Gen Z is driving a 45% jump in Halloween weekend searches

Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, and travelers are building a full weekend around it-searching more, saving wishlists, and heading to one of the destinations that do Halloween best:

• Searches for stays over Halloween weekend are up nearly 15% year-over-year¹
• Interest is climbing across every generation, with Gen Z driving the sharpest increase-their searches are up almost 45%²
• Wishlists with Halloween-inspired titles are up almost 60% year-over-year³
• Salem, MA is the top trending US destination for the weekend⁴

For travelers still deciding where to spend Halloween weekend, or chasing the autumnal vibes year-round, Airbnb has rounded up 31 stays for five moods of October-from on screen landmarks, gothic estates, witchy retreats, cabins deep in the woods, and homes that hosts say may be genuinely haunted.

From screen to stay

October is peak rewatch season-from the horror classics that come back every year, to the sweater-weather comfort series set in a cozy small town with the iconic mother-daughter duo. These stays put travelers inside the frame:

• Buffalo Bill's House (Perryopolis, PA): The 1910 Queen Anne Victorian that served as the actual house in the 1991 five-time Academy Award-winning film. The original curio cabinet remains, and the basement is staged as an interactive set.
• Byers Home - 15 Min to ATL (Fayetteville, GA): With an eerie ambiance and meticulously recreated details that transport guests straight into Hawkins circa 1983, this home's exterior doubled as a beloved fictional family's residence.
• Horror-Themed Cabin! Retro & Scary Movie Inspired (Big Bear Lake, CA): This cabin comes complete with a replica movie bathroom including an axe in the door, ghostly special effects, and an escape-room mystery with its own backstory.
• Haunted Mansion-Inspired Ghoulish Sanctuary (Kissimmee, FL): The home that welcomes "foolish mortals," with three bedrooms each themed to different resident ghosts, flickering lights, creaky doors, and a dining room set for a "swinging wake."
• The Word Barn (Exeter, NH): An apartment in a renovated New England farm barn, in an idyllic country setting beside a literary and live-music venue.
• Catskills Modern Amber Lake Cottage (Livingston Manor, NY): A renovated former fishing cabin on the bank of Amber Lake, with its own dock and a short drive to Main Street.
• The Salem Porch House (Salem, MA): A 1913 Colonial Revival condo with a porch overlooking Salem Common, and a front-row seat to the trick-or-treat crowds.

Gothic grandeur

These houses have the bones for gothic: cold stone, hidden wings, and firelight. They span three centuries and two continents, from an 18th-century gothic mini-castle on an Irish estate to a Victorian with a hidden wing behind a bookcase door and a castle penthouse above the sea:

• The Hewitt (Philadelphia, PA): The 2,500-square-foot third floor of an 1886 Queen Anne Victorian mansion in historic Germantown, with a hidden east wing behind a bookcase door.
• Stay in a Castle Penthouse on Estate by the Sea (Portpatrick, United Kingdom): A penthouse in a turn-of-the-century castle on a large estate by the sea, with an original Baronial fireplace, velvet furniture, and a canopy bed cut to match the stained glass.
• Elegant and Peaceful Grade II House Near Dartmoor (Coryton, United Kingdom): A former rectory in a quiet valley, with a large dining hall, an open fire, and five acres of garden.
• Magical Gothic 3 Bedroom Mini-Castle (County Westmeath, Ireland): A recently restored 18th-century gothic mini-castle with ensuite bedrooms and access to the grounds of Killua Castle estate.
• Magnificent Victorian Townhouse with Parking (Jim Thorpe, PA): An 1871 Italianate Victorian, restored to original period detail, with a grand piano and a sitting parlor.
• Historic Montana Manor (Helena, MT): A restored 1890 mansion at the base of Mount Helena, with a wraparound porch, mountain views, and trails off the front step.

