Super Useful Travel Posts (Halloween Edition)

Happy Friday! Remember this series? If you don't, it's because it's been quite a while since you've seen it or you're a new reader. Every few weeks I like to celebrate it being the weekend with an awesome list of cool stuff I found on the web that's travel-related. This week, we're talking all Halloween stuff. Hopefully, you love something in here, or you found something in your own web wanderings that you'd like to share in the comments.

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What's Underground? 

I enjoy a good tour of what you'll find underneath a city, but there's so many places I haven't seen and Travel + Leisure has rounded up The World's Coolest Underground Wonders. Thought they aren't all scary, they are awesome and worth putting on your travel list for the future. I'm really looking forward to checking out the Cabinet War Rooms in London on my next visit.

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Go For a Haunted Walk

I don't know that I want to actually come face-to-face with a ghost, but I've never had to deal with it, so I will continue to go on walks and tours, because the stories are interesting and the anticipation can be fun. If you're looking for a great ghost walk, check out the top 10 as rounded up by HomeAway.

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Party On Dude! 

Just like apps, there's a festival for everything, including Halloween. And who wouldn't want to celebrate in the place most famous for witches or with your favorite Lego characters or that cool mouse and all his friends? Check these 8 Halloween Festivals Worth Traveling For as listed by Budget Travel.

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Visit Halloweentown

Okay, so I don't know if you knew this or not, but that kitschy movie Halloweentown was actually filmed partly in St. Helen's, Oregon. I've lived here for longer than that movie has been out and I've never heard of it until this year. Well, you can visit the real Halloweentown, because the whole month of October, St. Helen's dresses up the town like the movie and has cool activities. I'm going this year to check it out. I'll tell you if it's cool enough for me to make a trip back next year.

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Decorate Your Home

Can't get away for Halloween? Then get some creepy cool stuff to scary up your place, or just make a fun and creative mantle-scape to celebrate the holiday. In fact, I found the coolest place to get your goodies from: Hoxton Street Monster Supplies in London. They ship worldwide and have the awesomest marketing team, selling things to "monsters" like earwax cubes, tinned fear and salt made from the tears of sorrow. Everything is candy, seasonings and the like, so it's stuff you want in clever packaging. 

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Take a Spin Around the UK

It's no surprise that the United Kingdom is full of ancient buildings with long, sordid histories. If you find yourself across the pond over Halloween (or really any other time) then take a look at Budget Travel's list of 7 Most Haunted UK Landmarks.

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Are You Insane?

Well, probably a lot of these people weren't either. If you aren't squeamish about creepy pictures of people who were often mistreated, Viral World has some amazing and rare photos taken inside a mental asylum. 

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Nobody Lives Here Anymore

If you can't stomach the above pictures, you'll want to see these beautiful abandoned places that Afar has found and you'll want to visit immediately with your best camera. None of these are Chernobyl either, which is like the number one mentioned cool abandoned place. And then there's this awesome train station that has both been abandoned and also moved. It might be renovated, but it's not looking great so far. Thanks to MessyNessyChic for finding this gem.

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Bonus!
And here's a little something you can use to capture those Halloween moments, and all the others the whole rest of the year. A Night Owl blog shows you how to be a better phone photographer.

Have you come across anything cool and travel-related lately or a cool Halloween thing? Add a link in the comments, so we can all check it out. Have a great weekend and enjoy tomorrow's blog post. 

9 Ways to Get Scared in Haunted New Orleans

Halloween is coming up, which means you have a little bit of time to plan a getaway to give you the heebie jeebies. There's no place creepier (or as fun) as The Big Easy.

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New Orleans has always claimed to have a rich history in the occult and creepy myths, so taking a trip to indulge in the historical part of this city is definitely a must. The city has long been called one of the most haunted cities in America and for several reasons – catastrophes, violence and close quarters being among them. Everywhere you turn, you can find ghostly haunts:

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The Omni Royal Hotel

Once the building for the city’s slave market and the site of great brutality, the hotel is now a grand place to stay and home to many spirits. If you stay here, you may see lights flicker and faucets turn on and off.

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The Bourbon Orleans

This former orphanage run by nuns still has kids running along its corridors. Guests have reported hearing children’s voices, seeing nuns in the hallways and feeling electrical charges near the stairwells.

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The Dauphine House Bed & Breakfast

Some guests just refuse to leave. This historic house, built right outside of the French Quarter in the 1800s, has doors that open and close on their own.

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Brennan’s New Orleans

A staple of the city since 1946, Brennan’s is not only a highly rated fine dining establishment, but it also has its own ghosts. In the Red Room, a man living in the building hanged himself after murdering his family. One of the cooks loved his job so much he continues to try to do it after his death and pots and pans clank in the kitchen when no one is around.

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Antoine’s

The owner of this well-known eatery was so deeply devoted to his restaurant and its patrons, that he is said to come back night after night – sometimes with other dearly departed family members – to check on how things are going.

