Shows
Macabre TravelerEpisode 19: Deadwood. Do You Even Fester, BRUH?In this episode, we explore historic Deadwood and some of the peeps who have lived and died — and lived on — in this Wild West town. Made famous during the Gold Rush, this settlement became a city that “played by its own rules,” which means no rules. An entire city block was occupied by nothing but brothels, and prostitution was legal until the 1980s.
If you lived and/or died in Deadwood, you had to have a cool nickname. We discuss Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Poker Alice, and Potato Creek Johnny, and the resting place for most of them...
2021-07-0834 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 18: The Bermuda Triangle. Please Affix Your Tin Foil Hat Before Helping Your Child.Welcome to the Bermuda Triangle and to allergy season! Jen and Kristin debate what the best flavor cold and flu medication is, whether colors are flavors, and how we survived to adulthood as children of the late 80s and early 90s.
There are some things it seems we have inherent knowledge of: Quicksand, who the villain in Scooby-Doo would be, and the Bermuda Triangle are the top three. Maybe the knowledge was implanted there by the ancient Atlanteans or aliens, or maybe it was our recent COVID-19 vaccines, but it seems like the Bermuda Triangle has always...
2021-06-2439 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 17: Mackinac Island. Get Your Fudge and Get the Fuck outJen and Kristin hang a hard right and head up to Michigan’s Mackinac Island, home of turtles, a thriving fudge business, and GHOSTS. Like everywhere else in the Americas, it was home to Native Americans long before white people came and messed everything up. In fact, it is said to be home to the great spirit, Gitche Manitou, and the first land that appeared after the great flood receded.
The only state highway on the island is a loop (because it’s an ISLAND, BABE), and the island doesn’t allow cars except for emergency vehicles. Touris...
2021-06-1028 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 16: Hoia ForestHey everybody! Kristin normally does the show notes but alas I am adrift without her, so here's my shot:
In this episode, we're heading to Hoia Forest, a haunted forest in Romania with a gnarly clearing and a portal to the OTHER SIDE. Please also enjoy tangents about math and (of course) Outlander.
Sources:
Frights and sights in Transylvania: exploring haunted Hoia Baciu - from the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/oct/29/transylvania-hoia-baciu-haunted-forest-cluj-napoca-romania-culture
HOIA BACIU: INSIDE THE CREEPIEST FOREST IN TRANSYLVANIA - from the independent
https...
2021-05-2724 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 15: The Crescent Hotel. Maybe It’s a Ghost, Maybe You Locked Your Knees.Join Jen and Kristin as they go to the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas — America’s Most Haunted Hotel. Kristin is super psyched about the weird medical stuff and wacky con men, and Jen is psyched because she actually went there — without wacky medical stuff or con men, sadly.
We talk about the history (of course, it was once a young woman’s school, because all haunted places must be), its current iteration as a fancy-ass hotel, the ghosts, and, of course, the bad doctor (who dressed like old-timey Elton John): Norman Baker.
Come join us...
2021-05-1323 minMacabre TravelerBONUS: Interview with Chris Semtner, Curator of the Edgar Allen Poe MuseumIn this bonus episode, Jen and Kristin were thrilled to spend some time with Chris Semtner, the curator at the Edgar Allen Poe Museum in Virginia. We talk about the museum's exhibits, Poe's work, and the lasting effects of his legacy on us today.
Check out the museum here: http://www.poemuseum.org/
And Chris Semtner's amazing work here: https://chrissemtner.com/
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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/macabretraveler/support
2021-05-0827 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 14: The Myrtles Plantation. MAGA Hats: The New Confederate MoneyOn this episode of Macabre Traveler, the travel, history, and dark humor podcast for the places that love to scare you, Jen and Kristin are visiting one of the most famous haunted places in the US: the Myrtles Plantation.
Maybe it’s the legends that surround the Myrtles. Maybe it’s the plain fact that so much human suffering occurred there. Maybe it’s just the fog and the mist hanging off the myrtle trees.
Maybe it’s Maybelline.
Whatever it is, join us as we talk about the history of the plantation, the lege...
2021-04-2922 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 13: The Winchester Mystery House. Half a Billion is Halfway to Happiness.The spookiest thing about this episode is how weirdly bad our audio is. OUR BAD. It was Kristin’s birthday so we had to shimmy shimmy our recording situation.
Join us as we travel to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, home to a super cool and wacky house. A mystery house, if you will.
This house is chock full of windows, doors, staircases, HELLA stuff that was installed… Maybe to deter ghosts? To appease ghosts? For shits and gigs?
We’ll never know. But Sarah Winchester's biographer seems determined to ruin everyo...
