With Halloween approaching, Upgraded Points has conducted a light-hearted study to unveil which U.S. cities extend the warmest welcome to wandering spirits. This study involved 100 major U.S. cities, taking into consideration various metrics that could make them prime locations for supernatural encounters. They scrutinized the cities using 11 essential criteria pivotal for identifying ghostly hotspots.
Upgraded Points, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a travel company that conducts targeted research and in-depth studies to assist travelers in optimizing their experiences. Factors used to determine the phantom-friendly results include ghost sightings per 100,000 people, haunted houses per 100,000 households, psychic mediums per 100,000 people, metaphysical shops per 100,000 people, median build-year of buildings, and cemeteries per 100,000 people. Each criterion was assigned a score ranging from 0 to 5. The culmination of these scores resulted in a total potential score ranging from 0 to 100, with 100 signifying the most favorable conditions for ghosts.
Based on the scores, the top cities are:
- Springfield, Massachusetts, leads the pack with a hospitality rating of 61.8 out of 100, proudly featuring 13.8 haunted houses per 100,000 households and buildings with a median age of 64 years.
- Pennsylvania cities like Scranton (second place) and Pittsburgh (fifth place) shine in this study due to their numerous houses built before 1940, making them particularly attractive for spirits with a penchant for the past.
- Birmingham, Alabama, proudly ranks third, featuring a substantial 14.7 haunted houses per 100,000 households.
- Syracuse, New York, secures the fourth position, with nearly 25% of its homes constructed prior to 1940.
- Rounding out the top ten are Dayton, Ohio, with two-and-a-half graves per person; Knoxville, Tennessee, with more than 0.5 metaphysical shops per 100,000 people; Akron, Ohio, with approximately two ghost sightings per 100,000 people; New Orleans, Louisiana, with more than 12 haunted houses per 100,000 people; and Greenville, South Carolina, with 133 cemeteries per 100,000 people.
Other notable rankings include Tulsa, Oklahoma, which has nearly 160 haunted houses per 100,000 households; Las Vegas, Nevada, with about eight mediums per 100,000 people; and El Paso, Texas, which boasts the most ghost sightings—22.6 per 100,000 people—beating the national average by 975%.
For those seeking a ghost-free environment, western cities like Seattle, Phoenix, and San Diego are among the least ghost-friendly destinations.
