You think you’ve done Halloween? Think again. Step inside the hulking ruin of Eastern State Penitentiary, a ten-acre fortress of cellblocks, decades of whispered misery and (now) wicked fun. At Halloween Nights, this historic prison holds onto ghosts of the past and invites them to the party.
Here’s the deal – you’ll wander (or run) through multiple haunted houses with names like Nightmares, Dark Tides, Machine Shop, The Crypt. Rough-and-ready corridors, fog, lights, thumping beats and actors whose mission is to yank you out of your comfort zone. But if you want a breather, there’s the Fair Chance Beer Garden, themed cocktail lounges, and live performers doing things you can’t quite stop staring at.
This is a perfect spot to spend Halloween because the setting is built-in creepy (an abandoned prison with real history). The production value is high (cinematic sets, immersive flow, new scare zones). The optional “opt in” glow-necklace gimmick means you might get pulled into hidden passages or separated from your squad. Like c’mon?! Fun.
And the vibe is both electric and macabre. You’re surrounded by fellow thrill-seekers, the air’s charged, every corner might have a jump-scare or a haunted film-set moment. For anyone wanting more than candy and carved pumpkins, it’s the full-on Halloween immersion.
Forget the usual haunted house clichés. Spookywoods in Archdale, North Carolina, has taken the concept of “Halloween fun” and turned it into a fully realized and immensely terrifying immersive experience. Like, don’t be fooled. The attraction isn’t a walk through a dark corridor with someone shouting “Boo!” at you. It’s more like being dropped into a series of mini horror movies, each with its own set, style, and extreme level of chaos.
Step into Endora’s House, and you’re greeted by a witch who clearly has better dance moves than you. Cross the Luminous Passage, and you’ll feel like a rave threw up in a haunted tunnel (think blinking lights, shadows, and plenty of weirdness). Ashes Army drags you into the aftermath of miners who dug too deep and woke up things better left alone, while Camp Crystal Lake takes you to a summer camp where the counsellors are definitely not making s’mores.
But Spookywoods doesn’t stop at storytelling. ICONS lets you rub shoulders with horror movie legends without worrying about them gutting you for funsies (we’re talking to you, Michael), and The Creeper – a seven-foot cryptid with glowing red eyes – makes sure you keep one eye on the path ahead.
Every themed set is a carefully constructed world designed to keep you laughing, but mostly screaming. And that’s exactly what everyone needs on the 31st of October.
Sure, Dread Hollow is a haunted house, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s a whole cursed town, tucked into Tennessee, where the shadows seem to watch you, and the past has a nasty habit of sticking around.
The story starts with Mercy Harker, a woman whose lies led to the deaths of thirteen innocent women. The town’s history turned dark that day, and so, the legend of Dread Hollow was born.
Now, the place is a playground for the curious, the fearless, and for the those who want to be scared shitless. Wander through the Belle Royale Hotel, where the creaky floorboards tell a story of vengeful spirits, or get lost in Dreadwood Forest, where the trees feel a little too eager to guide you off the path. The high school isn’t safe either: hallways and classrooms hide their own brand of horrors, each one rooted in the town’s grim history.
If you think you’re clever, Dread Hollow’s Deliverance Escape Rooms will test that. In “Detention,” you’re stuck with Mercy Harker herself. “Alan Wayne: The Imitation Killer” makes you chase clues before a killer leaves his mark. And “Eugene Todd” is a race against time…or against ending up as the final victim.
But what really sets Dread Hollow apart is how immersive it is. There are no cheap shocks here; the scares are in the stories, the spaces, the history. It lingers. If you’re after something that sticks with you after you leave – something a little dark and a little twisted – Dread Hollow is waiting.
The Sunset Strip has had more reinventions than Madonna, and its latest glow-up comes in the form of The Sun Rose Hotel (formerly known as Pendry West Hollywood), ‘til it decided a new name (and personality) was in order.
