Salem, Massachusetts is finest identified for the Salem Witch Trials which befell on this Coastal Massachusetts city over 325 years in the past. Today, multiple million folks go to Salem every year, particularly throughout October, for all issues witchy. But this charming seaport city doesn’t must be spooky or creepy. In reality, there are many issues to do in Salem with children that don’t have something to do with witches.
Personally, we aren’t into the macabre, spooky, or haunted; nor am I drawn to the Halloween-themed outlets or New Age and Wiccan boutiques scattered all through the city. However, we do benefit from the historical past of the city, the museums, the harborfront, the lovable outlets, and the great eating places. Together, these make Salem a fantastic day journey vacation spot.
Located simply half-hour north of Boston, Salem is a straightforward day journey from Boston, Portland, ME, Portsmouth, NH, and even our house in Rhode Island. You can even mix it with a day in close by Gloucester.
What is the Best Time to Visit Salem, MA?
If you do like all issues spooky, Salem continues to be a fantastic Halloween vacation spot through the city’s month-long “Haunted Happenings” in October, with occasions like parades, avenue festivals, household movie nights on the widespread, lantern excursions, costume balls, haunted homes, reside music, and chilling theatrical performances.
Personally, we like to go to in September or early November, when the leaves are altering coloration and the Salem Common is lined with yellow Ginkgo leaves. Just understand that for those who go to through the low season, a number of the city’s prime points of interest, just like the Salem Trolley and harbor boat excursions on the Schooner Fame might be closed for the season.
Things to do in Salem with Kids
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Salem Maritime National Historic Site
One of our favourite issues to do in Salem with children is spending time on the waterfront. I’d suggest stopping into the Salem Visitor Center if you arrive and join a tour of the Friendship of Salem, a duplicate of a 1797 East Indiaman crusing vessel now operated by the National Park Rangers.
They solely enable 25 folks at a time onto the Friendship on guided excursions solely so it’s a good suggestion to make the Visitor Center your first cease in Salem to get signed up. You can even choose up a Junior Ranger booklet to finish and return for a Junior Ranger badge.
The Salem Maritime National Historic web site can be a fantastic place for youths simply to run round and have enjoyable. We have been fairly bewitched by the wharf and ended up spending no less than an hour right here chasing pigeons, taking within the view, and exploring all the tutorial displays alongside the wharf that designate the positioning’s historical past in commerce and cotton manufacturing.
Salem Witch Museum
Because Salem’s fundamental draw is the witch trials, we now have made the compulsory cease on the Salem Witch Museum. While there are numerous museums in Salem devoted to the witch trials — the Witch House, the Witch Dungeon Museum, the Witch Trials Memorial, the Witch History Museum — the Salem Witch Museum is heralded as Salem’s most visited museum.
Not fairly a museum within the conventional sense, if you first enter you be a part of a “presentation” that begins at common intervals. I’ve to say, it wasn’t in any respect what I anticipated. My assumption was that there could be some type of film or interactive presentation that instructed the historical past of witch trials with out sensationalizing or over-dramatizing the satan worship/witchcraft facet because it was later confirmed to be all a falsehood began by a gaggle of women that have been both bored or caught up in mass hysteria.
Instead, once we entered the presentation we have been seated in chairs set surrounding a witch’s circle in crimson on the ground within the heart. The lights exit and the soundtrack comes on, lighting up a collection of dioramas on the outskirts of the room. The presentation begins out by highlighting a statue of Satan with a creepy voice speaking about satan worship and witchcraft — dramatic and a bit a lot for youthful children.
It then goes on to speak briefly about how they assume the rumors of witchcraft began, the trials, the circumstances within the prisons, and the way the accused have been tortured after which hung or pressed to loss of life. It concluded with a dialogue about how the accuser later recounted and the victims have been declared harmless.
After the presentation, the group moved to a second space the place we have been instructed in regards to the historical past of witches and the perceptions of witches by means of the ages and reminded how “witch hunts” of varied varieties nonetheless happen right now. After chatting with my daughter after our go to, we each agreed that we wouldn’t suggest it for youths underneath 10, relying on their maturity and the way simply they scare.
The Salem Witch Museum is positioned at 19 1/2 Washington Square North, Salem, Massachusetts and is open every day 10 am – 5 pm, with longer hours in the summertime and through Haunted Happenings. Same-day tickets are offered on-line solely starting at midnight.
Peabody Essex Museum
The Peabody Essex Museum must be in your “must-visit” record for our day in Salem with children. The roots of this museum return to 1799 and the East India Marine Society, and far of the artwork discovered on the PEM displays these roots, with a big selection of maritime artwork together with mannequin ships, maritime artifacts, and artwork objects from Asia, Oceania, India, and elsewhere.
The Maritime artwork and historical past have been fascinating, however I actually liked how nicely the Peabody Essex appealed to households. The Dotty Brown Art & Nature Center has hands-on actions, discovery drawers, video games and pc stations, to interact and discover. Complimentary Gallery Discovery Kits sends children on treasure hunts all through the museum. Plus, children underneath 16 are free and there’s even a room for nursing moms.
