Climbing Mt. Everest. Swimming with dolphins. Watching someone who died 300 years ago pass through your room? Yes, some travel experiences are more equal than others. And while you may never rappel up the side of a mountain, you have lots of opportunities to stay in a haunted hotel. Or, shall we say, an allegedly haunted hotel.

Dom Villella, an investigator with Paranormal Investigation of NYC, has studied paranormal activity for several years and says hauntings are typically either "traditional" or "residual energy" experiences. A traditional haunting may be from the spirit of a person who dies a "violent death, whether it be a murder or a suicide."

See our slideshow of America's Haunted Hotels.

But why would a ghost choose to haunt a public hotel, not their former residence? "Maybe they have unfinished business or there is a person they are attached to," says Villella. Many hotels are haunted by former staffers, he says, perhaps because spirits stick close to places where they spent a lot of time when certifiably alive. "I think a lot of people, when they die, they don't know where to go, so they just resume their old life."

Quite a few haunted hotels harbor a history as a wartime station for rest or recuperation, particularly below the Mason-Dixon line. When Confederate soldiers occupied Cashtown, Penn., during the Civil War, for example, The Cashtown Inn became an ad hoc surgery site—and thus a place where many young men lost their lives. Some of those fallen soldiers seem not to have left. Recently, when the inn appeared on the Sci-Fi channel show, Ghost Hunters, cameras allegedly caught a picture frame turning around on its own while filming overnight. The owners also told the program their pet dog and parrot will both follow things unseen to human eyes at the same time and they occasionally smell cigar smoke in the non-smoking inn.

Cashtown Inn isn't the only lodging with a blood-soaked history. The Hawthorne Hotel is in Salem, Mass., site of the infamous witch trials of the 1600s. It's easy to imagine how the area's death and misery could lead to hauntings.

Suicide seems to be the reason for hauntings at other hotels. At the Heathman Hotel in Portland, Ore., guests sleeping in rooms that end in "-03" have reported seeing a ghost in their rooms. According to legend, a guest in room 703 fell to his death from it, and his spirit remains in all the rooms he passed on his "way down." Jennifer Aniston was reportedly spooked when she stayed at the hotel (though on the ninth floor).

See our slideshow of America's Haunted Hotels.

Other hotel ghosts are simply souls who were associated with the property, such as domestic staff or onetime owners. The Homespun Farm bed-and-breakfast in Griswold, Conn., was originally called the Brewster Homestead, named for William Brewster, who arrived on the Mayflower and helped found Plymouth Colony. But his great-great-grandson, Simon Brewster, appears to have never fully left the property he opened. Current owners report seeing a thin, ghostly man wearing overalls and have felt a goosebump-addled "presence" while gardening in the blueberry patch. When a Brewster family member came by with pictures of one of the Brewster descendants who passed away in the 1970s, the owners said they recognized him as the overall-wearing man from their garden.

Ghost sightings are hotly contested, of course. While some hotel owners leave their ghostly histories to the province of paranormal researchers, others seize their "guests" as a marketing opportunity—much to the dismay of disputatious historians. One such case is the Lighthouse Inn, in New London, Conn., which was originally built as a summer home for a wealthy steel magnate. The Inn is said to be haunted by a 1920 bride who fell down a grand staircase, snapped her neck and died at her groom's feet on her wedding day; the ghost bride has also been seen wandering around the third floor of the inn. Two children who died during a 1938 hurricane also allegedly haunt the halls. At least that's the story: A local historian told The New York Times last year the ghost stories are all a bunch of bunk and neither a bride nor children died ever died at the hotel.

In any case, ghost hauntings—if they exist at all—are quite rare, says Villella. "Residual energy" is more common, accounting for 90 percent of the cases. This paranormal activity is unconnected to specific spirits; it's residue left by multiple people throughout the years. This is why spots that see a lot of foot traffic, such as hotels, movie theaters and train stations, often come with complaints of strange footsteps and weird noises.