Named after its already-famous live music venue, The Sun Rose is a love letter to West Hollywood’s Technicolour soul. When Stevie Wonder serenades your opening party, you know you’ve hit the right note. The place now leans harder into art, music, and design, basically bottling the Strip’s kaleidoscopic chaos into a tasty five-star cocktail.
Of course, the glitz hasn’t gone anywhere. The rooms still whisper ‘luxury’ even if the rest of the hotel is screaming ‘let’s party.’ At the top, Merois – helmed by the legendary Wolfgang Puck – remains a rooftop dining temple, where Asian-inspired flavours flirt with skyline views. Think crispy suckling pig in one hand, a Negroni in the other, and the Hollywood Hills twinkling like a backdrop someone spent too much money on.
Since its transformation, this place has become a stage, a canvas, and a front-row seat to the Strip’s never-ending show. Whether you’re there for the food, the tunes, or just to say you brushed shoulders with a rock star in the lobby, The Sun Rose Hotel is reinventing what it means to check in on Sunset.
We get it. Camping’s a tough sell. But what about if you’re cocooned in a swanky safari tent that’s perched on a private deck with Mount Hood photobombing your sunrise (the perfect PNW backdrop)? That’s the vibe at Under Canvas’s brand-spanking-new glamping spot in Washington’s Columbia River Gorge, sprawled glamorously over 120 acres in the White Salmon River Valley.
Each tent has comfort for days: a king-size bed with plush linens, a gas fireplace to keep you toasty when the Pacific Northwest air gets bossy, and an ensuite bathroom with a piping hot pull-chain shower. Even your phone’s battery gets VIP treatment with handy USB packs, so there’s no excuses for not posting that dreamy sunrise snap (see intro).
The communal hub keeps the fun rolling with local artworks, trendy West Elm furnishings, café-style dining, board games, morning yoga, acoustic jams, and, naturally, nightly s’mores, because toasted marshmallows?? Like, end of sentence.
The real drawcard, though, is where you are. Adventure practically throws itself at you here: white-water rafting on the White Salmon River, hiking the trails around Mount Hood, sipping your way through more than 10 nearby vineyards, or popping into the charming towns of White Salmon and Hood River for a dose of small-town charm. All of it framed by soaring peaks, cascading waterfalls, and hillsides bursting with wildflowers.
Under Canvas Columbia River Gorge is nature turned up to eleven – luxurious, adventurous, and it’s perfect for besties, couples, fur-babies, or anyone who swears they’re “outdoorsy.”
Forget Aspen’s fur coats, Vail’s valet parking, and Park City’s $40 salads.
These five mountains are for people who actually came to ski, not to compare goggle tans in a champagne bar. Think deep powder, dive bars, and locals who’ll give you the best tips over a cheap beer instead of a concierge counter.
From Montana’s treehouses and Oregon’s haunted hotels to Utah’s powder-meets-desert views, Idaho’s secret celeb hideaway, and Colorado’s last great ski town; these spots deliver proper mountain culture. No gloss. No pretense. Just big turns, big nights, and even bigger stories.
Whitefish is where ski bums, night owls, and powder hounds collide, sometimes literally, usually at the Hellroaring Saloon. Big terrain, bigger personalities, and night skiing that’ll ruin you for daylight forever.
Whitefish is what happens when a ski town decides it doesn’t want to grow up and become Aspen. Tucked up near the Canadian border in Montana, it’s got big-mountain skiing without the big-mountain attitude. The locals are friendly, the beer’s cheap, and the powder’s so dry you’ll swear the snowflakes were freeze-dried by hand.
The mountain itself is huge. With over 3,000 acres of skiable terrain, you’ll find everything from mellow cruisers to thigh-burning tree runs. And if you haven’t shredded under the lights yet, Whitefish offers night skiing, a surreal, slightly spooky experience where you carve turns under the stars while a faint whiff of woodsmoke floats up from the valley below. Pro tip: bow to Big Mountain Jesus on your first run for good luck. Trust us.
