Campfire Stories
Where truth blurs with tale, and the shadows do the talking.
At The Travelers’ Field Guide, we believe every great road trip should come with a good ghost story. This is where we keep ours.
Some of the stories you’ll find here are rooted in real places—based on local legends, strange sightings, and whispered accounts passed down through generations. Others are stitched together from imagination, dreams, and the occasional nightmare.
Growing up, I’d beg my uncle to “scare me” with his best ghost stories—long drives and late nights were his stage. This page is a tribute to that tradition. A place where folklore meets fiction, and curiosity meets the unexplained.
So whether you’re here to research your next haunted destination, or just want something a little creepy to read after dark—welcome. Settle in. Read slow.
And don’t mind the noises behind you. Probably just the wind.
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The House on Blackfish Point
On Cape Cod’s farthest edge, an old sea captain’s house leans against the wind and listens. Locals say it breathes — walls expanding and contracting like lungs — and that if you linger too long, it starts to whisper your name back to you.
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The Smuttynose Murders
The Isles of Shoals are known for their beauty—and their ghosts. The Smuttynose Murders of 1873 turned that beauty into something darker, a story of trust betrayed and lives cut short on a night when the sea was the only witness.
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The Haunted Pocomoke Forest
Between the blackwater swamps and the whispering pines, Maryland’s Pocomoke Forest keeps its own kind of legend—a place where travelers vanish, lights dance in the fog, and something ancient stirs just beyond the treeline.
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The Vanishing Hitchhiker
It starts the same way every time: a stranger on the roadside, a ride offered, a silence that feels too long. The story of The Hitchhiker has haunted travelers for decades—and not just in legend.
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The Jersey Devil of the Pine Barrens
By day, the pines are quiet. By night, they come alive with stories of the Jersey Devil — red eyes, leathery wings, and a scream that splits the stillness. Whether myth or memory, something still moves between the trees.
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The Gray Man of Pawleys Island
On Pawleys Island, a lone figure is said to appear before hurricanes — gray, silent, and walking the shoreline. Locals believe he’s not a threat, but a warning: a chance to leave before the storm arrives. Those who heed him often return to find their homes spared.
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The Lady in Black of Fort Monroe
Fort Monroe has stood for centuries, its walls holding stories of soldiers, prisoners, and whispers in the night. The Lady in Black remains its most chilling legend — a figure who appears in silence, cloaked in grief, and never truly leaves.
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Haunted History Stops Along the Coast
Not every ghost story is make-believe. Across the East Coast, historic houses, prisons, lighthouses, and forts all share the same uneasy reputation: visitors leave with the sense they weren’t alone. Haunted or not, these places prove history has a way of holding on.