The Peabody Essex Museum is positioned at 161 Essex St in East India Square.
The House of Seven Gables
Made well-known by American creator Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1851 novel of The House of the Seven Gables, this house and grounds is now a National Historic Landmark District. Built in 1668 by service provider and shipowner John Turner I and his spouse Elizabeth Robinson Turner, you possibly can be taught the complete historical past and tour the rooms of this historic house on a guided tour.
Officially referred to as the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, same-day tickets can be found on web site when not offered out, or they are often bought upfront on-line.
The House of the Seven Gables is positioned at 115 Derby Street, Salem, MA
New England Pirate Museum
This small museum, positioned only a brief stroll from the harbor or the Peabody Essex Museum, tells the distinctive and little-known historical past of New England sea-robbers. Visitors can take a guided tour and discover pirate artifacts and genuine pirate treasures. You will stroll by means of a recreation of a colonial seaport, climb aboard a pirate ship, and discover an eighty foot cave.
Guests will find out about some 60 buccaneers on a 20- to 30-minute strolling tour. This museum is simply open from May by means of October thirty first.
The New England Pirate Museum is positioned at 274 Derby St, Salem, MA
High Tea at Jolie Tea Company
One of the particular issues I simply found to do in Salem with children is to take pleasure in excessive tea on the Jolie Tea Company. This beautiful tea store provides a big selection of tea and pastries to in-cafe eating or to go. However, the excessive tea arrange is just darling and such a memorable prime off to your time in Salem.
The Jolie Tea Company provides a Children’s High Tea at Jolie on Friday afternoons for kids 6-12. You can even make normal excessive tea reservations at different occasions.
The Jolie Tea Company is positioned at 316 Derby Street, Salem, MA
Salem Witch Memorial
Dedicated in 1992, the Salem Witch Memorial consists of 20 benches, every engraved with the title, date of execution, and technique of execution for every of the wrongly condemned. Outside the memorial, you’ll find a plaque with the phrases of the victims engraved on it. Nearby, you possibly can stroll by means of the Old Burial Point and Charter Street Cemetary.
It is usually a bit spooky visiting right here at night time and I can see why folks into ghost excursions would take pleasure in coming to Salem.
The Salem Witch Memorial is free to enter and is positioned at 24 Liberty St, Salem.
The Witch House
The Witch House, which was the previous house of Judge Jonathan Corwin and is without doubt one of the few constructions you possibly can go to in Salem with direct ties to the Salem witch trials of 1692. This can be the place Roger Williams, founding father of Rhode Island, as soon as stayed earlier than being ousted from Massachusetts.
You can take a self-guided tour of the home, however what many individuals love to do is take a fall picture in entrance of the home because it provides these excellent spooky, hocus pocus vibes.
The Witch House at Salem is positioned at 310 Essex St, Salem, MA
Our day in Salem, MA positively bewitched us…but it surely was the Friendship, the Wharf, the Peabody Essex, and this quaint colonial seaside city that captivated us…not the witches.
If you might be visiting Salem with teenagers, they might have an interest within the Salem Witch Village, which is guided by a working towards witch and covers the myths and the information surrounding legends of witches and their craft. You may additionally attempt the Salem Wax Museum. Personally, I discover all wax museums a bit creepy in order that isn’t my cup of tea.
You may additionally attempt a Salem ghost tour with teenagers or you may attempt a self-guided tour of Salem’s Hocus Pocus filming areas.
Where to Eat in Salem, MA
If you might be hungry for some seafood, head over to Pickering Wharf to Finz Seafood and Grill for a lunch of lobster mac n’ cheese, a lobster roll, calamari, or oysters. On the Wharf, it’s also possible to attempt Longboards Restaurant and Bar or Sea Level Oyster Bar, all of which provide some waterfront views.
If you might be searching for one thing a bit extra informal, cheap, and family-friendly, you may additionally attempt Witch’s Brew or Mercy Tavern for sandwiches, salads, and burgers. You can even attempt Notch Brewing and Biergarten for a full of life environment.
Bit Bar is one other nice selection with children because it provides basic arcade and pinball video games together with consolation meals, and a full bar.
For treats, cease into the Ye Olde Pepper Companie, America’s oldest sweet firm, close to the House of Seven Gables, or Goodnight Fatty, a cookie bakery close to the Salem Witch Museum.
Frequently Asked Questions
While Salem, MA is thought for the Salem Witch Trials and the Haunted Happenings which happen in October, there are many different issues to do in Salem with children together with the Peabody Essex Museum, the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, the Pirate Museum, excessive tea at Jolie Tea Company, and video games on the Bit Bar. I’d suggest avoiding visiting in October when the city could be very crowded with guests searching for all issues witchy.