2021-04-1527 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 12: Leap Castle. Say it Spooky, Make it Fashun.Leap Castle might be the most haunted castle in the world, or at least in Ireland. It was built on an ancient Druid ceremonial site and fought over for centuries. Families fought within families to get control over this thing, including brothers killing brothers during CHURCH. Jeez, bros.
The castle is a Zillow ghost hunter’s dream, containing an oubliette, a banshee who is Jen's dream BFF, several ghosts, and an ancient entity. We recount several real-life accounts of encounters with the entity.
Are there gnomes in Kristin’s nose? Is Gaelic the most gorgeous, diff...
2021-04-0135 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 11: The Tower of London. From Coronation to Choppination.In the latest episode, Jen and Kristin head across the pond to jolly old England, pip pip, Cheerios, old chaps, to check out the Tower of London and all the fun and murder that happened in and around it.
We talk about the menagerie that used to be kept at the Tower; the many, many, too many people killed there; Guy Fawkes’ Gun Powder plot and how Jen can’t say “effigy;” the little Lost Princes; and much more. And, of course, ghosts: Does Anne Boleyn walk around carrying her head? Is there a giant bear waiting to scare...
2021-03-1836 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 10: Bourbon Orleans Hotel. Mr. Clean That Shit!Join Kristin and Jen as we crack open a road soda and visit New Orleans for a second time. This time we head to the Bourbon New Orleans Hotel, right down the street from Madame LaLaurie’s house. The Bourbon New Orleans Hotel offers beautiful rooms, a cool bar, and a saltwater pool, which Jen will never swim in.
We talk about the construction of the theater and ballroom (where Jen caught a ghost on camera!), the infamous quadroon balls, and how every creepy place had to have once been a convent and/or a girl’s scho...
2021-03-0435 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 9: The LaLaurie Mansion. Crab Woman Scuttles Across French Quarter?In this episode of the Macabre Traveler, Jen and Kristin cover the infamous LaLaurie Mansion and the notorious Madame Delphine LaLaurie (as well as her numerous, confusingly named children — for real, don’t name your children the same names. It’s weird).
Suspicious deaths. Enslaved people locked away and possibly… experimented upon? Crab people? A human caterpillar? Brain spoons?
This story is cloaked in mystery and legend and all kinds of delicious weirdness… but what’s truth, and what’s good old-fashioned scary stories?
Listen and find out.
Sources
Madame LaLauri...
2021-02-1841 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 8: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre. If You Aren’t on an FBI List, Are You Even Living?Join Jen and Kristin for our special VALENTINE’S DAY episode!
Since Valentine’s Day is GROSS, we’re celebrating in true macabre fashion… with MURDER.
We talk about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, how to dress like a snorky mobster, and why you should always run a little bit late.
Sources
History.com, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
https://www.history.com/topics/crime/saint-valentines-day-massacre
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre from the Chicago Tribune
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/chi-chicagodays-valentinesmassacre-story-story.html
8 Things You...
2021-02-0438 minMacabre TravelerBONUS: Listener Stories. Haunted Houses Edition.In January's bonus episode, Jen and Kristin talk to three listeners who describe their experiences with haunted houses and hotels.
Do you have a haunting, scary, or macabre experience? Get in touch with us on social media or write to us at themacabretraveler@gmail.com!
Many thanks to our interviewees!
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This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/macabretraveler/support
2021-02-0154 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 7: Lizzie Borden. The Lizzie Borden Murder Tip LineThe Borden murders are one of the most famous unsolved murders in America, over 100 years later. Today, Jen and Kristin head to the Lizzie Borden house, which, if you haven’t heard much of the case itself, you’re definitely aware of the DOPE nursery rhyme the case inspired:
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.
Andrew Borden now is dead,
Lizzie hit him on the head.
Up in heav...
2021-01-2158 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 6: The Killing Fields. From Terrible to Terrible.In this episode, Kristin and Jen head to one of the darkest places and times in the world’s history: the Killing Fields in Cambodia. We’re starting the show notes and the episode with a trigger warning: We discuss extreme violence, including genocide and torture, including against women and children. Please listen at your own discretion.
Just a generation ago, between 1975-1979, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge systematically killed over a quarter of Cambodia’s population. No one in Cambodia was unaffected and the people and country are still affected to this day.
People...
2021-01-0748 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 5: Krampus. A Permanent, Exaggerated Erection.For the holidays, Jen and Kristin couldn’t go somewhere or do something normal… Obviously. Normal is not macabre! Normal doesn’t scare us… actually… wait… Normal totally scares us. But not in a fun way. *shudders*
So we checked out the legend of Krampus, the bad cop of Christmas. Local to Central Europe, Krampus punishes the bad children on December 5 that St. Nick rewards on December 6. He’s demonic-looking, has pre-Christian origins, carries branches to beat bad kids with, and has a long pointed, lolling tongue.
