Americans Describe The Creepiest Town They Ever Visited On A Road Trip

I've lived in a small town in far Northern Maine for most of my life.

Let me just say, there's a reason Stephen King bases most of his horror stories in rural Maine.

The woods are dense, and the communities are insular. Cloudy, moonless nights are very, very dark, and ghost stories abound.

And there's a reason we small-town folks call ourselves "Maineiacs" instead of "Mainers" like the transplants and city dwellers do.

Giphy

But Interstate 95 ends before reaching the northern part of Maine. So we're not exactly a road trip destination.

Luckily, the United States is full of spooky little nooks and crannies along its highways and byways to lure travelers in.

Reddit user Bennevada asked:

"Americans who go on road trips, what little town gave you the most creeps like some Children of the Corn or crazy cult?"

Kentucky

"Stopped at the only restaurant in some small town in northeast Kentucky. There were two women inside and a family in a corner table."

"When we walked in, it was like they all had never seen people before. They just stared at us.

"The waitress paused a beat after we asked for a table, then they told us they didn’t take money!"

~ Idontknowthosewords

Michigan

"Me and my buddy both got a Friday off work and brought my new boat and motor out to a mid size lake in Michigan I found, because I read there were pike in there. It’s about a 45 minute drive from my house, no biggie."

"We head that way and about 10 minutes away from the lake, the GPS cuts out, but, oh well, you can see the open sky and parts of the lake from the dirt road we’re on, so I’ll just drive around until I find a boat launch or sign and go from there."

"We start seeing signs, they’re all in German, or maybe Dutch. I didn’t stop to read them or anything, but as we drive, we saw a group of kids walking down the side of the road—and not a small group, maybe 40 teenagers—all walking single file.

"'Must be some kind of summer camp near by' I said. It was a very hot September."

"As we keep driving, we keep seeing more groups that size, but varying in age. We saw another group of teens, one group of middle-age adults, and a slightly smaller group of people I would guess were in there 50s."

"All walking single file, not chatting, not holding anything in their hands, just walking, single file, down a muggy dirt road in the middle of nowhere Michigan."

"Me and my buddy start looking at each other like 'dude, does this seem strange to you?'. We saw a few small houses here and there, but nothing close to what what could have supported this many people."

"We tried to backtrack our way there when we went to leave the lake to try and find the signs and figure out what they said, but could not for the life of us find our way back through that area."

"Didn’t catch many fish by the way. It was a really warm fall that year."

~ riverratroberto

Ohio

"Red Haw, Ohio. I've driven through it four times.

"Every single time it's the same story. Cars parked on the sides of the road, but no traffic. Building doors wide open, but nobody visible."

"No music, no people."

"Legitimately saw a ball roll across the street once and nobody could have thrown it."

"It looks like everyone who lives there disappears whenever I drive through and then spontaneously they reappear when I leave."

~ GNSasakiHaise

Missouri

"I pulled into a bar in a tiny town in southeastern Missouri, the town was miles from any major highway. The bar was located in a former service station. There was only one other car in the parking lot, presumably the bartender."

"I stepped inside and there were two older men, one dressed in fishing gear, sitting at a table shelling peanuts. They both stopped and stared at me, and after an uncomfortably long pause, one of them asked if I needed something. 'Uh, I was hoping for a beer?' I answered. One of them got up and got me a can of Miller Light from the fridge."

"I would have sat at the bar, but the counter has a lot of boxes and clutter—along with an enormous plastic jar of some sort of dried mystery snack—and it just kind of seemed like they didn't want people sitting there."

"One table had hornets nests on it. The other table, where the two men were sitting, was covered in peanut shells, fly swatters, squirt guns, and also a sledgehammer."

"I sat at the table with the hornet nests, but then the two men told me to come sit with them so that I wouldn't have to drink alone."

"I asked about the hornet nests, and the guy in the fishing gear (same one who got me a beer) told me about how there's a short window of time you can collect them between when the hornets leave and when birds destroy them to eat the abandoned larva."

"He mentioned that one time he cut one too soon and before long the bar was swarming with hornets and it took a few days to get rid of them all. He then shook one of the nests over the table to show me all the larva that fell out of it onto the table."

"They turned out to be really nice guys, and I actually had a good time visiting with them. But everything about the place was just weird."

