Haunted Places in San Diego: 15 Haunted Sites and Hotels to Visit
A house built on the town gallows, graves under the street, a 160-year-old sailing ship and a hotel guest who never checked out. These are San Diego’s best-known ghost stories, with what is true, what is legend and how you can visit.
San Diego’s ghost stories cluster in three places: Old Town, where the Whaley House, El Campo Santo and the Cosmopolitan sit within a few minutes’ walk; the downtown waterfront, where the Maritime Museum’s ships and the USS Midway are moored; and the Gaslamp Quarter, with the Davis-Horton House and the Horton Grand. Coronado, Point Loma, La Jolla, Del Mar and the mountain town of Julian are each a short drive. We have checked every place against current sources, corrected the stories we had wrong, and moved one place you cannot visit to a separate list.
Open to the publicGhost toursParanormal investigations allowed
Address 2476 San Diego Ave, San Diego, CA 92110
Where to look The upstairs landing, the courtroom, the archway between parlor and music room, the kitchen
Reported ghosts Yankee Jim Robinson, Thomas and Anna Whaley, Violet Whaley, a crying child
Visiting Museum open daily; self-guided by day
Tours Evening guided tours (30 to 40 minutes, reservations needed) and a behind-the-scenes tour
Hours and season Daily 10 AM to 4:30 PM, evening tours after dark
Tickets Day visits from $15, evening tours from $20
Ghost hunting Yes: the museum runs two-hour after-hours paranormal investigations (from $109)
Thomas Whaley built this two-story brick house in Old Town in 1856 and 1857, on the lot where James “Yankee Jim” Robinson had been hanged for stealing a boat in 1852. It served as the family home, a general store, San Diego’s first commercial theater and, from 1869, the county courthouse. Two of the Whaley children died here: baby Thomas Jr. of scarlet fever in 1858 and Violet, aged 22, by suicide in 1885.
The Whaleys themselves heard heavy footsteps upstairs and blamed Yankee Jim. Since the house became a museum in 1960, visitors and staff have described Thomas on the upper landing, Anna in the kitchen and garden, a child crying, cigar smoke and lamps that swing on their own. TV host Regis Philbin said he saw a woman here in 1964. The museum calls it America’s Most Haunted House and runs evening tours and small-group paranormal investigations.
What investigators report
The courtroom is a long-standing recording spot: a reporter working with the TV show Sightings reported capturing the sound of old ivory billiard balls there on tape, and later teams have run EVP and Ovilus sessions in the theater.
Where to look Room 3327, Room 3519, the Victorian hallways, the beach stairs
Reported ghosts Kate Morgan, the 'Beautiful Stranger' of 1892; a maid linked to Room 3519
Visiting A working hotel; public areas, restaurants and bars are open to visitors
The Hotel del Coronado opened in 1888 on the sand at Coronado and is now a National Historic Landmark run as part of Hilton’s Curio Collection. Its most famous guest never left, according to local legend: Kate Morgan, a young woman who checked in alone under a false name in November 1892 and was found dead on the steps to the beach five days later.
Guests who request Room 3327, the room Kate is said to have stayed in, describe flickering lights, a TV switching itself on, footsteps by the bed and a woman in black in the corridors. Room 3519 on the fifth floor has its own reputation. The hotel embraces the story with nightly Haunted Happenings tours, so you can hear the official account before bed.
What investigators report
Room 3327, linked to Kate Morgan, is where paranormal researchers have set up infrared cameras and other sensors; guests there report flickering lights, a TV switching on and off and soft footsteps near the bed.
Address Maritime Museum of San Diego, 1492 N Harbor Dr, San Diego, CA 92101
Where to look The chain locker, the First Mate's cabin and the 'tween deck
Reported ghosts John Campbell the stowaway, a crushed crewman, a captain in his cabin
Visiting Museum ship open daily
Tours Museum admission covers the fleet; the museum has run Halloween ghost-story evenings
Ghost hunting Only at special museum events, such as the 2012 Maritime Ghost Conference
Launched as the Euterpe at Ramsey on the Isle of Man in 1863, this iron full-rigged ship survived a collision and a mutiny on her first voyage, carried emigrants to New Zealand on 21 passages, then hauled salmon cannery crews to Alaska as the Star of India. She is the world’s oldest ship that still sails regularly, and she is the flagship of the Maritime Museum of San Diego.
Two deaths anchor her ghost stories. In 1884 a teenage stowaway, John Campbell, fell from the rigging and died days later; visitors say they feel a touch on the back where he fell. In 1909 a crewman was crushed in the chain locker, a room where people still report cold spots. Captain William Storry, who died aboard in 1865, is blamed for the presence felt in the officers’ cabins. TV’s Ghost Hunters investigated the ship and the ferry Berkeley.
What investigators report
Ghost hunters below deck report using thermal cameras and voice recorders; one investigator asked a spirit to touch a pole and said the infrared camera showed an arm with no heat signature.