“Night skiing under a billion stars and finishing the run in a bar with sticky floors, Whitefish is Aspen’s cooler, cheaper, drunker cousin.”
Après-ski here is delightfully unpretentious. Locals migrate straight from the slopes into town to spots like the Great Northern Bar, where pool tables and pints replace champagne buckets and charcuterie boards. Expect live music, sticky floors, and the occasional cowboy hat, sometimes all on the same person.
For accommodation, you could stay in a hotel… but you’re better off booking the Ponderosa Treehouse. It’s part Swiss Family Robinson, part ski bum fantasy: a cabin perched high among the pines, with panoramic views and a toasty fire waiting after a day smashing powder stashes.
Add in Glacier National Park just down the road, and you’ve got yourself a proper winter playground without the pretension.
Skiing Mt. Hood feels like stepping into a Stephen King novel — minus the murder (usually). The Timberline Lodge, perched on the slopes, doubled as the infamous Overlook Hotel in The Shining, so you can spend your après imagining Jack Nicholson lurking behind the bar whispering, “Here’s Johnny!”
The mountain itself is a beast, offering skiing nearly year-round thanks to its volcanic glacier and the highest elevation ski slopes in North America. You’ll get everything from wide-open groomers to tight tree runs where you’ll pray to every snow god you know.
For a true locals’ experience, rent a log cabin in the woods around Mt. Hood Village.
There’s something primal about waking up surrounded by towering pines, brewing coffee on a wood stove, and heading out into crisp alpine air knowing your day involves both adrenaline and craft beer.
Après-ski here is perfectly Oregonian. It’s laid-back, slightly hipster, and deeply committed to local brews. Check out Mt. Hood Brewing Co. for a pint of Ice Axe IPA and a pile of pub grub big enough to feed a snowboard team. Stick around long enough and someone will inevitably offer you a local tip involving “secret stashes,” which may or may not refer to powder.
And if you need a day off and if your legs still work, snowshoe through silent old-growth forests where the only sound is snow crunching underfoot and maybe the faint echo of “redrum” if you’ve had one too many at après.
At Brian Head, you’re carving powder while staring at red rock cliffs that look like they’ve been stolen from Mars. It’s part ski resort, part desert fever dream, and somehow, it works perfectly.
Brian Head is what happens when a ski resort gets dropped into a desert painting. From the top of the runs, you’ll gaze out over fiery cliffs and bizarre hoodoo formations dusted with snow like some surreal mash-up of skiing and Mars colonisation.
The vibe here is about as far from Park City’s glitz as you can get. Locals roll up in pickups, not Porsches, and the après scene is low-key but lively. Head to the Last Chair Grill and Brews. Grab a craft brewski, swap stories with strangers who’ll become mates by sundown, and soak up a genuine mountain-town energy.
Brian Head is also a family-friendly gem. The mountain has just the right balance of approachable greens and sneaky double blacks, so you can introduce the kids to skiing while still scaring yourself silly on the steeps. And if you need a break, there’s tubing, snowmobiling, or simply parking yourself at a firepit to bask in 300+ days of Utah sunshine.
What really seals the deal is the contrast deep powder under bluebird skies, framed by alien-looking red rocks that make every photo look like a Photoshop job. It’s Utah, but it feels like nowhere else on Earth.
Sun Valley’s where celebrities go to disappear and ski bums go to pretend they’re locals. Clint Eastwood and Arnie love it, but the real star here is Ketchum, a cowboy-cool town where whiskey flows faster than fresh powder.
Sun Valley might be America’s original ski resort, but it’s still somehow managed to fly under the radar of the masses. This is where the Hollywood set comes to hide, trading paparazzi for powder days. It’s where you’ll find Clint Eastwood filling up his old ute at the bowser next to you and where Arnold Schwarzenegger has his own run named after him. Funnily enough it was previously called Flying Maid. They must have a sense of humour in Sun Valley.
