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Haunted Hostels

This Halloween, Hostelworld.com is giving budget travelers a good scare. The leading provider of online lodging reservations to the budget, independent and youth travel market is naming some of the world's creepiest hostels for those daring souls looking for a fright. Hostelworld.com offers confirmed online reservations for more than 10,000 hostels and budget hotels in more than 150 countries worldwide.

Check out the following "haunted" hostels, if you dare:

USA Hostels, San Diego, California

San Diego might be a city of sun and fun, but when the sun goes down, USA Hostels San Diego, a former brothel in the late 18th century, is not for the faint of heart. Guests have told stories about lights going on and off without reason, banging sounds that come from all directions, windows and doors closing on their own and unexplained breezes moving through the rooms. One guest felt her leg being grabbed, only to wake up and find everyone else asleep.

La Casa de las Brujas, Guanajuato, Mexico

Built in 1895 by a Dutch mine owner and located in Old Mexico is La Casa de las Brujas ("The House of the Witches"). Steve Carson, the house's owner was said to have psychological problems in the years after buying the property and was imprisoned for killing a man in a cantina brawl. His daughter, Susan, was left under the care of aunts, who beat her and allegedly left her in the house's cellar to starve to death. Her body was found a year later by the authorities, and it is rumored that she still haunts the house-turned-hostel today.

Foulksrath Castle, Kilkenny, Ireland

Foulksrath Castle, which is located in a 16th century Norman Tower House, is said to be Europe's oldest hostel. A BBC television team of British Ghost hunters visited the hostel and sent back a report stating "their machines recorded the best ghostly sounds of any place they visited in all of Ireland." It is believed that the daughter of the owner fell in love with an Irish boy and was locked away by her father in the "Cuckoo Nest" room to stop her from seeing him. As the story goes, the father finally murdered the girl, and her ghost still walks the castle halls.

The Pirate Haus Inn and Hostel, St. Augustine, Florida

Located in St. Augustine, widely regarded as the oldest city in America, The Pirate Haus Inn and Hostel is sure to put a chill in your bones. The hostel is situated just up the street from the Old Spanish Treasury, where Robert Searles and his band of pirates would have headed in their raid of 1668. All ghost tours in St. Augustine stop outside the Pirate Haus to tell the tale of Estefania de Cigarroa being shot as she ran out of a house with her baby sister in her arms during Searles' raid. The house where they lived might have stood exactly on the spot where the hostel stands today. The hostel staff tells tales of objects falling off shelves for no apparent reason and strange blue lights coming from room six.

HI-Ottawa Jail Hostel, Ottawa, Canada

Formerly a prison, the HI-Ottawa Jail Hostel is located on the site that Canada's last public hanging took place in 1869 when Patrick James Whelan was hung during the 11th hour of the 11th day of February for the assassination of Thomas Dárcy McGee, one of the fathers of the confederation. Guests can visit death row and the gallows during a jail tour and then sleep in a former jail cell. But be wary   it is said that the ghost of Patrick James Whelan walks the corridors to this day!

For more information, visit www.hostelworld.com

Edited by Erika Wright

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