Boston 2023 - Salem AKA "Witch City" Day

Well today was a long, but VERY fun day! We had to take the subway to a train station, which would take us to Salem. It was an early day, but we were able to get there just in time. Funny thing is, at the train station we noticed two women that were at the subway station looking at the same stops as us, so I decided to go over and ask if they were also going to Salem. They were AND they were from Utah and Idaho like us! What are the odds? We found out they were step-sisters and we talked about our plans in Salem and their plans to compare. 

They decorate BIG here

Once we got to Salem, we took our self-guided walking tour on my phone. It took us to so many good spots with LOTS of good information. It did kind of weird out next to the Salem Witch Victim Memorial area and started playing random stops and moving from where we were (I can't tell if it was from an old phone or if the ghosts were messing with us haha). Some of the favorite spots was the Witch House and the spots that were filmed for Hocus Pocus.

Pressed to death!

We stopped for lunch at a Tavern in a ritzy hotel. the food was okay, but very pricey (and pretty slow service). We had wanted to stop by a place called Witches Brew, but it was closed for lunch, it seemed, so that was a bit of a bummer. We went to a pub by The Witches Brew, but it only had like 2 food options we'd consider and so we decided to leave and find something better. So the Tavern being open and having lot of options seemed like a winner at the time. We looked at other places to stop at since we knew we didn't plan enough. We wanted to do the Salem Witch Museum, but it was one you had to reserve in advance, so we had to skip that. We found a Witch Dungeon we added to our itinerary, but first we stopped at the Pirates Museum. This was actually really cool, a bit different than I expected, but really interesting from a historical perspective. 

The dance hall from Hocus Pocus

"Allison's House" from Hocus Pocus
Also, a haunted house too!

After that we hit up the Witch Dungeon to check out. This one was cool, however, it seemed to be more of a recreation than an actual place. With that in mind, it was still informative and a cool stop. We also walked an outdoor mall they had and did a LOT OF shopping and getting fun souvenirs. We found a shop that had some of the softest sweaters ever! We also saw some fun characters dressed up for pictures there. 

Real pirate treasure

We decided to stop for dinner before our ghost tour. We found out the Witches Brew place was finally open so we stopped there, turns out it was being sold so they didn't have a lot of food options so we left there. We were headed to closer to where the Ghost Tour was going to start to find a food place, but we saw a long peninsula out to a lighthouse and I LOVE seeing those so we walked out to get pictures and then rushed over to find a dinner place. We found a place called Boston Burgers that was probably one of the most delicious burger places I've ever eaten at! I decided to order a BLT Burger (yes, nothing super new, but I knew if I ordered something I didn't like I wasn't going to be able to eat for many hours so I had to get something that was more of a guarantee). Stace ordered a Mac N Cheese burger and, I'll be honest, I kind of wanted to try some, it looked pretty good. 

I'm obsessed with lighthouses

After that we went and did our ghost tour. That was probably my favorite part. I always expect them to be spookier, which it wasn't, but I loved how much of the history we learned and how the guide presented the information to make it feel more unbiased and clear. I loved that. I learned on this tour that Salem didn't even embrace it's "Witch City" history until Bewitched filmed a couple episodes there. Before that it was more of an embarrassment to them. Now the stores earn 40% of their profits during October alone. It was even better that it rained almost our whole day in Salem so that helped with the ominous tones of the city. One of my favorite stops was a street called something "Charleston" street. It was such a wide street with the most beautiful houses and it was lined with some amazing trees that were so tall and the leaves were falling all over the road. I guess it was built to be the nicest part of the city, for sure! Even though the houses are millions of dollars, if I could move to this area that's where I'd live.

After our ghost tour we had to rush to the train station to get on the last train of the day. That part was a little stressful since we only had one shot to get on the right train or we'd be SOL on getting back to Boston (it's a couple hours away if you try and do the bus or anything). Luckily, people in Salem are as nice and helpful as Boston so we found some people that helped us figure out the train and we got on it without any problems. It took us a LONG time to get back to our hotel and we're DOG tired, but it was so worth it. 

Overall, this has been my favorite day on our trip and I'm so glad we fit it in. I loved the souvenirs we found and I loved all the things to see. When I pictured being in New England, Salem fits that picture the most. The trees still weren't fully changed, but it was still pretty. I loved the plaques on the houses that showed who it was originally built for and when.