaving below decks for the specters of the kidnapped crews.

Cemetery Shade(s)

Grave matters unsettle the peaceful tombstones and mausoleums of Bonaventure Cemetery, an ethereal, moss-draped Southern Gothic garden for the dead. Visit tiny Gracie Watson, who died from pneumonia at just 6 years old in 1889. She's buried under a life-like statue commissioned by her grieving father. People swear the statue weeps. You'll hear whispers and rustlings at Bonaventure, as well as at the even older Colonial Park Cemetery, first used in 1750.

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