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On the top floor of a hotel in Sydney, on ground that was a convict hospital in 1788, two women on two different nights woke up to a sailor standing at the foot of the bed, looking at them. In a castle on the coast of Northern Ireland, a receptionist sent up the tower stair to sweep up a broken glass was shoved from behind on the top step and went down the whole flight. In Room 217 of the Stanley Hotel, a man hid under the covers at three in the morning while his wife whispered that something was bent over the bed with its mouth at her ear, and that she could still feel its breath. In a ground-floor suite in the Ozarks that used to be a cancer quack's office, four friends propped a vodka bottle against the inside of their door, came back at eleven, and found a row of cards laid out on the carpet in front of it with the two jokers turned face up. On a ship in Long Beach, a mother woke to a man made of darkness sitting on the other twin bed, and he sat there until dawn.
Today we're counting down the ten most haunted hotels in the world, from number ten to number one. We're going from Sydney to the Scottish Highlands, the Antrim coast, London, the Canadian Rockies, the French Quarter, a California beach, a Cunard liner, an Arkansas mountaintop, and Estes Park, Colorado.
Sources:
24 Hours in Sydney. "Room 8 in the Russell Hotel… Sleep There If You Dare." 24hoursinsydney.com.au.
Abandoned NI. "The Haunted Ballygally Castle Hotel." abandonedni.com.
Archer, Bella. "Haunted Tulloch Castle in Dingwall: Castles, Ghost Stories and Scottish Mornings." Buckle Up, Boo!, buckleupboo.com.
Atteberry, Todd. "Ballygally Castle Hotel: The Knock at the Door Isn't Room Service." Witchery Art / Gothic Horror Stories, February 19, 2024. gothichorrorstories.com.
Avenue Calgary. "The Ghosts of Fairmont Banff Springs." avenuecalgary.com.
Ballygally Castle Hotel. "Ballygally Castle Hotel and Its Ghost Room" and "The History of Ballygally Castle." ballygallycastlehotel.com.
Bauer, Ellen. "A Ghostly Maid on the Queen Mary." Ghostvillage.com. Encounter dated June 1, 1973.
Brody, Mike. "Confessions of a Novice Ghost Investigator: Surviving the Stanley Hotel." Ghostvillage.com, January 2010.
Cappy. "The Beautiful Lady in White." Your Ghost Stories, April 1, 2020. yourghoststories.com, story 27186.
Crescent Hotel and Spa. "Haunting Ghost Experiences Revealed." crescent-hotel.com.
Crescenta Valley Weekly. "The Legend of B340." crescentavalleyweekly.com.
Cricket Australia. "Boo! Ghosts Have England Jumping." cricket.com.au, July 2014.
Cushman, Paige, and Kristen Belue. "'This Isn't a Horror Film': A Night at Arkansas' Haunted 1886 Crescent Hotel." KATV, Little Rock, October 2020.
Deccan Chronicle. "Haunted London Hotel Frightens England Cricketers." July 21, 2014.
East Durham Paranormal Research Group. "Tulloch Castle: Ghost Sightings." eastdurhamparanormalrg.co.uk.
Fiorito, Teddy. "My Wife and I Stayed at the Stanley Hotel and Experienced Something Out of This Realm." Thought Catalog, September 2015.
Ghost City Tours. "The Ghosts of Haunted Hotel Monteleone." ghostcitytours.com.
Ghost5034. "What an Experience – Ghost Included!" Review of Tulloch Castle Hotel, Dingwall. TripAdvisor, June 2009.
Graham, Seanín. "'There's a Darkness to That Place': A Night in Northern Ireland's Most Haunted Castle." The Irish Times, October 31, 2025.
Haunted Hotels UK. "The Langham – Haunted Hotel in London," including guest review by Deborah Newton, November 6, 2023. hauntedhotels.uk.
Haunted India. "Ghosts of the Langham Hotel, London, Haunting English Cricketers." hauntedindia.blogspot.com, July 2014.
Haunted Rooms. "The Langham Hotel – London." hauntedrooms.co.uk.
Haunt Jaunts. "Researching London's Most Haunted Hotel Room." hauntjaunts.net.
