World's Spookiest Spots

Oct. 27, 2007, Special to ABCNEWS.com — -- If you're looking for ghosts and ghouls this month, chances are you'll get a better fright in Romania than you will trick-or-treating down Elm Street.

Head to a region of the country known as Transylvania and you'll find Bran Castle, also called "Dracula's Castle." It's said that Dracula author Bram Stoker based the novel's seductive, blood-sucking vampire on the very real 15th-century Prince Vlad the Impaler, who lived in the castle from 1456 to 1462.

The scary space is now a museum. Step inside, and its gothic architecture, winding stairways and narrow, underground passages alone might send a chill up your spine. If that doesn't do the trick, attend any number of daily "witch trials" reenacted on the castle's grounds. Here, actors recreate the vicious methods of torture, including hangings, burnings at the stake and beheadings, that Vlad the Impaler used on his enemies.

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Those kinds of frights prove popular. Bran Castle, which is on the market for an estimated $140 million, draws over half a million visitors a year and brings in over $60 million in expenditures, such as lodging, ground transportation and souvenirs, according to Simion Alb, director of the Romanian Tourist Office, North America.

Not prepared to fly to Eastern Europe? Dracula's Castle isn't the only petrifying place cashing in on its dark past.

"Haunted is becoming very popular," says Jeff Belanger, author of The World's Most Haunted Places and Encyclopedia of Haunted Places. "In some locations, ghosts are part of the marketing plan."

That seems to be the case in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. Each October, visitors gather here to catch a glimpse of an actor playing The Headless Horseman from Washington Irving's novel The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ride through the area. Those in town for the Hudson Valley's Legend Weekends (this year, Oct. 19-21 and Oct. 26-28) head to the candlelit Philipsburg Manor, previously a milling site, and wander the 25 acres of grounds while actors playing ghosts, goblins, witches and pirates come to life. The neighboring towns of Irvington and Tarrytown offer visitors haunted hayrides, street fairs and all-ages storytelling nights.