Wandering Salem
Literary history, witchy wanderings, honoring the dead, & finding a quieter kind of magic in Salem
š½ Suggested listening while reading:Ā Lana Del Rey, āSeason of the Witchā
I love to travel for literary history and for places with the kind of atmosphere that makes my the tips of my fingers tingle. Give me cobblestone streets, an old house with a plaque, a gravestone with a boot that inexplicably reappears (I see you Bucksport, ME), a forgotten woman worth remembering, a hidden garden gate, a spire that inspired stories, and somewhere to get a salted caramel oat milk latte, and I'm a happy gal. So, naturally, I adore Salem.
I've been fascinated by its history since middle school, when I read I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, and I've returned countless times since--although usually in the relative calm of summer. Somehow, though, despite all those visits, I had never dared to do the one thing that Salem is arguably most famous for: visit in October. Until now.Ā
Would I do it again? Probably not. But I willĀ go back to Salem again and again, because beneath the witch hats, plastic skeletons, tour buses, and October revelry is the Salem I've always loved: a remarkably walkable little historic city filled with literary ghosts, hidden gardens, fascinating women, sea air, and history you can experience without paying a penny. You just have to know where to look.
So consider this my slightly unconventional guide (and love letter) to Salem: where I wander, what I eat, the history I think is worth knowing, what I would happily pay for againāand the $45 experience I very much would not.
Priority #1: Wander
If it's your first time in Salem, my strongest recommendation is also the simplest: walk & wander. Much of Salem's magic costs absolutely nothing. The historic center is compact and wonderfully walkable. And while Essex Street gets most of the attention, my favorite Salem is just outside of it.
If you're driving, I suggest starting near the Salem Armory Regional Visitor Center. It's a useful landing point (with clean bathrooms!) and from there you can make an enormous loop through much of historic Salem. You can also pick up tickets for the Salem Trolley nearby if you'd rather begin by getting the lay of the land.
Start with Essex Street if you want the shops, vendors, and spectacle. The Covenās CottageĀ is delightfully witchyāfully of herbs and crystals and the ambiance is pure magicābut thereās usually a line (even in the off-season). If you want to experience real history, go to Crow Haven Corner,Ā often touted as the oldest witch shop in the United States, and certainly in Salem, opened by the iconic āOfficial Witch of Salem,ā Laurie Cabot in the 1970s.
Follow Essex toward the Bewitched statueĀ and continue a little farther to Ropes Mansion, particularly if you're a Hocus PocusĀ fan. The exterior stood in for Allison's house, but the real reason I keep returning is the lesser known haven just behind it: the garden. Itās a great spot to sit, admire the exotic flowers, and sip a coffee.
Then keep walking.
Head toward Proctor's Ledge, the memorial marking the site where nineteen of the people convicted during the Salem witch trials were hanged in 1692. It looks surprisingly far from downtown on a map, but it's a lovely stroll, especially if you walk along Federal Street, one of those streets that makes you start dreamily calculating whether you could somehow purchase a historic Salem house and completely rearrange your life for that sweet, sweet architecture.
From there, wind your way back toward the center. You'll pass another one of my favorite quiet corners of Salemāanother hidden garden with public accessāwhich I am exercising my right as a travel writer not to tell the entire internet aboutā¦let me know if you find it! We can revel in our secret together. Besides, sometimes the best magic emerges from spontaneous wandering, doesnāt it?
Back downtown, you'll find Old Town Hall, another Hocus PocusĀ filming location (although sadly not where Bette sang āI Put a Spell on Youā as they used a sound stage for interior shots). In October, they convert the town hall into a food hall and serve tacos inside! Get your taco and keep walking toward The Burying Point, one of Salem's oldest cemeteries. Next door is the Salem Witch Trials Memorial.
Don't rush through this. And remember to look down ā some of the most moving parts of this memorial are often overlooked and stepped over ā the words of the victims are inscribed in the stone beneath your feet. Twenty stone benches bear the names of the people who were executed in 1692. They aren't buried here, but the memorial powerfully calls forth a collective remembering, a space to bring recognition to those who were painfully silenced so many years ago, and remember that underneath all the fun modern witchyness was a very real human tragedy.
Meeting Martha
One of those names is particularly important to me. Martha CarrierĀ was executed in Salem on August 19, 1692. She was also my ancestor.
Martha was a mother, a farmer's wife, and by virtually all surviving accounts, a woman who was not particularly concerned with making herself agreeable for others. Which, naturally, makes me rather fond of her. Martha refused to confess, and died for her boldness.
That family connection inevitably changes the way I experience the city. I genuinely enjoy the spectacle side of Salem, the broomsticks and potions and pumpkins (oh my!) but I also find myself continually searching for the stories underneath all that flare.
Salem's Women Weren't All Witches
Thatās precisely why, on this particular visit, I gave myself an added little assignment of discovering one Salem woman who had absolutely nothing to do with the witch trials.
Enter Charlotte Forten!Ā
Forten came to Salem from Philadelphia as a teenager in 1853, seeking an education in the city's integrated schools. She would become Salem Normal School's first Black graduate and go on to be an abolitionist, educator, writer, poet, translator, and women's-rights activist.
During the Civil War, she traveled south to teach formerly enslaved people on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, later publishing an account of the experience. Throughout her life, she used both her writing and her teaching to advocate for racial and gender equality.
Quite frankly, she was amazing! And down near the waterfront, Salem has given her a particularly beautiful place in its landscape. Charlotte Forten ParkĀ sits along the South River, where a life-size bronze Forten now looks out over the harbor.
There's something I love about encountering her there, removed from the witch-trial sites that dominate Salem's historical imagination: another young woman, another writer, another Salem story waiting to be noticed, and if you take a moment to look around youāll find her.