The skiing is stellar: 2,000 acres of perfectly groomed trails mixed with sneaky bowls and glades for when you want to disappear. But the real magic happens in Ketchum, the cowboy-cool town at the mountain’s base. Think wooden boardwalks, neon-lit saloons, and bars where everyone from ski bums to billionaires ends up drinking the same $6 whiskey.
Hit the Pioneer Saloon for prime rib the size of your head and walls covered in taxidermy, then stumble across the street to Whiskey Jacques for live bands and a shot or three of local rye. Ketchum’s got an authenticity that big-name resorts lost decades ago. It’s where Wild West grit meets ski-town chic, and somehow, it works.
If you’re lucky, you’ll end up in a random late-night poker game with a retired Olympian and a guy who swears he once sold a snowboard to Dirty Harry. Sun Valley has that energy: stories waiting to happen, with a side of perfect corduroy.
Crested Butte is Colorado’s last great ski town. No designer après boots, no velvet ropes, just steep chutes, cheap beer, and locals who’ll drink you under the table before showing you their secret powder stashes.
If you ask any hardcore skier where their heart lives, odds are they’ll whisper, almost reverently: Crested Butte. This is the last true locals’ mountain in Colorado. It’s a funky, unpretentious town paired with some of the steepest, most rewarding terrain in the Rockies.
This mountain doesn’t mess around. Expect leg-shredding double blacks, narrow chutes that test your nerve, and enough hidden powder stashes to keep you busy for weeks. But it’s the town that seals the deal. Painted Victorian houses, quirky dive bars, and a main street straight out of a snow globe — Crested Butte oozes charm without even trying.
Après here is an art form. Start with a local pint at The Public House, then graduate to Montanya Distillers for small-batch rum cocktails that will blow your frostbitten socks off. Finish the night at The Dogwood, a cozy cabin bar serving craft concoctions in what feels like your weird uncle’s living room.
And the vibe? Pure magic. Locals still outnumber tourists, no one cares what you’re wearing, and the conversations range from avalanche conditions to which band’s playing down the street. Crested Butte feels like skiing used to be before the luxury condos, $40 lift sandwiches, and designer après boots.
If you’re chasing big lines, bigger laughs, and a ski town that still feels like a secret, Crested Butte’s your place. Just… don’t tell too many people.
Nestled somewhere between fine dining and full-blown virtual hallucination, EPIC.NOW has launched a VR-powered culinary adventure in NYC that promises to blow your mind (and possibly your taste buds) straight into another dimension.
So, here’s what happens: you slap on a sleek VR headset, settle into a nine-seat, ultra-intimate dinner setting, and let Michelin-starred wizardry do its thing. Meanwhile, your eyeballs are being dazzled by immersive, otherworldly landscapes that change with each course.
Imagine eating sea urchins while floating through a coral reef or nibbling wagyu beef atop a digital Mount Fuji. It’s like dinner and a movie, except the movie is melting your perception of reality.
This mind-boggling concept came to life when a group of tech-obsessed food lovers asked, “Why should Silicon Valley have all the fun?” so they teamed up with a top-tier chef and some VR geniuses to create this surreal supper club. And voilà – EPIC.NOW was born, screaming, “The future is now!” through a mouthful of truffle foam.
We get it, it’s a strange concept. But your mouth deserves more than just flavour at dinnertime, it deserves a storyline. Every bite of this experience is backed by sound, scent and visual theatre, transforming your meal into a multi-sensory fever dream.
And hey, at least your mind has something to preoccupy itself with while you wait for your food and pretend you’re not eyeing off the kitchen doors in search of your order.
Gone are the days when dusty motels and outdated lodges ruled the American highway system. Trailborn Grand Canyon has officially landed in Williams, Arizona, and it’s bringing a whole lot of swagger to the gateway of one of the world’s most beloved national parks. Think Route 66 retro vibes, modern comforts, and just the right amount of Wild West weirdness to make your stay unforgettable.
