Where better to spend Halloween than Transylvania? Vampire fans can take a Dracula-themed tour to Romania, which includes a Halloween costume party at Hunyad Castle. You’ll also visit to Poenari Castle in Sibiu, which was home to Vlad Tepes (aka Count Dracula), as well as Bran Castle and Sighisoara, which was rumoured to be his birthplace. Tours of Sibiu, the Retezat National Park, Sighisoara, Brasov and Bucharest are also included.
A seven-day trip with G Adventures, departing October 20, costs from £749.
The St James Hotel in Cimarron, New Mexico is said to be haunted by the sprits of Wild West legends including Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley and Billy the Kid. First built in 1872, when it was known as The Lambert Inn, it quickly gained a reputation as a place of violence. A total of 26 murders took place there during the Wild West days, and hotel owners had to install double floors in the rooms to stop stray bullets hitting neighbouring residents. The rooms are named for those who stayed there during the late 1800s and the hotel has retained it’s traditional decor, complete with creaking stairs, tilted chandeliers and 20 bullet holes in the dining room ceiling.
A seven-night holiday with Bon Voyage at the St James costs from £1195 per person, including return flights and car hire.
Canada’s Grail Springs hotel, near Ontario, is a holistic transformation retreat that’s dedicated to renewing mind, body and spirit. With it’s own private spring-fed lake, a crystal bed, sacred labyrinth and meditation gardens, it offers guests the perfect opportunity to reconnect with nature. Visitors have the opportunity to take part in hiking, mediation, life coaching and spiritual guidance, healing therapies, juice fasting or body cleansing. They can also experience equine wisdom classes, where they spend time with horses, giving them time to tune in to some of the skills that horses have developed over centuries, including the ability to read energy from a distance. Guests can design their own package or choose one of the five to 21-night transformational programs.
Visit http://www.healinghotelsoftheworld for more information.
Sci-Fi fans can have a close encounter with the silver state on a tour of alien territory. Starting from Las Vegas, the tour takes you into the Valley of Fire State Park, which was used as a location in the Star Trek: Generations films. The following day you’ll drive Highway 375, known as the Extra Terrestrial Highway, which runs parallel to the Nevada Test Site’s northern border and Area 51, where locals believe that aliens have been tested by the government. Check out the Black Mailbox, where aliens are said to deliver correspondence with the locals and before bed you can gaze at Tonopah’s night sky, which claims to be the darkest night sky in the US.
For more information on alien encounters in Nevada visit http://www.travelnevada.com
Learn all about Voodoo traditions on this tour of West Africa. You’ll get the opportunity to witness authentic voodoo ceremonies, dances and celebrations, as well as meeting African spiritual leaders and royalty. The trip also includes a visit to Lome City, Porto Novo and Bobo city, as well as village tours, bush camps and treks.
A 16-day trip, with G Adventures, from Lome to Ouagadougou costs from £2,599 per person.
You’ll need nerves of steel to survive a Fright Night at Craig-y-Nos Castle in the Brecon Beacons National Park. Spend the night in Wales’s most haunted castle and take part in a three-hour ghost tour including seances and table-tipping experiments. If you’re feeling brave, you can join the all-night ghost tour, where you have the opportunity to sleep in derelict haunted areas of the castle. The three-hour ghost tour, including overnight stay and breakfast costs £35 per person, and the all-night tour, including dinner and history tour, costs £99 per person.
Visit http://www.craigynoscastle.com for more information.
Find out if you have hidden psychic abilities on a weekend psychic break at Champneys in Tring. During the course of your stay you will attend workshops, group sessions and personal readings that are designed to put you back in touch with your psychic powers. Working medium Sandi Clarke will teach participants how to work with their sixth sense and use it for practical guidance in life.
A weekend psychic break at Champneys costs from £399.95 per person.
Explore India’s religious culture with a spiritual journey taking in the Golden Temple, the Taj Mahal and the holy cities of Rishikesh and Hardiwar. You’ll visit temples, shrines and tombs while learning about yoga and traditional Hindu beliefs. A guided tour of Old Delhi, an India/Pakistan Wagah border ceremony and a guided tour of Norbulingka are also included in the trip.
A 14-day tour with G Adventures departing from, and returning to, Delhi is priced from £799 per person.
Enjoy a relaxing break with a difference at the Hotel Petra Segreta in Sardinia. Time your visit carefully and you can take part in the special full moon meditation night, where guests gather along an ancient path in gardens to honour the full moon. Hotel staff light candles and fill holes in the rocks with water so that the group can sit and mediate, building a deep connection with the energy of the moon. There are also a range of spa treatments on offer, including jet massage, and some treatments are carried out inside a small grotto sculpted by the wind.
Traveling with Essential Italy, a deluxe room costs from £276 per night, including breakfast, use of the outdoor pool with jacuzzi circuit and spa with Turkish bath, Roman sauna and Emotional shower.
2012 is the quincentenary year of the birth of Queen Katherine Parr, the wife that survived Henry VIII. Katherine died in childbirth while living at Sudeley Castle and her ghost is reportedly often seen wandering in the grounds. To mark 400 years since her birth, Sudeley is hosting a six-month festival of events, including an erie reenactment of her funeral on Sunday, September 9th. Visitors can rent cottages on the edge of the estate, between the castle and the historic town of Winchcombe. Prices start from £331 for a three-night stay.
For more information visit http://www.sudeleycastle.co.uk