Visiting Real Haunted Houses With Children: Travel Preparations for Families

A haunted house is a great travel destination for Halloween fall excursions and even year-round outings. When bringing along children, trips to real haunted houses call for meticulous travel preparations.

Gauge your Travel Companion

Young children should not visit real haunted houses. Take them instead to one of the many Halloween haunted houses that crop up toward the end of October and let them have fun. Visiting the real thing is best done with an older child or teenager who is not subject to fears, phobias or otherworldly impressions. In fact, a young skeptic makes for a most delightful travel companion when visiting a haunted house.

Choose a haunted House with Care

Woman's Day offers a listing of famous haunted houses that have a lot of history to explore. When bringing along children, it is a good idea to go for benign hauntings -- such as you might experience at the Queen Mary or Kewaunee Inn -- rather than the ghastlier ones like Bobby Mackey's demonic spirits. Take into consideration the child's age, interest in the building's history and overall willingness to visit the venue.

Book a Daytime Tour

Halloween haunted houses thrive on darkness and things that jump out and go bump. They create ghostly encounters by hook and by crook. Real haunted houses should not set up scary situations or use props, actors or cleverly disguised machinery to create ghostly illusions.

Avoid the likelihood of running into this type of tour by booking a daytime tour from an outfit that has a more scientific or historical interest in the venue. Your travel preparations should include a discussion with the tour operator. Highlight the fact that a child will accompany you and that -- rather than looking for sensational bloody details -- you are more hoping for a historically accurate and factually sound docent-led experience. It is a bonus if the tour guide dresses in period costume and adopts the manner of speech common at the time that the house was built.

Bring along Necessities

Water, snacks, wipes and the usual odds and ends are a good idea to bring along on any outing with children -- even older ones. Since famous haunted houses frequently feature dark corners and crevices, bring along a couple of flashlights and extra batteries. A couple of cameras are a good idea as well. Leave electronic games at home. Their Siren's song may be too strong for the youngster to resist -- especially if there are lulls in the tour.

Follow the Rules

A haunted house is frequently a working business or an actual residence. Make sure the child understands the rules. Prior to going off on the tour, run through possible dos and don'ts with the youngster. For example, peeking into occupied rooms of a hotel is a no-no; leaving the official tour to visit private living quarters in a home is also off-limits.

Lay the Groundwork for an Enjoyable Trip

Halloween haunted houses frequently have glow-in-the-dark signs depicting a chicken and an arrow. These signs point to what operators refer to as the "chicken exit." A visitor who simply cannot take it anymore -- or a child who is getting freaked out -- can leave via a marked exit. Real haunted houses do not have these exits, but the rule should be that you and the child will leave -- without giving the youngster a hard time -- if she feels that the venue is too much for her to handle.

Do not violate this rule; come back alone -- at a later time -- if you wish, but always put the child's needs, worries and fears first. Even if you are the skeptic, keep in mind that your child may have seen or heard something that you did not.

Source

Woman's Day: "12 Real-Life Haunted Destinations"