Macabre Traveler

Jen and Kristin hang a hard right and head up to Michigan’s Mackinac Island, home of turtles, a thriving fudge business, and GHOSTS. Like everywhere else in the Americas, it was home to Native Americans long before white people came and messed everything up. In fact, it is said to be home to the great spirit, Gitche Manitou, and the first land that appeared after the great flood receded.

The only state highway on the island is a loop (because it’s an ISLAND, BABE), and the island doesn’t allow cars except for emergency vehicles. Tourists are sometimes referred to as “fudgies” and Mackinac Island fudge is said to be amazing (Jen confirms). You have to get there by seaplane, ferry, or a highway ICE BRIDGE made of Christmas trees during the winter, which is rad.

The island is the site of many hauntings, including at a forced reeducation school for Native American and Meite children. One of the child ghosts is nicknamed “Lucy” and is said to follow people around, especially at Crow’s Nest Trail. You can sleep in the Grand Hotel...on top of a Native American burial ground. Or chill with a black mass who might knock you out… for a few days.

Or maybe just buy some fudge and get the fuck out.

Hey everybody! Kristin normally does the show notes but alas I am adrift without her, so here's my shot:

In this episode, we're heading to Hoia Forest, a haunted forest in Romania with a gnarly clearing and a portal to the OTHER SIDE. Please also enjoy tangents about math and (of course) Outlander.

Sources:

Frights and sights in Transylvania: exploring haunted Hoia Baciu - from the Guardian

In this bonus episode, Jen and Kristin were thrilled to spend some time with Chris Semtner, the curator at the Edgar Allen Poe Museum in Virginia. We talk about the museum's exhibits, Poe's work, and the lasting effects of his legacy on us today.

The spookiest thing about this episode is how weirdly bad our audio is. OUR BAD. It was Kristin’s birthday so we had to shimmy shimmy our recording situation.

Join us as we travel to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, home to a super cool and wacky house. A mystery house, if you will.

This house is chock full of windows, doors, staircases, HELLA stuff that was installed… Maybe to deter ghosts? To appease ghosts? For shits and gigs?

We’ll never know. But Sarah Winchester's biographer seems determined to ruin everyone's fun about it.

Hop on, strap in, and enjoy the wild ride through Sarah Winchester’s Mystery Mansion.

SOURCES:

Winchester Mystery House Website

Leap Castle might be the most haunted castle in the world, or at least in Ireland. It was built on an ancient Druid ceremonial site and fought over for centuries. Families fought within families to get control over this thing, including brothers killing brothers during CHURCH. Jeez, bros.

The castle is a Zillow ghost hunter’s dream, containing an oubliette, a banshee who is Jen's dream BFF, several ghosts, and an ancient entity. We recount several real-life accounts of encounters with the entity.

Are there gnomes in Kristin’s nose? Is Gaelic the most gorgeous, difficult language ever? How many accents can we attempt in one episode? Let’s find out.

SOURCES:

Leap Castle website

Ghost Adventures Leap Castle and Hell-Fire Club Season 2 Episode 8

Leap Castle is the Most Haunted Castle in Ireland and this story proves it by Mark Lyon in Irish Central

In the latest episode, Jen and Kristin head across the pond to jolly old England, pip pip, Cheerios, old chaps, to check out the Tower of London and all the fun and murder that happened in and around it.

We talk about the menagerie that used to be kept at the Tower; the many, many, too many people killed there; Guy Fawkes’ Gun Powder plot and how Jen can’t say “effigy;” the little Lost Princes; and much more. And, of course, ghosts: Does Anne Boleyn walk around carrying her head? Is there a giant bear waiting to scare the bejesus out of tourists?

Listen and find out.

SOURCES:

The Story of the Tower of London, from Historic Royal Palaces

Join Kristin and Jen as we crack open a road soda and visit New Orleans for a second time. This time we head to the Bourbon New Orleans Hotel, right down the street from Madame LaLaurie’s house. The Bourbon New Orleans Hotel offers beautiful rooms, a cool bar, and a saltwater pool, which Jen will never swim in.

We talk about the construction of the theater and ballroom (where Jen caught a ghost on camera!), the infamous quadroon balls, and how every creepy place had to have once been a convent and/or a girl’s school. There are over 20 known ghosts in the hotel, and we talk about them as well as the difference between residual and intelligent hauntings.

