CHARLESTON, W.Va.—– Just in time for Halloween, the West Virginia Paranormal Trail has added four new paranormal attractions for participants to visit, the West Virginia Department of Tourism announced Thursday.
The trail, which launched two weeks ago, is based off of the West Virginia Waterfall Trail that the department has seen do so well. The trail started with only 14 attractions but with the addition they will have 18 spooky attractions for people to see. And since its launch the trail has seen almost 5,000 participants sign up already, and those signatures have come from 39 different states and three different countries.
Lauren Bodnar
And Lauren Bodnar, Director of Public Relations for the WV Department of Tourism said that this has already helped tourism in West Virginia.
“Not only are people excited about it but there coming here and there traveling around to these different stops,” Bodnar said.
And the reason that it has garnered so much attention so fast, is because of social media which allows them to reach more people.
“It’s something a little bit different that we’ve done in the past, it just caught people’s attention, I think,” Bodnar said. “So, that’s one part but also just our promotion on our social media helps spread the word pretty easily.”
The four new attractions include the West Virginia Bigfoot Museum in Sutton, Silver Run Tunnel in Cairo, Cryptid Mountain Miniature Golf in Morgantown, and Hempfield Tunnel in Wheeling, however Bodnar says that there are a wide variety of what visitors can expect during the trail.
“They really range from kind of these haunted tunnels, there’s the insane asylum in Weston, there’s the state penitentiary up north, so really there are a range of different places to visit across the state,” Bodnar said.
You can find the whole list of attractions when you go to the West Virginia Department of Tourism website.
And since it’s gained so much participation, Bodnar anticipates that the trail could be something they could keep going.
“I definitely think it’s something that we would consider extending, especially if we get a lot of feedback, that it’s something that people want to keep adding to and that they want to keep checking into,” Bodnar said.
Bodnar also said that they don’t know every haunted attraction in the state, and they encourage people to go to their website to recommend an attraction.
People who are interested in participating in the trail, can go to the Department of Transportation website and sign up for a virtual passport.
“Then you’ll sign up, you’ll put in your name and some of your contact information in a form, and then the passport will be sent directly to your phone either via text or the email that you provided,” Bodnar said.
Although the trail is related to all things spooky, it is expected to last until the end of this year.