I’d not suggest the Salem Witch Museum for younger youngsters underneath 10 or these which are delicate to scary film scenes or subject material. Most of the museum shouldn’t be scary however the preliminary dramatic presentation about satan worship and sorcery is a bit a lot. We went when my delicate daughter was 10 and she or he didn’t like that in any respect and didn’t discover the remainder of the museum significantly fascinating both.
Salem makes an ideal day journey from Boston or neighboring areas. Unless you wished to take a night ghost tour and also you have been coming from distant, you don’t want to remain in a single day until you need to go to greater than three points of interest. In a weekend, you possibly can simply see all Salem has to supply. If you do resolve to remain in Salem, it’s also possible to go to close by cities of Gloucester, Rockport, and even Newburyport.
In 1692, 20 harmless women and men have been put to loss of life as a result of they have been believed to be witches. While this non permanent outbreak of hysteria and witch looking was tragic, it pales compared to the variety of “witches” burned on the stake or tortured in Europe through the early Modern Period, but it’s a stigma and a historical past that has hung over the city ever since. These witch trials, which have been portrayed in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, overshadow the city’s wealthy historical past as an essential seaport.
Where to Stay in Salem
If you resolve to remain in a single day in Salem, the Hawthorne Hotel is a superb choice in a central location inside simple strolling distance to all the primary points of interest. Another good choice for waterfront views and easy accessibility to the Maritime Site, House of Seven Gables, and the seaport space is the Salem Waterfront Hotel & Suites.
Books to Read Before You Go
What Were the Salem Witch Trials? (What Was?)
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Something depraved was brewing within the small city of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. It began when two ladies, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, started having hysterical matches. Soon after, different native ladies claimed they have been being pricked with pins. With no scientific rationalization obtainable, the residents of Salem got here to 1 conclusion: it was witchcraft! Over the subsequent yr and a half, nineteen folks have been convicted of witchcraft and hanged whereas extra languished in jail as hysteria swept the colony. Author Joan Holub provides readers and inside have a look at this sinister chapter in historical past.
I Escaped The Salem Witch Trials: Salem, Massachusetts, 1692
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Amazon.com
Orphan-girl Hannah True battles unusual happenings, suspicion, and indignant villagers when her city believes it is underneath assault by witches.The Survival Series that celebrates the superior historical past of us.
From bestselling creator Scott Peters and Salem Witch whiz Juliet Fry comes a gripping retelling of the Salem Witch Trials for contemporary younger readers.
The Salem Witch Trials: An Unsolved Mystery from History
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When a gaggle of women got here down with a horrible, mysterious bout of sickness, they pointed the finger at folks of their neighborhood they claimed have been witches. Soon, the entire city was satisfied they have been in peril from supernatural forces. Today, we now have particulars in regards to the accusations, trials, and people who misplaced their lives, however the query stays: What triggered the mass hysteria?
Become a detective, examine the clues, and see for those who will help remedy this chilling thriller from historical past!
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
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Sixteen-year-old Kit Tyler is marked by suspicion and disapproval from the second she arrives on the unfamiliar shores of colonial Connecticut in 1687. Alone and determined, she has been compelled to depart her beloved house on the island of Barbados and be a part of a household she has by no means met.
Torn between her quest for belonging and her want to be true to herself, Kit struggles to outlive in a hostile place. Just when it appears she should surrender, she finds a kindred spirit. But Kit’s friendship with Hannah Tupper, believed by the colonists to be a witch, proves extra taboo than she may have imagined and in the end forces Kit to decide on between her coronary heart and her obligation.
The House of the Seven Gables (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)
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A dark New England mansion gives the setting for this basic exploration of ancestral guilt and its expiation by means of the love and goodwill of succeeding generations.
Nathaniel Hawthorne drew inspiration for this story of an immorally obtained property from the function his forebears performed within the Seventeenth-century Salem witch trials. Built over an unquiet grave, the House of the Seven Gables carries a dying man’s curse that blights the lives of its residents for over two centuries. Now Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon, an iron-hearted hypocrite and mental inheritor to the mansion’s unscrupulous founder, is trying to railroad a pair of his aged kinfolk out of the home. Only two younger folks stand in his method — a visiting nation cousin and an enigmatic boarder expert in mesmerism.
Hawthorne envisioned this household drama of evil, revenge, and determination as a microcosm of Salem’s personal historical past as in idealistic society corrupted by greed and delight. His enduring view of the darkness on the coronary heart of the nationwide soul has made The House of the Seven Gables a landmark of American literature.
Miller, Arthur’s The Crucible Paperback
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In the inflexible theocracy of Salem, rumors that girls are working towards witchcraft provoke the city’s most elementary fears and suspicions; and when a younger lady accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be delivered to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify in opposition to neighbor brilliantly illuminate the damaging energy of socially sanctioned violence. Written in 1953, simply after Miller acquired a Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman, The Crucible mirrors the anti-communist hysteria impressed by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s “witch-hunts” within the United States.
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