Where to look The graves along San Diego Avenue and the sidewalk outside the wall
Reported ghosts Antonio Garra by the fence, Yankee Jim Robinson, figures among the graves
Visiting Small walled cemetery; free to visit
Tours Included on Old Town evening ghost walks and trolley tours
Hours and season Daylight hours; please be respectful
Ghost hunting No investigations; this is a consecrated cemetery
Old Town’s Catholic cemetery opened in 1849, and 477 burials are recorded here up to 1897. Late in the 1800s a street railway was laid straight through it along what is now San Diego Avenue (the state landmark plaque dates it to 1894; other accounts say 1889). Some graves were moved, but many were left where they lay, and small markers in the sidewalk and street show where graves are thought to remain. The wall around the surviving section went up in 1933. Yankee Jim Robinson, hanged in Old Town in 1852, is buried here, and so is the Cupeño leader Antonio Garra, executed the same year.
The stories are about the people left under the road. Tour companies and visitors tell of cars parked on San Diego Avenue that will not start, a tall figure by the fence at dusk said to be Garra, and figures that fade among the graves. None of it is documented, but the graves under the pavement are real. It is a small, free walled cemetery a short walk from the Whaley House, so it fits easily into an evening in Old Town.
Haunted Rooms tip: Look down as you walk the San Diego Avenue sidewalk: the small grave markers set into the pavement are easy to miss.
Reported ghosts Ysidora Bandini; the Lady in Red; a ghost cat
Visiting A working hotel; public areas, restaurants and bars are open to visitors
The Cosmopolitan began as the adobe home of Juan Bandini, built in 1827, and Albert Seeley added the second story and turned it into a stagecoach hotel around 1869. Restored by the state, it is now a ten-room bed and breakfast with a saloon and restaurant inside Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. Rooms are Victorian, with no TVs or phones.
Room 11 is the most active, and the ghost is usually said to be Ysidora Bandini, Juan’s daughter, blamed for lights turning on and off. The old story that she fell from the balcony outside that room does not hold up: the building had no second story then. Guests also report a woman in red waiting in Rooms 4 and 5 and a playful ghost cat. Ghost Adventures filmed here in 2011.
What investigators report
Room 11, the Ysadora Bandini Room, is the overnight focus; one investigating crew reported a dresser door slamming shut while they sat playing cards on the bed.
Where to look Room 309, the third-floor hallway, the lobby staircases
Reported ghosts Roger Whittaker, a gambler; madam Ida Bailey; figures in Victorian dress
Visiting A working hotel; public areas, restaurants and bars are open to visitors
The Horton Grand is two Gaslamp Quarter hotels in one. The ornate Grand Horton and the plainer Brooklyn Hotel both date to the 1880s boom, were taken apart brick by brick in the late 1970s to make way for Horton Plaza, and were rebuilt side by side on Island Avenue in 1986. Wyatt Earp is said to have lived at the Brooklyn during his San Diego years.
Its best-known ghost is Roger Whittaker, a card cheat who, legend says, was shot after fleeing to his room. Guests in Room 309 report beds that shake, wardrobe doors swinging open and lights flicking on and off. Madam Ida Bailey, whose Canary Cottage stood nearby, is said to drift through as a cold mist, and staff describe figures in Victorian dress on the stairs.
Haunted Rooms tip: Walk past at night on a Gaslamp ghost tour; the Davis-Horton House museum is across Island Avenue.
Where to look The staircase landing and the upstairs bedrooms
Reported ghosts A Victorian couple on the landing, a man at the upstairs windows, a ghost cat
Visiting House museum at 410 Island Ave; check current opening hours before you go
Tours Self-guided visits, Gaslamp walking tours and seasonal ghost tours run by the Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation
Ghost hunting Ask the museum; occasional ghost tours rather than investigations
This saltbox house was prefabricated in Maine and shipped around Cape Horn in 1850, when William Heath Davis tried and failed to start a “New Town” by the bay. It is the oldest surviving structure in the Gaslamp Quarter. Alonzo Horton, who did build the new downtown, bought it in 1867, and in the 1870s Anna Scheper ran it as the county hospital under contract. It was later moved a few blocks to its present site on Island Avenue and is now the Gaslamp Museum.
The museum gets asked so often whether the house is haunted that it runs ghost tours itself. The stories told include a Victorian couple seen standing on the staircase landing before fading away, a man watching from the upstairs windows, lights that turn on after closing, and a tabby cat that is there one moment and gone the next.
What investigators report
Staff say a medicine chest left open in the room interpreting the 1873 county hospital is often found closed with its contents shifted, and a cat’s meow has reportedly been captured on EVP.
Address Maritime Museum of San Diego, 1492 N Harbor Dr, San Diego, CA 92101
Where to look The upper deck and the old passenger saloons
Reported ghosts The Fedora Man, heavy footsteps, voices in empty saloons
Visiting Museum ship open daily; included in museum admission
Ghost hunting Only at special museum events
Built by Union Iron Works in San Francisco in 1898, the Berkeley carried Southern Pacific passengers between the Oakland Pier and the Ferry Building for about sixty years, and in April 1906 she carried refugees away from the burning city after the earthquake. Retired in 1958, she spent years as a Sausalito gift shop before the Maritime Museum of San Diego bought her in 1973. She is a National Historic Landmark and the museum’s main building.