"On the opposite side of the pool table an entire wall and a good portion of the floor was covered with a pile of assorted children's toys. The men's bathroom set the all-time record for the dirtiest I have ever been in—it seemed to be rarely used and never cleaned."

~ scdog

Texas

"We detoured through Vidor, Texas due to a road closure. The residents hung white sheets saying ‘don’t stop’ and ‘go that way’."

"They seem to have lots of white sheets."

~ whatyoucallmetoday

"I did some engineering co-op assignments in the Golden Triangle area (Beaumont, Orange, Port Arthur) back in the early 90s. Everyone I worked with warned me to never stop in Vidor for any reason."

"I took their advice to heart. They said the town's claim to fame was being the former national headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan.

"Your experience with the white sheets sounds extremely believable to me."

~ underpants-gnome

"As a lifelong Texan and former resident of the greater Houston area, I can highly recommend never going near Vidor."

~ Outrageous_Picture39

Alabama

"The wife (American) and I (Brit) were driving through rural Alabama, where churches seem to outnumber homes, and most of those homes are trailers."

"We decided to stop for lunch at a diner in a small community. There were quite a few cars parked outside, including 2 police cruisers, so we figured it must be pretty popular."

"We walked in, and it was like a scene from a movie where everybody stops and turns to look at you, forks halfway to mouths, words half spoken etc... It went totally silent, and never in my life have I felt so spooked, so unsettled, and the wife felt the same.

"We turned round, got back in our car and left as fast as possible."

~ Another_Random_Chap

Georgia

"Not a town, but there is a little back road in Georgia named 'Trail of Tears Road'. My wife and I drove on it, and it was a beautiful, sunny day when we made the turn."

"As soon as we were on the road, it started raining, and the weather got worse and worse until it was like driving in a hurricane. Then, as soon as we got to the end of the road and turned onto the highway, the skies cleared up and it was a beautiful sunny day again."

"Super weird experience, and now years later, when strange things happen in the world, we joke with each other that it’s all a dream and we’re still trapped on Trail of Tears Road."

~ brickhamilton

"The Trail of Tears in Georgia was the forced removal of the Ani-Yunwiya (Cherokee) people from their homes in 1838 in violation of treaties signed before Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830."

"They were forcibly marched west to Indian Territory—present day Oklahoma. The journey was over a thousand miles long and took several months."

"An estimated 4,000 Ani-Yunwiya died during the death march."

"So, yeah, major bad mojo."

~ MohawMais

New Jersey

"Vineland, New Jersey. Utopian sober town known as home of Welch’s Grape Juice."

"It's New Jersey's largest city by area, but has only 60,000 people."

"Strange 'planned' city with huge spaces between buildings, ridiculously wide streets, everything out of normal proportion."

~ tpatmaho

Appalachia

"Years ago, my husband was driving through Appalachia by himself."

"He suddenly found himself driving through a small town that seemed to be completely abandoned."

"Except that there were life-sized mannequins posed all over doing everyday 'tasks'. Walking dogs, fixing roofs, sitting at picnic tables."

"It was a tiny village in the middle of the mountains. He said he drove through as quickly as possible."

~ zucchiniqueen1

California

"The area around the Salton Sea in southern California. In particular I'm thinking of the upper half of the western shore, towns like Salton City, Desert Shores, and Oasis."

"Back in the 1960s, a bunch of resort towns popped up along the sea. In the 1980s, agricultural runoff severely polluted the sea. There were also wild variations in the salinity of the sea, and those two factors combined to kill off a ton of the sea's fish."

"The dead fish washed up on shore, the sight and smell of which pretty well killed the tourism industry. What remains is an ecological disaster and a bunch of not quite ghost towns."

"It's a really eerie corner of the world, and as someone who's spent a lot of time in tiny back towns across the western states, the Salton Sea area is definitely unique in my memory."

~ MasteringTheFlames

Idaho

"Arco, Idaho. First town in the world to be fueled by nuclear power. They had an incident there in 1961."

"Stopped for gas on the way to Craters of the Moon National Monument. Dust balls rolling across the streets. Desolate at the time."

"Little kid no more than 10 years old sitting on the floor in the gas station looking at nudie magazines. Kid was the clerk’s son."