Despite being the most common paranormal activity, residual energy hauntings are also the hardest to prove, says Villella, who works as a hypnotherapist when he is not ghosthunting. Of course, all paranormal activity is ultimately unprovable. "It's our own little theories that we try to piece together."

See our slideshow of America's Haunted Hotels.

Spooky Stays

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder — in this case, these five experts

Are you ready for your close-up, America? The overall picture may come into slightly sharper focus after November, but that hasn’t stopped us from finding the 20 prettiest towns in the homeland right now. From Bisbee to Cape May, they’ve each got something special that should put them on the savvy traveler’s radar.

 

Identifying America’s prettiest towns is by definition a subjective undertaking — prettiness, to adapt an old saying, is in the eye of the beholder. So when we asked five experts for their lists of the country’s prettiest towns, we left the definition of “pretty” up to the judges themselves.

 

In Pictures: America's Prettiest Towns

 

“I felt that for a town to be considered ‘pretty,’ it must have something more going for it than simply enjoying a ‘pretty’ location,” says travel writer Greg Ward, co-author of "The Rough Guide to the USA." “The town itself has to have some aesthetic appeal on a human scale.”

 

Ward’s picks include Flagstaff, Ariz., which combines those natural and manmade elements into what he describes as a “definitive little Western town, where fine brick buildings on every block hold lively hotels, bars, stores and restaurants, and the majestic San Francisco Peaks soar to the north.”

 

For Bob Krist, author of "Travel Photography: Documenting the World’s People and Places" and host of PBS’ “Restoration Stories,” a selection of the U.S.’s prettiest towns ended up revealing a common denominator: tradition. “They’re the kind of places that don’t exist much anymore,” Krist says of his list, which includes the coastal Maine town of Rockport and the southern New Jersey resort of Cape May.

 

Krist adds that his picks share a photogenic richness that results from the “integrity of the traditional architecture. You can look down a street in Cape May (N.J.) and see seven or eight beautiful Victorians all in a row. It’s an architectural integrity that existed before strip malls and before things got homogenized with aluminum siding.”

 

Danno Glanz, an urban designer with the Berkeley, Calif.-based urban design, community planning, and architecture firm Calthorpe Associates, says he gravitates toward “places that have an exceptional, unique urban form.” Glanz says that in lieu of a traditionally pretty town like Carmel, Calif., “which has a lot of flower boxes on windows,” he’d opt instead to visit someplace like the southern Arizona enclave of Bisbee, whose cottages and bungalows form “eclectic hillside residential neighborhoods that terrace down the hillside in an organic way.”

 

Glanz also selected the smallest town on our list, Bodie, Calif., with a population of zero. The once thriving gold-mining outpost is now a well-preserved ghost town (and state park). Glanz says the abandoned homes, churches, and saloons have a “haunting beauty.”

 

While the towns here comprise a diverse array of locations, sizes and architectural styles, our expert’s selections lean heavily toward the East, and New England picks figure prominently in their selections. Three of our five panelists chose New Hampshire towns (Portsmouth and Hanover) as among the nation’s prettiest, and destinations in Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island are also sprinkled among the experts’ choices.

 

"The Rough Guide to the USA" co-author Greg Ward is the sole panelist whose choices drifted wholly away from the Eastern Seaboard. Among the traveler writer’s pretty-town favorites are Springdale, Utah, situated near Zion National Park, and Galena, Ill., which Ward describes as a “peaceful, verdant” town that “seems barely changed since local boy Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868.”

 

There was only one overlap choice among our expert panel: In independent selections, Greg Melville and Sarah Tuff Dunn, co-authors of "101 Best Outdoor Towns," both singled out Lake Placid, N.Y., for its natural grandeur and small-town charm. “It's got the jagged mountain backdrop surrounding a quaint, unpretentious ski village bordered by two crystal lakes,” says Melville.

 

Melville explained the criteria he used in making his choices: “Each of these places is among the most picturesque (in the country) — whether it's the natural surroundings, the architecture, or more likely a combination of the two.”

 

Beyond the outward aesthetic appeal of the destinations chosen by our panel, and regardless of whether the towns are situated on colonial waterfronts, amidst awesome, snow-capped peaks or in stark western deserts, there seems to be a deeper quality that unites our experts’ choices — namely, how the towns “feel.”

