For travellers who like their Halloween shaken with champagne rather than cobwebs, the world is full of hideaways where glamour meets a good ghost story. Forget plastic pumpkins and haunted house rides – here is our selection of hotels that offer candlelit corridors, grand salons and just enough mystery to send a shiver down your spine. Pack courage alongside evening wear: these are Halloween adventures with style.
Château de Brissac, France
Rising above the Loire Valley vineyards, the “Giant of the Loire” is steeped in Renaissance splendour. The tallest château in France dazzles with gilded salons, velvet-draped galleries and a library that whispers refinement. You can stay on a bed-and-breakfast basis, at nighttime hearing stories of the “Green Lady” who is said to drift silently through the moonlit halls before waking to misty gardens and turreted towers.
Fairmont Banff Springs, Canada
Cradled by snow-dusted peaks, the “Castle in the Rockies” unites alpine luxury with a famously mysterious past. Stories linger of a bride forever descending the staircase and a bellman who still attends to guests long after his departure. Within, chandeliers scatter light across grand dining rooms, fires roar in sumptuous suites and the scent of pine drifts through marble halls. All while mountain silence carries faint echoes of forgotten footsteps.
Ballygally Castle Hotel, Northern Ireland
Perched above the Antrim Coast, Ballygally Castle combines seaside elegance with centuries of legend. Guests have long spoken of Lady Isobel Shaw, said to knock on bedroom doors before vanishing without a sound. Today you can enjoy roaring fires, sweeping coastal views and chic rooms that mix comfort with a whisper of the supernatural.
The Stanley Hotel, Colorado, USA
Overlooking the Rockies, the Stanley is a jewel of Edwardian elegance, forever linked to Stephen King’s The Shining. Its sweeping staircases and polished wood panelling are matched by accounts of phantom laughter and faint piano notes drifting after dark. Velvet furnishings, mountain air scented with pine and panoramic views combine to create an ambience where the line between the ordinary and the otherworldly feels wonderfully blurred.
Dragsholm Castle, Denmark
Dragsholm Castle has stood for over 800 years, blending refined hospitality with one of Europe’s richest collections of ghost stories; more than 100 spirits are said to linger within its walls. Guests speak of the “Grey Lady” bringing comfort, the “White Lady” drifting candle in hand and groans from the imprisoned Bishop Rønnow’s old cell. Today, Michelin-starred dining and elegant rooms contrast with its haunted past, offering visitors the rare thrill of sleeping where centuries of history and legend still stir.