Join us as we chat about Krampus and his friends, K...
2020-12-2430 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 4: Lily Dale, NY. A Summer Camp for SpiritualistsIn episode 4, we visit tiny hamlet Lily Dale in New York. Lily Dale is home to less than 300 people year round—and over FIFTY are registered mediums. Is there such a thing as a town occupation?
Every summer, over 20 THOUSAND people visit Lily Dale for spiritualism-related workshops, events, readings, and more.
Jen and Kristin discuss the foundations of Lily Dale and spiritualism itself, as well as how both have evolved to present day. Where do we go when we die? What happens? Is it the same for all of us?
Will there be ch...
2020-12-1041 minMacabre TravelerBONUS: An Interview with Effing Chicago's Adam Selzer and Leyla Royale, and a Dog on a Submarine.In this episode, we interview Adam Selzer and Leyla Royale of Effing Chicago Tours and MANY other awesome creative endeavors. For real, check out their Tweeters and webs below.
We chat with Leyla and Adam about their favorite tour moments, what goes into creating a great tour experience — and why it's important to do tours like these —, and how businesses like theirs have pivoted with the COVID-19 pandemic.
We also ask about their favorite unsolved mysteries and, of course, their favorite macabre travel destinations.
Effing Chicago Tours
http://effi...
2020-12-0100 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 3: Paris Catacombs. Your Forever Death HomeIn this episode, Jen and Kristin drag along our friend and patron of the podcast Lauren Ocello to the Paris Catacombs. Did you know how and why the catacombs were first created? Because the bodies were PILING up in the streets of Paris so much the wine was turning bad. Solution? Create the biggest Poltergeist nightmare EVER by moving between six to seven million bones from their resting places to some smelly old Roman mines. GREAT IDEA, EVERYONE.
Luckily for creeps like us (and all the spoiled milk and wine and, you know, general sanitation of Paris...
2020-11-2600 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 2.2: Salem. Sorry Spooky Jesus.In our last episode, we covered some of Salem’s dark past. In this episode, we talk about visiting Salem in present-day, including October’s Haunted Happenings, the annual Halloween Ball, and places we’ve visited and loved.
Sources
https://www.salem.org/
http://travelchannel.com
https://salemwitchmuseum.com/locations/witch-trials-memorial/
https://www.crowhavencorner.com
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This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/macabretraveler/support
2020-11-1200 minMacabre TravelerBONUS: An IRL Haunted House, an Interview with Jordan Rosenfeld, and Some Minor Water BoardingWelcome to our BONUS episode!
In this episode, we interview writer, editor, coach, and generally amazing human being Jordan Rosenfeld about her article on Mental Floss The Science Behind Why We Love to Be Scared.
We talk about famous (infamous?) in real-life haunted house McKamey Manor, how fear works in our bodies and brains, and why we love to activate that survival instinct.
Listen to us chat about our personal McKamey Manors, our favorite scary books, Claire Fraser's nipples, and much more.
Learn more about Jordan Rosenfeld at her...
2020-11-0900 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 2.1: Salem. Get the Unicycle, It's Sabbat Time!Welcome to Macabre Traveler, y'all!
In episode 2, part 1, Jen and Kristin bring listeners to perhaps the most famous macabre travel destination in the United States: Salem, Massachusetts.
In part 1, we give listeners a broad overview (because there is just so, so much that deserves to be said and a one hour podcast isn't enough) of the history of the Salem, MA, witch trials including methods townsfolk used to determine if someone was a witch, what people were accused of, and more.
In part 2, we will discuss visiting Salem, including our personal experiences...
2020-10-2900 minMacabre TravelerEpisode 1: Now on LimewireWelcome to Macabre Traveler, y'all!
In episode 1, Jen and Kristin introduce listeners to the podcast and website, the concepts of macabre travel, hedonic reversal, and benign masochism, our philosophy regarding travel vs. tourism, and how macabre travel connects us across time and places.
Please like us, subscribe where you listen to podcasts, and leave us love notes on social media.
love and limewire,
Jen and Kristin
Episode Sources
Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 8, No. 4, July 2013, pp. 439-447. Glad to be sad, and other examples of...
2020-10-1500 min
Macabre TravelerMacabre Traveler TrailerCOMING SOON: The Macabre Traveler, a podcast for people who love the places that love to scare you.
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This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/macabretraveler/support
2020-10-0600 min