 

When urban designer Glanz talks about the ghost town Bodie, he says, “It’s best to visit on a grey day in early winter with snow flurries whistling through the air. The rugged and sublime high mountain context will make any visitor feel like an extra in the movie "Unforgiven."

 

Sarah Tuff Dunn, describing her first visit to Park City, Utah, says, “I was struck by just how blue the sky was, and how dry the air, during a ski trip one March. I was used to soggy or icy conditions back East. After I skied seemingly bottomless powder at nearby Deer Valley, the whole town of Park City (which looked like a candy village, thanks to all the different colors of the Victorian buildings) seemed like it was on some crazy high from the sun, the snow and the altitude.”

 

Photographer Krist sums up the intangible quality shared by the pretty towns on his list: “They haven’t been homogenized, they still have their local character — and the charm is real.”

 

In Pictures: America's Prettiest Towns

Rob Baedeker

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More than a million foreclosed and "distressed" properties are expected to hit the market this year, from two-bedroom starter homes to 20-room mansions. But while the banks that own many of them are now preparing to sell them en masse at auction, most of the best properties will be sold long before the gavel comes down.

Homeowners unable to refinance—but still with plenty of equity—can simply put their houses on the market, while those underwater can plead with their banks to let them "short-sell" for less than they owe on the mortgage.

Those who can't sell before they're foreclosed on will be evicted and their houses auctioned off. Whether on the steps of the local courthouse or through private sales, bidding typically starts at or just below what's still outstanding on the mortgage, plus fees and court costs—which isn't a deal if the property's market value has sunk below that.

More often than not, the bank takes back the house and hires a real estate agent to sell it, sometimes at far less than what was owed on it. So which stage offers the best opportunity to buy on the cheap?

Here are the upsides and downsides of each:

Pre-foreclosures. This entry point offers both the best and worst of the often messy business of investing in foreclosed property. On the one hand, if you can contact a distressed homeowner as soon as or even before his troubles become public knowledge (usually in the form of a "notice of default" listing in the newspaper), you're ahead of the competition and in position to work out a deal. On the other hand, you're approaching the hapless homeowner when he's at his lowest, or even worse, still in denial of the reality he faces. Already on edge, many facing foreclosure are warned to be wary of strangers approaching them with quick fixes, and with good reason. "That's when the vultures show up," says real estate attorney Oliver Frascona, who notes that fraudsters posing as so-called foreclosure consultants often try to get involved at this stage in the process.

Anyone with misgivings about profiting from someone else's misery has plenty of reason to steer clear. The irony, however, is that this is the point when a would-be can actually do some good, helping an owner avoid the all but permanent taint of a foreclosure. Although involuntarily selling one's house is sure to be heart-wrenching, a fair offer can at the very least create a path to financial recovery. That said, foreclosure experts warn buyers to avoid getting entangled in the seller's personal affairs. "A reasonable offer is all you owe them," says real estate broker Ralph Roberts, author of the book Foreclosure Investing for Dummies.

Those who want to avoid direct contact with a distressed seller have another option: the short sale. Such homes, which are often put on the market with the help of a real estate agent, are priced below what the owner owes on the mortgage and must be approved by the bank. The advantage, of course, is that you have every opportunity to do your due diligence and make an offer without having to engage the seller directly. The disadvantage is that once the house is on the market, you're competing with everyone looking for a deal. Meanwhile, even if your offer is accepted, it could take weeks, even months, for the bank to respond.

To increase your chances of getting a thumbs up, be sure to do your homework, including a thorough market analysis of what comparable homes have sold for, and submit your research along with your offer. "If you come in with all the statistics and can make the case that yours is a fair price, they're more likely to take it," says Pat Lashinsky, chief executive of real estate brokerage ZipRealty. And whatever you do, "don't try to low-ball the bank because they won't go for it."