Williams, a town known for its vintage diners, neon signs, and trainloads of tourists chugging their way to the Grand Canyon, just got a serious upgrade. Trailborn has taken an old motor lodge and given it a full glow-up; 96 freshly redesigned rooms with velvet headboards (fancy), leather-stitched lamps (rustic-chic), and Bluetooth radios because what’s a road trip without the perfect playlist?
And let’s talk about Miss Kitty’s. Every road trip deserves a good steakhouse with a name that sounds straight out of a cowboy soap opera, and Trailborn has a doozy. This soon-to-open eatery will serve up southwestern grill favourites with a side of nostalgia and handcrafted cocktails (proper hydration is key in the desert).
Of course, Trailborn is also all about the adventure. Whether you’re here for the epic hikes, stargazing, helicopter rides, or just trying to survive a round of Wild West Bingo at Camp Hall, they’ve got you covered. And if you needed one more reason to book, a portion of your stay helps preserve the Grand Canyon so technically, this is a philanthropic holiday. Do you reckon we could claim it on tax?
All aboard, train lovers, scenery junkies, and anyone who enjoys sipping wine while gliding through jaw-dropping landscapes without a care in the world. Say hello to Canyon Spirit, the fresh new identity of what was formerly Rocky Mountaineer’s U.S. operation. Same posh seats, same world-class service, just with a snazzier name and a longer itinerary. And boy, have they delivered.
Starting in 2026, Canyon Spirit’s Rockies to the Red Rocks route is getting a glow-up, extending all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah. That’s right: three days of red rocks, river canyons, and rugged beauty, punctuated by overnight stops in Glenwood Springs (hello, hot springs) and Moab (adventure capital of the Southwest).
Unless your usual commute includes a team of ultra-attentive hosts, riveting historic storytelling of Wild West lore and outlaw antics, and a menu packed with locally sourced delights paired with top-notch regional wines, this isn’t your typical train ride. From the Colorado River’s winding embrace to the vast Great Basin’s epic sprawl, this route is serving up nature’s greatest hits on a silver platter.
For just US$2,123 (plus tax), you can experience the Canyon Spirit magic, complete with overnight stays and enough scenic splendour to max out your camera roll (and make everyone super jealous back home). Book your seat now, because come April 21, 2026, the train is leaving the station – with or without you (but preferably with).
Gather ‘round, glampers! AutoCamp has done it again and this time, it’s planted its ultra-chic flag just 15 minutes from Sequoia National Park in the adorably named town of Three Rivers. You’re about to be neighbours with literal giants (hello, General Sherman, the world’s largest tree) while still getting your beauty sleep on high-thread-count sheets.
With 85 accommodations ranging from Classic Airstreams to Vista Suites with the best views, Explorer Suites with bonus amenities, and even Bunk Rooms for your whole adventure squad, there’s a plush nest for every type of outdoor-ish traveller. And if you’re not into trailers, no worries. They’ve got cabins, luxe tents, and even a heated pool for when you need a break from “roughing it”.
There’s even a Clubhouse where mid-century modern meets marshmallow roasting, featuring lounge areas, fire pits, and a bar. There’s also The Kitchen, slinging hot meals daily from 7 AM to 10 PM (because no one should have to ration granola bars), plus a General Store packed with s’mores kits, trail snacks, and local booze.
For the active crowd, expect hiking, spelunking, fly fishing, and kayaking, plus complimentary bikes to zoom around like you own the place. Oh, and if you’re thinking of hosting a wedding, retreat, or cult meeting (just kidding… mostly), their event spaces are downright dreamy.
Bottom line? AutoCamp Sequoia is the cool kid’s basecamp for exploring nature without surrendering your dignity (or your WiFi connection). See you in the trees.
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