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Muriel’s

Not one to dismiss the presence of ghosts who roam the earth, Muriel’s greets wandering spirits with a waiting plate of food and has even turned what was once the old slave quarters into a séance room. A former owner, devastated by losing his home in a poker game, committed suicide in this same room, making it a hotbed of paranormal activity.

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The Pharmacy Museum

Set on the site of the very first apothecary shop, the Pharmacy Museum holds a wide variety of cures and artifacts from old medical practices and voodoo rituals, including ghastly instruments used in the past for dentistry, many by the former owner, a dentist known to conduct grisly experiments on patients.

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St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

Nearly everyone has heard of the Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau and you can visit her tomb in New Orleans’ most haunted cemetery. Hundreds of thousands are buried in this one square block, with the tombs being reused over and over. Visit during the day or take a haunted tour of the cemetery at night for a spookier feel and the chance to see some of the dead residents as well.

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Lafayette Cemetery No. 1

Located in the Garden District, this beautiful cemetery is full of the tombs of those who died of yellow fever in the 1850s. It is surrounded by stately homes and mansions and has free tours each day. Shadows are seen frequently around the grounds.

Everywhere you go in The Big Easy seems to have an interesting story behind it. If you want learn more about the past of New Orleans and its ghostly inhabitants consider taking a guided tour. There are many to choose from, including ghost walks, vampire walks and historical city tours. They last around 90 minutes and are informative and affordable. They will surely make your trip much more interesting.

Have you ever had a paranormal experience in a haunted destination?

Leave Your Credit Cards at Home with #WocketWallet

Wouldn't it be easy if all you had in your wallet was one credit card and your ID? Of course it would, but it's very rare that any of us have only a few things in our purses or pockets, because we all have several credit cards, debit cards, rewards cards and more. If you could leave it all at home with no consequences, would you? I know I sure would, because I hate sifting through cards when I get to the check out. With the Wocket Smart Wallet you can live the dream.

Program this sweet little electronic wallet with all your important cards and rewards programs and you're good to go. You won't have to worry about a card falling out of your wallet somewhere and someone picking it up and going on a shopping spree. Wocket stores all your cards and allows you to use any card you've uploaded at the checkout with the fancy electronic Wocket card. It looks like a credit card, with your name on it and a magnetic strip like any other card you would use.

Seven or eight years ago, I had a card go missing and I noticed a $700 charge on it. Someone had tried (and mostly succeeded) to buy a computer with my debit card. I was lucky to have caught it and even luckier to be able to call both the bank and the online retailer and straighten out the situation. The order was cancelled, the money put back in my account and a new card was sent to me. It took a couple hours of my time, but it all turned out okay, however, it would have been nice for it to have never happened at all.

It would be almost impossible for the Wocket card to get lost, as it locks in place when put back into your Wocket Wallet, ready to be programmed anew the next time you need to use it to make a purchase. Five minutes after it's used, the card wipes itself, so even if it IS lost, it can't be used at all, since it only has your name on it, no numbers or credit card logos. Pretty cool, right? 

I feel like having this on my trips could really eliminate the worry of losing my credit card that I'm using for most of my purchases, or any of my others. Having just the one card to deal with would simplify things and help to pack lighter. Imagine having all your cards at your fingertips, while also leaving them at home in a safe place. 

Setting up your Wocket is easy. You charge it fully (which can last 6 months to a year on a single charge with regular use), choose a PIN (which can be any combination of four numbers or letters) and then verify your name by swiping one card that has your name attached to it. Once you've done this, you can start uploading all your credit cards, rewards cards and other cards onto the device. In fact, it holds up to 10,000 records for you. Obviously, you'll probably never even need even half of those, so basically it'll never run out of memory for you.

So, does it really work? I tested it on a few trips to the convenience store and had no problem choosing the card I wanted to use, waiting for the Wocket to program the deets onto my card and then swiping it through the machine. Nobody looked at me weird, but I didn't have to show anyone my card either. If you do, you can click on the card info on your Wocket, enter your PIN and show the clerk your whole card information, as well as show them your ID. Easy, right?

Does simplifying your wallet for home and travel sound like something you'd want to do? I'm guessing most of you are saying yes, especially if it comes at a more affordable price for you. While the Wocket doesn't come at a price you'd pay for a normal wallet, think of all the time and worry you'll save over the years by having all your cards in one spot, no matter where you go. If a card suddenly has a problem while you're in the middle of your vacation, you can easily pull up another card for backup that you may have wanted to leave at home had you cleaned out your regular wallet before leaving. Crisis averted. For this peace of mind, you're probably willing to pay more. You can save $30 off your Wocket with my special code: 30OFF-f2bsca36

The Wocket makes a fantastic gift as well. With the holidays coming up, imagine the joy you'll give someone who often has to rifle through all their cards to find the right one when they go shopping. You can purchase one now! 

Want to win your very own Wocket? Of course you do! Check out Wocket Wallet's social media sites and follow them to enter through the rafflecopter form below. One lucky winner will be chosen on October 20th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

How much is it? $179
Got more questions? Find out more about Wocket Wallet on their website.

Disclaimer: I have been sent the Wocket Wallet for the purposes of this review, but all opinions are 100% my own.