Public auctions. The very idea is irresistible. Find your dream house, head for the courthouse steps, and bid whatever you think the place is worth. Unfortunately, the public auction stage of the foreclosure process rarely presents easy pickings. Although the exact method of disposition varies widely by both state and county, the general process is that the homeowner is sent a "notice of default" and given a certain amount of time—usually about 90 days—to "cure" the loan and bring payments up to date. If the homeowner doesn't, the bank then sues to repossess the house, which the court or a trustee then auctions off to the highest bidder.

The caveat is that the highest bidder must offer at least $1 above what the bank is owed on the property, then make a nonrefundable deposit—usually between 10 and 15 percent—and arrange financing within 30 days. In most cases, however, even a bid that's just $1 over the outstanding mortgage is substantially more than the house is worth. The result is the exact opposite of the sort of auctions you read about in the arts pages: a short, utterly boring affair in which no one even bothers to make a bid.

In some places, the owner may then have one last chance to "redeem" the property, paying off the entire loan amount, plus fees and expenses. Such situations are exceedingly rare, however, as few can finagle a new loan at that point, let alone come up with enough cash to pay off the old one.

Equally rare are situations in which homeowners who still have equity are nonetheless foreclosed on and their properties auctioned off. "Some people who come to me are just in denial," attorney Frascona says of some who simply refuse to sell before they're evicted. "But they usually to come to their senses by the time I'm done with them."

Even if they don't, buyers lucky enough to ferret out a "found money" situation still face risks. First and foremost is that fact that publicly auctioned homes are sold "as is," and there's usually little or no opportunity to tour the house, let alone arrange for a full-blown home inspection. Fixing that leaky water heater or protecting the house from termites is usually low on a cash-strapped homeowner's priority list, which means such houses are often fixer-uppers.

Even worse are situations in which soon-to-be-evicted homeowners take out their frustrations through sabotage. "They were so angry that they poured cement into all the drains and blocked up all the plumbing," ZipRealty's Lashinsky recalls of the evicted owners of one property, which cost the new owner about $25,000 to fix.

Owners often leave behind other problems in the form of unpaid taxes and other liens against the property. Back taxes are considered "superliens" that must be paid off by whoever takes ownership of the property. In some states, a foreclosure extinguishes junior-level liens, such as second mortgages, credit card debt, and the like. Others, however, require the new owner to pay off mechanics' liens, such as the money still owed to the repairman who fixed the central air conditioning system last summer.

Information on such debts is usually available through the local county clerk and recorder and the local treasurer's office. Title companies, too, are often willing to do a free cursory "errors and omissions," or E&O, search for prospective customers, although they don't always pick up every outstanding debt.

Bank-owned sales. The last stage of the foreclosure process may offer the smallest upside over the short run but the surest investment over the longer run.

By the time a homeowner has been foreclosed on and evicted, plenty of would-be investors have already had and passed up their chance to buy the house, usually for good reason.

Unable to get what it's owed, the bank then hires an outside real estate agent to put the place on the market, usually for somewhat less than what was originally owed on the mortgage. Spying a potential deal, would-be investors then circle back. Free now to tour the home and do all the due diligence needed to make an informed decision, many nonetheless continue to low-ball the bank and get rebuffed in the process.

Abandoned and unkept, such houses often sit on the market for months — even a year or more — gathering weeds and dust until someone finally hits the bank's target price. As with buying houses during the pre-foreclosure "short sale" period, the best strategy for getting the bank to sell is to offer a fair price and back it up with hard copies of all the research you've done to get there.

Of course, good things may also come to those who wait. With few signs of a bottom to the market and inventories of unsold houses continuing to increase, some major banks are already engaging post-foreclosure auctioneers to sell off their properties en masse. Well publicized in advance, such sales can offer advantages over government-administered foreclosure auctions, allowing prospective bidders to tour the homes in advance, and can even offer help with financing.

Recent auctions in Southern California and Florida have disposed of hundreds of homes in a single day, at prices as much as 40 percent off what the houses previously sold for. Even then, however, "it remains to be seen how many of those people actually got a deal," broker Roberts says of home prices that continue to fall in many areas.

Alex Markels

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