California Chills – Haunted Sites in San Diego
Start your tour of haunted San Diego at the historic Whaley House. Located in San Diego’s Old Town area, the Whaley House is one of the nation’s best-known haunted houses. Built in 1857, the house has been called the most haunted in the United States and has been attracting visitors for years since it opened to the public in 1960. The house was built on a former gallows site and was the scene of several gruesome deaths, including a suicide, the death of a young baby, and the demise of a girl who impaled herself on a clothesline nearby. Visitors have heard laughter, footsteps, and smelled cigar smoke and perfume in the house’s haunted halls, and the mirrors are reported to show ghostly figures.
Blocks away from the Whaley House is the El Campo Santo cemetery, which was built in 1849. Home to 477 bodies, the cemetery is said to host at least two ghosts, including that of Yankee Jim Robinson, who was hung at the nearby Whaley House and is said to haunt both sites. Visitors have noted chills, visions of shimmering figures and misfortunes to passing cars – no wonder, as several of the graves were paved over to make room for a road.
When you’re done in Old Town, head to Coronado for a visit to one of San Diego’s most famous landmarks – the historic Hotel Del Coronado. The Hotel Del was the site of at least two suicides and is said to host resident ghosts in rooms 3502 and 3312. These ghosts are well known to Coronadans – the Del’s staff even regularly invites them to their Christmas gatherings! You can catch a whiff of the ghosts of guests past as you stroll around the building’s Victorian grounds and walk seaside near lonely rocks and beach.
If the water catches your fancy, continue on to San Diego’s harbor to visit the Star of India, which is the world’s oldest active ship. The iron-hulled vessel has made over 21 circumnavigations of the globe along with a crew of sailors and passengers, many of whom came to a gruesome demise during accidents onboard. The Star of India’s most famous ghost is that of young stowaway John Campbell, who fell to his death and was buried at sea in the 1880s. Visitors to the ship can feel an icy hand gripping them near the site of his fall.
These are only a few of the haunted sites in San Diego, but are a great way to get acquainted not only with the city’s past, but its ghostly present. If you’re interested in more haunted sites, try the Ghosts and Graveyards tour, a nighttime trip through San Diego’s mysterious and ghostly destinations.