"I jokingly told my buddy to get back in the car and lock the doors. We were fully excepting to see people with three arms."

"If you’re from Arco, I’m certain it’s a nice place. This was the late 90’s, and it was a boring weekday afternoon, so please don’t be offended. Town was just really eerie."

~ FiddliskBarnst

Wyoming

"La Grange, Wyoming. Local religious school controls/owns most of the land and jobs."

"Very cultish, get in line or get out type of vibe."

~ Overall_Low_9448

New York

"One time my partner and I were driving through the absolute middle of nowhere in upstate New York. It’s getting dark. There’s snow on the ground. It’s creepy enough."

Then, a deer slowly walked in front of our car. I slow down and stop. It stops. It turns its head fully to look at us."

"The entire other half of its face was shredded. Just strips of raw red flesh hanging off."

"The scream we scrumpt."

~ Copterwaffle

West Virginia

"We were on a road trip to visit family in another state, and decided to take 'the long way' to avoid turnpike fares, and so we would have more opportunities to stop to feed our young baby. Besides, you usually end up seeing some nice scenery and find nice little towns along the way when you get off the turnpikes and take the back roads, right?"

"Along the way, we needed to stop to feed the baby, and we saw a campground sign, so we thought that would be kind of a neat place to stop, since the sign said it had cabins, a lake, a playground..."

"We had our other young children with us, so this was a good place to take a break, have lunch, stretch our legs and let the kids get out and run off some energy."

"We figured we might have to pay a small entrance fee to get in, but to our surprise, the campground owners allowed us to use the facilities and playground at no charge, and we thought ourselves fortunate to have come across such nice people—such a 'happy accident'."

"You're right to hear ominous music in your head at this point..."

"We parked by the playground, took out our food, set ourselves up at a picnic table, had our lunch and fed the baby, and after we ate, the two older kids played on the playground equipment with the campground owners' grandkids."

"The campground owners (a husband and wife, both older, maybe in their 70s) stayed around and chatted with us, which we felt was nice, because they were telling us about the area, and the campground, and they seemed like very nice people."

"I watched the kids playing, and just kind of half-listened to their conversation—which went something like this:"

"My kids: 'We're on a trip!'."

Their grandkids: 'You're not leaving from here'."

My kids (puzzled looks): 'Yes we are. We're just going to play for a while, and then we're going. My mom said so'."

Their grandkids: 'No. My grandma said you're staying. Like the last people that came here'."

"Now I'm curious...I'm sure they're just talking about people that come to camp here, right?"

My kids: 'No, we have to go. We're going to a hotel tonight with a pool—it has a slide!'."

"Their grandkids: 'NO, YOU'RE NOT. PEOPLE ALWAYS STAY. WE MAKE THEM'."

"Um...what‽‽"

"At this point, the owners' grandkids' voices are loud and insistent, and I'm getting concerned because this is just getting weird. I tell my kids to come to the table to get cleaned up so we can leave because something just feels 'off'—which they seem really happy to do because they're getting freaked out, too."

"The campground owners seem to notice their grandkids have said something that triggered us, and suddenly shift the conversation and start talking about how they have a church at the campground, and everyone enjoys their services so much, and we should stay—why, there's a service that night, as a matter of fact, and they'd love to have us stay for it."

"They'd put us up in one of their cabins, give us dinner and provide bedding, etc... We said we appreciated the offer, but no thanks, we had to be going."

"They started insisting we stay—like, REALLY strongly insisting, almost beyond the point of politeness—almost to the point of bullying."

"Just very pushy—saying how it would be a shame if we drove when we were tired and got into an accident and something happened to the children—how we should really think of the children and their future and not put them in danger like that."

"I've never had anyone say anything like that to me before—or since."

"I can't tell you how fast we packed up our things and left. To this day, I can't tell you exactly where it was, other than it was somewhere in West Virginia."

"I don't remember what area or town it was near, but I've never tried to avoid the turnpike again. I'll gladly pay the turnpike fares anytime now."

"Maybe I was just overthinking it and they were just being very concerned about it, but when I think back on it, I still think they were just very, very weird people, and I'm glad we got out of there when we did."

"To be honest, I think they were just super-religious and pushy about it, but it creeped me out."

~ supvsvcmi2

What's the spookiest spot you've visited in the United States?