Witching hour

Witchy is having a moment this October: wishlists with "witch" in the title are up almost 15 percent.⁵ Salem, meanwhile-site of the infamous 1692 witch trials-is the top trending destination for Halloween weekend in the US.⁶ These homes committed to the mood long before the season came around:

• 8 Bedroom Mountain Retreat with Barrel Sauna (Windham, NY): An 1890s farmhouse on seven acres curated room by room by its artist hosts, with a fireplace, a piano, a barrel sauna, and a pond.
• Briar Vale ~ Fairy Tale Cottage (Logan, OH): A storybook cottage in the Hocking Hills countryside, with a window nook, a covered porch, and a flagstone path out to a hot tub and outdoor fireplace.
• Berkshires Black Abbey (Great Barrington, MA): An 1862 church converted over four years into a 4,000-square-foot home, with its original stained glass, a cedar sauna, and a game loft with a speakeasy-style bar.
• The Room of Dreams at Talliston (Great Dunmow, United Kingdom): A Moorish bedchamber with Zellige tiles under a canopy of glittering stars, inside a house transformed over 25 years into 13 locations set in different times and places.
• The Rhum Runner: Historic Magic by Garden District (New Orleans, LA): Half of a historic double home filled with antiques and moody lighting, with a dark mural room, a canopy bed opening onto a balcony, and a gazebo, only a block from the Garden District.
• The Salem Victorian - Dark Romantic Gothic Charm (Salem, MA): A private room in the 1864 Kinsman house, behind a wrought-iron gate and a black front door in Salem's McIntire District-steps from The Witch House.

Into the woods

Nothing says spooky season quite like a cabin in the woods. Some of these sit close enough to walk into town, with hot tubs, fire pits, and screened porches surrounded by peak foliage. Others are remote enough that the only thing overhead is a dark sky:

• Cabin on Versailles State Park Lake (Versailles, IN): A rustic cabin on Versailles Lake, bordered by the state park on three sides, with a private deck and the town square within walking distance.
• Eagle View Lodge - 1850's Log Cabin w/ Hot Tub (Ferryville, WI): An 1850s Appalachian cabin on a bluff above the Mississippi River valley, with a hot tub overlooking the water, a screened porch, a fire pit, and a hammock.
• Anam Cara Cabin: Magical Retreat on Idyllic Lake (Eagle Harbor Township, MI): Built of stone, timber, and bark at the end of a winding gravel road, with handmade lights, a wood-burning fireplace, and half a mile of shoreline under dark skies.
• Mountaintop Retreat with Wood Fired Hot Tub (Front Royal, VA): An architect-designed cabin retreat perched on a bluff atop the Blue Ridge, with wide views over the Shenandoah Valley.
• Secluded Oasis•Hot Tub•Blue Ridge Mountains (Vinton, VA): A cabin encased in hand-hewn pine logs, down a gravel drive that follows a winding creek through pine forest, with a hot tub, a deck, and a fire pit under the stars.
• Berkshire Treehouse Retreat (New Marlborough, MA): A two-level treehouse built from refurbished materials with a live tree running through it, with a general store and hiking trails within walking distance.

Stays with a spirited past

Some travelers want their haunted stay to be the real thing-and a few of these hosts hand them the equipment to go looking. Across a former morgue, an 1850 frontier hotel, and a cabin on a reclaimed coal mine, guests will find house histories the hosts recount in detail, unrestored wings, and, in two homes, ghost-hunting gear waiting in the room:

• Haunted Magnolia Hotel Bed & Breakfast (Seguin, TX): The entire second floor of an 1850 frontier hotel and stagecoach stop, including an unrestored eleven-room wing with no electricity, known as its most haunted part.
• Parks-Bowman Mansion: The Haunted Bedroom (New Orleans, LA): A third-floor room in a Garden District mansion. The hosts describe their resident ghost as a shy girl in an 1890s yellow dress, and guest reviews rank it among the most haunted stays on Airbnb.⁷
• Haunted 3-bedroom Mining Cabin in Death Valley (Beatty, NV): A remodeled historic miner's cabin from the early 1900s, once featured on a paranormal reality series, eight miles from the Death Valley park entrance.
• Historic Morgue and Paranormal Investigation! (Ozark, MO): A loft inside a building that served as a morgue, funeral home, church and museum, furnished in morgue decor, with a spirit box, an EMF detector, and dowsing rods for guests who want to investigate.
• Mystic Pond Cabin-Dark History! (Summersville, WV): A tiny cabin on a reclaimed coal mine site, where the host reports ghostly occurrences and Bigfoot sightings and leaves a basket of paranormal gear in the cabin.
• The Haunted House Apt 301 (Penetanguishene, Canada): A third-floor apartment in an 1885 Victorian built for a lumber baron, where the host says the staircase creaks, the original architecture "oozes with history," and the spirits never left.