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The Ultimate Haunted Road Trip Through Upstate New York
Renter Guest Posts, Trip Ideas & Guides
‘Tis the season for crunching leaves, pumpkin-spiced everything, Stranger Things, and haunted campervan road trips! Our friend Zaq grabbed an Escape campervan (named Tecumseh) and some travel buddies and meandered north from New Jersey, hitting all the spooky stops he could fit into a weekend haunted road trip.
Stop 1: Rockland State Psychiatric Hospital
From our New York campervan rental site, it’s about 1.5 hours to Tallman Mountain State Park near Sparkill. This is a great area to camp if you’re leaving after work. Then you can get dinner at the Tallman Grill by NoCo, and hang out at the Tallman Beach and Pool Club–just keep in mind it closes at 10 pm. The next morning, get breakfast at the Orangetown Classic Diner before heading into Rockland State Psychiatric Hospital in Orangeburg to start your haunted road trip.
The Inside Scoop from Zaq:
“There really is nothing like visiting an old mental hospital to remind you to feel grateful for, you know, not getting lobotomized or whatever. Rockland was once one of the largest mental asylums in New York, but the patients and staff now take up only a tiny portion of the campus, which spans over 600 acres.
If you wander through the warrens of crumbling buildings, you’ll find rooms at varying levels of creepiness, from an abandoned bowling alley (3/10 scare points) to mouldering children’s wards (12/10 — the eyeless stuffed toys are totally going to come to life any second and get stabby, get me out of here, thx).”
Stop 2: Letchworth Village
From Rockland, it’s 20 minutes to Letchworth Village.
The Inside Scoop from Zaq:
“Letchworth Village was originally intended as a kinder variant on the mental asylum, but any place intended to segregate “the epileptic and feeble-minded” from the general population is going to be… um, suspect — and the practices that went down here make Nurse Ratched look like Mary Poppins.
Children suffered from forced medical testing, and there were many allegations of abuse. The buildings shuttered in the mid-’90s, and today, the sprawling grounds are ripe for exploration. In case you need additional nightmare fodder, there’s an attendant cemetery full of unmarked graves.”
Stop 3: The Pines Hotel – South Fallsburg
An hour up the highway from Letchworth, you’ll find The Pines Hotel in South Fallsburg.
The Inside Scoop from Zaq:
This massive Catskills ski resort once offered 400 rooms, an ice-skating rink, an indoor pool, and about a bajillion other amenities. Several of these have now been demolished, but large chunks of the buildings still stand, where you can scope out remains of peeling vintage wallpaper and old-school chandeliers.
Stop 4: Grossinger’s Resort, Liberty
The last stop on our haunted road trip tour is a quick 15-minute trip from The Pines Hotel.
The Inside Scoop from Zaq:
“If you’ve ever wanted to attend a Dirty Dancing-style Catskills resort populated by raccoons instead of a pre-nose job Jennifer Grey, then this is your chance. This abandoned resort is now carpeted in moss and the Olympic-sized swimming pools grow ferns.”
More Stops!
Can’t get enough? Here are a few more points of interest you can see along this route.
- Middletown Psychiatric Center
- Reformed Church of Beacon Cemetery
- Phoenicia
- Woodstock, NY / Overlook Mountain / Hotel Ruins, Fire Tower / Buddhist Temple
- Widow Jane Mine
- Howe Caverns
Ready to Book Your Haunted Road Trip?
Eager to get on the road for your haunted road trip through upstate New York? Contact us today to book your campervan trip. You will not want to miss out on this adventure!
The abandoned buildings at Rockland Psychiatric have been knocked down for 4 years now unfortunately. All that stands is the old children’s psych center which is locked down.