Sources

Bourbon Orleans Hotel page on Haunted Journeys

In this episode of the Macabre Traveler, Jen and Kristin cover the infamous LaLaurie Mansion and the notorious Madame Delphine LaLaurie (as well as her numerous, confusingly named children — for real, don’t name your children the same names. It’s weird).

Suspicious deaths. Enslaved people locked away and possibly… experimented upon? Crab people? A human caterpillar? Brain spoons?

This story is cloaked in mystery and legend and all kinds of delicious weirdness… but what’s truth, and what’s good old-fashioned scary stories?

Listen and find out.

Sources

Madame LaLaurie’s Most Sickening Acts Of Torture And Murder from All That’s Interesting

Join Jen and Kristin for our special VALENTINE’S DAY episode!

Since Valentine’s Day is GROSS, we’re celebrating in true macabre fashion… with MURDER.

We talk about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, how to dress like a snorky mobster, and why you should always run a little bit late.

Sources

In January's bonus episode, Jen and Kristin talk to three listeners who describe their experiences with haunted houses and hotels.

In this episode, Kristin and Jen head to one of the darkest places and times in the world’s history: the Killing Fields in Cambodia. We’re starting the show notes and the episode with a trigger warning: We discuss extreme violence, including genocide and torture, including against women and children. Please listen at your own discretion.

Just a generation ago, between 1975-1979, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge systematically killed over a quarter of Cambodia’s population. No one in Cambodia was unaffected and the people and country are still affected to this day.

People considered threats to the regime — intellectuals, ethnic minorities, and, as time went on, anyone who was vaguely “suspicious” — were sent for re-education at one of nearly 200 prison camps throughout Cambodia. We focus on two sites in Phnom Penh, S-21 and Choeung Ek.

Approximately 20 THOUSAND prisoners entered S-21 — and only seven left alive. From there, most prisoners were sent to the Killing Fields. There were hundreds of sites of killing, but the most famous of those is known as Choeung Ek and is approximately 10 miles away.

We discuss visiting S-21, meeting a survivor there, and visiting Choeung Ek — but we also discuss what prisoners of the regime went through, conscripted child soldiers, and more.

There are many lessons to be learned through the story of the Killing Fields, but we are reminded through retelling these stories that they are a stark lesson about the recent, bitter past and to ensure the lives lost are never forgotten. But they also serve to remind us to stay vigilant against the darkness: the darkness that works in the world, and the darkness that lies within each one of us.

Sources

The History of Cambodia’s Killing Fields; The Culture Trip

In episode 4, we visit tiny hamlet Lily Dale in New York. Lily Dale is home to less than 300 people year round—and over FIFTY are registered mediums. Is there such a thing as a town occupation?

Every summer, over 20 THOUSAND people visit Lily Dale for spiritualism-related workshops, events, readings, and more.

Jen and Kristin discuss the foundations of Lily Dale and spiritualism itself, as well as how both have evolved to present day. Where do we go when we die? What happens? Is it the same for all of us?

Will there be chocolate, and warm socks, and good sex?

(Note from the hosts: If not, we are not going.)

Join us as we discuss old-timey seances, modern-day mystics, and what makes Lily Dale special.

Sources

In this episode, Jen and Kristin drag along our friend and patron of the podcast Lauren Ocello to the Paris Catacombs. Did you know how and why the catacombs were first created? Because the bodies were PILING up in the streets of Paris so much the wine was turning bad. Solution? Create the biggest Poltergeist nightmare EVER by moving between six to seven million bones from their resting places to some smelly old Roman mines. GREAT IDEA, EVERYONE.

Luckily for creeps like us (and all the spoiled milk and wine and, you know, general sanitation of Paris), it was, and now we have the amazing gift of the catacombs. We talk about how people have been exploring the catacombs (and throwing secret parties) for over a hundred years, how to explore them (legally) now, and people who have gotten lost… sometimes forever. Of course, we talk about what else you can do in Paris — like eat lots of amazing unpasteurized cheese and charcuterie, drink beautiful wine, and spoil yourself with pastries. We also talk about where to find the COOLEST curiosity and oddity shop in Paris, museums and bars we loved, and other can’t miss spots in Paris for the tres creepy chic in all of us.

In our last episode, we covered some of Salem’s dark past. In this episode, we talk about visiting Salem in present-day, including October’s Haunted Happenings, the annual Halloween Ball, and places we’ve visited and loved.

Sources

Welcome to our BONUS episode!