Literary Ghosts
Speaking of literary figures in Salem, Nathaniel Hawthorne is nearly impossible to avoid hereāeven if, as I've discovered, certain Salem locals are perfectly happy to walk past you and announce that they consider him second-rate at best. š Literary criticism is alive and well on the streets of Salem!
Hawthorne was born here on July 4, 1804, and one of his ancestors, John Hathorne, served as a magistrate during the witch trials. Nathaniel later added the āwāĀ to the family name. Whether that was specifically intended to distance himself from his ancestor isn't quite as certain as Salem lore sometimes makes it sound, but the shadow of his family's involvement in the trials undoubtedly followed Hawthorne into his writing.
And then, of course, there's the striking The House of the Seven Gables. Continue toward the waterfront and you'll eventually reach the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, the seventeenth-century house that inspired Hawthorne's 1851 novel. But Hawthorne isn't Salem's only connection to literary macabreā¦
In 1830, a wealthy sea captain, Joseph White, was murdered in his bed in his Essex Street home, The Gardner-Pingree House which still stands today. The resulting trial became a national sensation, and influenced writers such as Hawthorne and ā¦ Edgar Allan Poe. Many Poe scholars believe that the argument served as the basis for āThe Tell-Tale Heart.āĀ
And spooky stuff aside, don't overlook the waterfront. Salem was a maritime city long before it became America's Halloween capital, and the pier and shorelines are sprinkled with lovely trails and walks worth checking out!
The Salem I Would Pay For
Not every Salem tour is created equal.Ā
Bewitched After Dark Walking Tours: absolutely.
This was much closer to what I want from a Salem tour: a thoughtful mix of history, research and myth-busting lore. We wandered through sites associated with the trials, including the area where Bridget Bishop's orchardĀ once stood, and talked about cemeteries, jails, people, buildings, and how Salem has changed over the years. There was plenty of atmosphere without manufacturing history to create it.
Kimberly's Ghost Hunt, on the other hand: absolutely not.
My friend had read reviews describing an experience in which you're essentially placed in a basement room with a bucket of ghost-hunting equipment. Surely, I thought, there must be more to it than that. Dear Reader, there was not. Two hours and $45 later, I had learned an important travel lesson: sometimes you shouldĀ believe the reviews. But also we had a bit of an unruly group that made the experience less enjoyable, and maybe the carnival atmosphere of October breeds overcrowded events that lose their initial magic.
The Real Reason We Went to Salem in October
Because I will romanticize virtually anything if given the opportunity:
Practical Magic 2.
We came to Salem for a special screening at Cinema Salem. Another experience Iād highly recommend. Itās a small theatre, the employees are so kind, and we essentially had it all to ourselves, which made the experience (and the copious amounts of ugly crying) all the more more enchanting.
For a few hours, after spending the day among witches, gardens, old streets filled with fallen leaves, and the crisp October air, we got to disappear into another witchy New England world.
Speaking of the Crowds...
Here is the part where I risk committing Salem heresy: I don't think October is the best time to visit Salem.
By midmorning, parking lots fill up. Tour buses arrive by the dozens (and thatās probably an underestimate). Essex Street can become nearly impossible to navigate from about 9 am - midnight. An afternoon cup of coffee requires a 45 minute line. Many of the public free-roam sites require timed entry tickets. The historic city starts to feel less like Salem and more like a seaside carnival. There were also enough drunken revelers and general chaos that some of Salem's usual friendliness got swallowed up by the spectacle.
If history, wandering, and atmosphere are what you're after, I much prefer visiting outside peak October. You can still have your ghosts without sharing the sidewalk with several thousand of their rowdier living admirers.
Speaking of Priorities: Coffee, Snacks & One Very Pretty Shop
My Salem coffee rotation:
Odd Meter Coffee Co.
Front Street Coffeehouse
Wolf Next Door Coffee
And as for food, as a vegan, Flying Saucer Pizza CompanyĀ remains one of my favorite Salem comfort-food stops.
Read Before You Wander
Last, but certainly not least, I can't send you wandering around literary Salem without giving you something to read.
š I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, by Maryse CondĆ© | The book that started Salem for me. CondĆ© reimagines the life of Tituba, the enslaved woman accused during the trials, giving voice and interiority to someone the historical record largely denied both.
š The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | Read the Gothic novel and then walk out toward the actual house that helped inspire it. Family secrets, inherited guilt, witchcraft, old architectureā¦
š āThe Tell-Tale Heart,ā by Edgar Allan Poe | A particularly fun one to read inĀ Salem once you know about the 1830 murder of Captain Joseph White. Poe scholar T. O. Mabbott connected Daniel Webster's prosecution of the case to Poe's tale of murder, guilt, and the confession that refuses to stay buried. If prone to nightmares, skip this one.
š The Crucible, by Arthur Miller | Historically accurate? Heck no! Miller took substantial liberties with the people and events of 1692. But as literature, and as a meditation on accusation, hysteria, reputation, and fear, it remains irresistible Salem-adjacent reading.
And what am I adding to my personal TBR?
š Charlotte Forten's journals and poetry | For another Salem entirely. Forten wrote poetry as well as the remarkable journals that documented her intellectual life, abolitionism, teaching, and experiences as a young Black woman in nineteenth-century America. After meeting her at the waterfront, I wanted to hear Salem through her voice, too.
š The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, by Megan Marshall | The cover alleges that it's a "gripping" read!
Why I Keep Returning
The Salem I love most isn't really the Halloween capital of Americaāalthough that is alluringābut rather the Salem you find when you turn off Essex Street and keep walking. The Salem of hidden gardens, literary ghosts, extraordinary women, and stories that deserve to be remembered. Some of those stories are beautiful, some are heartbreaking, and some are a little bit spooky. And somehow, there's magic in making room for all of them.
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