When I popped open my email this morning, I was amused to find an invite from a Seattle friend to join in on a "Haunted History Tour" - seems there's more than meets the eye to the old brewery neighborhood. I'm all about the wacky local diversion -  they're often quite cheap, close to home, and it's always thrilling to learn more about what's in your own backyard. Also, a few years went on the Night Watch tour in the pretty medieval city of Steyr in Austria and had a great time, in spite of the freezing cold and the rapidly whispered translations.

With Halloween heading our way, I thought it might be fun to see what's happening in the (under)orld of haunted tours.

• Haunted Happenings is a blog devoted to tours and events that retell the time of the Salem Witch Trials.
• On this tourism/cottage rental blog, there are several suggestions for tours of haunted places in England, including a Hogwarts site.
• The Twilight series of books has inspired curious vampire seeking tourists to visit Forks, Washington.(I've been to Forks. Save your money.)
• How about Halloween in Transylvania? One wonders what the packing list would be like for that tour. Wooden stakes? Check.
• The Smart Traveller suggests jetting off to Prague, Europe's "most haunted city." 
• Travelcuts has some fun suggestions too, including the "Queen of the Damned Ball" in New Orleans.

Have you taken a ghost tour? Tell us about it.

Pam blogs about travel and other adventures at Nerd's Eye View.