State guide · 587 documented locations

Haunted California

California has 587 documented haunted locations in the HauntBound index. 522 are rated family-friendly, 190 take bookings, and 35 ghost-tour operators work the state.

California's haunted map runs the length of the state. Gold Rush ghost towns sit in the Sierra foothills and mission bell towers line the coast. San Francisco keeps its Victorian hotels in circulation as inns, while Los Angeles holds a dense cluster of downtown buildings and movie palaces carrying decades of layered history. More than 500 documented locations sit across this network, reaching north into wine country and east into the desert. Southern California carries the heaviest concentration, which is why the featured loop starts there: seven daytime stops between Santa Monica and the Inland Empire, four historic hotels for the overnight leg.

587 documented locations
522 family-friendly
190 bookable stays & events
37 regions mapped

Best season. Fall is this route at its best. The Pantages and Pasadena Playhouse both lean into October ghost-tour programming, and by then the Inland Empire's brutal summer heat has usually broken for the Riverside and Redlands leg.

Map of 586 documented haunted locations across California
586 pins · filter the list below to highlight

Ranked by depth of evidence

The most haunted places in California

Independent sources, documented history, how far back the reports go. Not legend, and never a commission.

  1. Hotel Del Coronado Coronado · Haunted Hotel / Inn
  2. Star of India (Maritime Museum of San Diego) San Diego · Museum / Historical Site
  3. Whaley House San Diego · Haunted House / Historic Home
  4. USS Hornet (CV-12) Alameda · Museum / Historical Site
  5. Comedy Store (former Ciro's nightclub) West Hollywood · Haunted Dining / Bar
See all 10 ranked, with the methodology →
Oldest documented Mission San Diego de Alcalá San Diego
Most documented USS Hornet (CV-12) Alameda
You can sleep here Hotel Del Coronado Coronado
Family pick Star of India (Maritime Museum of San Diego) San Diego

All 587, in one place

Browse California by region

Pick a region, city or type and the list and the map narrow together.

587 of 587

Southern

128Collapse

Bay Area

92Collapse

Central

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Los Angeles Metro

44Expand

Los Angeles

37Expand

Northern

36Expand

Central Coast

22Expand

Gold Country

20Expand

Sierra Nevada

17Expand

Sacramento Valley

16Expand

Inland Empire

14Expand

San Francisco Bay Area

13Expand

North Coast

13Expand

Central Valley

12Expand

San Diego Metro

8Expand

Southern California Coast

7Expand

Southern California High Desert

4Expand

North Bay Sonoma

4Expand

Northern California Bay Area

4Expand

Orange County

4Expand

Desert

3Expand

Central California Coast

2Expand

Eastern Sierra

2Expand

Santa Cruz Mountains

2Expand

Sacramento

2Expand

San Gabriel Valley

2Expand

Los Angeles County

2Expand

Inland Southern

1Expand

Mojave Desert

1Expand
  • Barker RanchDeath Valley National Park · True Crime SiteLow

Los Angeles South Bay

1Expand

Orange County Ca

1Expand

Shasta Cascade

1Expand

Antelope Valley

1Expand

North Bay

1Expand

Silicon Valley

1Expand

Santa Ynez Valley

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Elsewhere in California

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By city

By type

Plan the trip

Stay the night, eat well, investigate

Kept separate from the ranking: California's best-documented stays, dinners and overnight investigations, each with a booking path.

Top 10 Haunted stays Hotel Del Coronado · The Queen Mary · The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa · … Top 10 Ghost tours Ghost City Tours — San Diego · US Ghost Adventures Sacramento · American Ghost Walks — Los Angeles / Hollywood · … Top 10 Overnight investigations USS Hornet (CV-12) · Preston Castle · Kennedy Gold Mine · … Top 9 Pub crawls Ghost City Tours — San Diego · US Ghost Adventures Sacramento · US Ghost Adventures San Diego · … Top 10 Haunted bars & restaurants Comedy Store (former Ciro's nightclub) · Cosmopolitan Hotel (Casa de Bandini) · Brookdale Lodge · … 103 running This October Ghost tours, hunts, crawls and events with dates, grouped by type.

Those pages carry booking links, and some pay HauntBound a commission. Rankings never do. How the firewall works.

The public map

The California Haunted Trail

Every trail-eligible stop on one regional map, 10 of them shaped into a weekend. See the network first, then take the route.

Open the trail map →
Free by email

The weekend field guide

Southern California's haunted history runs through the buildings that built its legend: movie palaces where old-Hollywood moguls never checked out, a bank turned bookstore with a documented death in the elevator shaft, and a WWI memorial hall three ghost tour operators keep returning to. This route arcs from the Santa Monica shoreline through Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles into the Inland Empire, seven daytime stops you can walk right into, then offers four historic hotels, including a Mayan Revival Route 66 landmark, for the overnight leg. 7 daytime stops · 3 overnight

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Neighbouring states

Haunted OregonHaunted NevadaHaunted Arizona

Also for California

Trip Builder Full-screen map in Explore 35 ghost tours The California ranking

587 published locations; counts refresh with every build.