Spooky Wisconsin: Eerie Activities for the Halloween Season

As the Halloween season comes around again, we all begin looking for the spooky experience. Wisconsin offers it all, from the spine-tingling-terrifying that haunts you for days to family-friendly spooks that won’t keep the kids awake at night. A giant haunted house? Taking on the zombie apocalypse with paintball? There’s something new every year as scaremasters attempt to outdo each other. Here are a few thrilling tried-and-true options for you and your crew to enjoy together. 

Haunted Houses

While it shouldn’t surprise you that the bigger cities – Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay – offer seasonal scare factories, many of the smaller towns get in on the fun too, decking out houses and barns with ghouls and gore to get your heart skipping beats.

Visit the largest “haunted” complex in the Midwest in Neenah for a full night of unforgettable entertainment. Burial Chamber offers multiple different themed events such as Phobia Haunted Woods and Adrenaline Haunted House for a variety of thrills. Over 100 actors participate each night! For a more family-friendly outing, check out their “I Spy” Experience for a fun, non-scary group game. 

Manitowoc’s Dead by Dawn is the world’s first “Dead & Breakfast” that offers the choice of rooms like Coulrophobia for all the clown lovers, the Nightmare room that embraces all your fears and uncertainties and the Pirate room which holds the secrets of the deep dark waters. Starting with an “Unhappy Hour” in the Shrunken Head Bar, guests are required to be in their rooms by 11 pm for when the real haunted fun begins. 

The Deer District – the neighborhood of the Milwaukee Bucks – becomes the Fear District during the weeks leading up to Halloween. Expect a haunted house and spooky films – kid-friendly by day, adult-focused by night.

Ghost Tours

There’s nothing like a real ghost story, and Wisconsin has no shortage of tales and tellers of them. Don’t miss the Door County Trolley’s “Trolley of the Doomed” tour for stories of sunken shipwrecks and stops at haunted locations on the peninsula.

Take the Dells Ghost Boat that heads up the Wisconsin River at dusk to hear eerie stories before docking for a haunted hike through Cold Water Canyon. 

Milwaukee, Madison, Lake Geneva, Bayfield – all of them have popular ghost-inspired walking tours. Consider your own tour: get a copy of "Haunted Wisconsin" by Michael Norman and take a road trip to some of the true paranormal locations of Wisconsin.

Kid-Friendly

Casper the Friendly Ghost would approve of these fun thrills for the whole family. Pumpkin patches are a go-to and many of those same farms host haunted hayrides or corn mazes. Meadowbrook Pumpkin Farm & Market does a daytime haunted corn maze made for little ones with no big scares.

Watch for daylight trick-or-treat events or costume parties at city zoos and farmers' markets throughout the state. Madison’s Children’s Museum hosts 13 Days of Halloween with Halloween crafts, themed events and other activities. Visit Old World Wisconsin for history with a spooky twist when they open for “Halloween Legends and Lore,” featuring members of the Kettle Moraine School for Arts and Performance.

Finally, take a fall hike: The Ledge View Nature Center near Chilton lights up its trails with candles and characters for hikes that are more historical than hysterical, so bring the kids.

Looking for an even bigger scare? Pack your bags for a stay at one of Wisconsin's haunted historic hotels.