Museum staff have told of a man in a trench coat and fedora seen leaning in a doorway on the upper deck who vanished when approached, and of heavy footsteps and conversations heard after closing. The ship was part of a TV Ghost Hunters investigation together with the Star of India, which is moored beside her.
Haunted Rooms tip: Walk the upper deck at the end of the day, when the saloons empty out.
Where to look The sick bay, the berthing spaces and the engine rooms
Reported ghosts Sailors in Vietnam-era uniform, footsteps below decks
Visiting Museum open daily
Hours and season Daily 10 AM to 5 PM (last entry 4 PM)
Ghost hunting Not offered to the public
USS Midway was commissioned just after the end of World War II and served for 47 years, from 1945 to 1992, including Vietnam and Desert Storm. She opened as a museum at Navy Pier in June 2004 and now draws more than a million visitors a year, with a flight deck full of aircraft and self-guided tours down through the ship.
The museum does not promote ghost stories, but visitors and local investigators do. People describe figures in Vietnam-era uniform walking the passageways, footsteps and voices below decks, and a heavy feeling in the sick bay. San Diego paranormal groups have claimed to record dozens of different voices aboard, and the ship featured at the 2012 Maritime Ghost Conference.
What investigators report
Past investigations led by the museum’s curator used audio recorders for EVP, reportedly capturing a voice asking “What is the name of this ship?”; the bow’s fourth-deck cold storage locker is one reported hotspot, though investigations are not currently allowed.
Where to look The hallways, the fifth floor, the ballroom
Reported ghosts Fannie Chaffee Grant, a woman in white; a heavy-set man in a black suit
Visiting A working hotel; public areas, restaurants and bars are open to visitors
Ulysses S. Grant Jr. built this 11-story hotel on Broadway and named it for his father, the president. It opened in October 1910 and has hosted presidents and movie stars ever since. The Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation bought it in 2003 and restored it, and it is now part of Marriott’s Luxury Collection, facing Horton Plaza Park in the Gaslamp Quarter.
The ghost is usually said to be Fannie Chaffee Grant, the builder’s wife; the story goes that she died soon after the hotel opened and was unhappy when he remarried, though records show she died in 1909, before the opening. Guests describe a woman in an old-fashioned white dress in the halls, a heavy-set man in a black suit at the foot of the bed on the fifth floor, flickering lights and things vanishing in the ballroom.
Haunted Rooms tip: Have a drink in the Grant Grill and look at the photographs of the hotel’s early years.
Address Cabrillo National Monument, 1800 Cabrillo Memorial Dr, San Diego, CA 92106
Where to look The upper floor and the keeper's rooms
Reported ghosts Keeper Robert Israel, footsteps on the stairs
Visiting National Park Service museum; entrance fee $20 per car or $10 per person on foot or bike
Tours Self-guided; volunteer re-enactors often in the keeper’s quarters
Hours and season Daily 9 AM to 5 PM; no public access between 5 PM and 9 AM; closed Thanksgiving and Christmas
Ghost hunting Not allowed; the national monument closes at 5 PM
First lit at sunset on November 15, 1855, this lighthouse stood so high on Point Loma, its light 462 feet above the sea, that fog and low cloud often hid it from ships. The flame went out for good on March 23, 1891, when a new lighthouse lower down took over. Robert Israel, its longest-serving keeper, lived here with his family for about 18 years, and his wife Maria served as assistant keeper. The National Park Service restored it, furnished the rooms as they were in the Israels’ time and runs it as a museum inside Cabrillo National Monument.
Visitors have described heavy footsteps on the upper floor, moaning, labored breathing and cold spots, as reported in the San Diego press. Nobody agrees on who it is. Most versions say Robert Israel is still keeping watch; others blame the explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who reached San Diego Bay in 1542, centuries before the light was built. The gates close at 5 PM, so the stories come from daytime visitors and staff.
Haunted Rooms tip: Arrive soon after the 9 AM opening for the bay views and a quiet look at the keeper’s rooms; the gates close at 5 PM, so there is no night access.
Where to look Guest rooms that call the front desk, the kitchen, the North Annex, the stairwells
Reported ghosts Abigail, a woman in a lace dress; a couple in evening clothes
Visiting A working hotel; public areas, restaurants and bars are open to visitors
The Grande Colonial opened in 1913 as the Colonial Apartments and Hotel and was rebuilt and enlarged in 1925, which makes it La Jolla’s oldest original hotel. It sits on Prospect Street a short walk from the coves, the sea lions and the village restaurants, and actors performing at the La Jolla Playhouse are said to have stayed here in the late 1940s.
Staff tell of 2 a.m. calls to the front desk from empty rooms, and of a man’s silhouette behind a curtain that was gone when someone went to look. A woman some call Abigail, in a light lace dress, has been seen in guest rooms and is said to have brushed a young boy’s hair. A couple in formal clothes vanishes in the hallways, and guests in the North Annex hear people running downstairs after hours.
Haunted Rooms tip: Stop for a drink on Prospect Street and walk down to La Jolla Cove at sunset.
Reported ghosts Albert Robinson, the founder, seen with his pipe
Visiting A working hotel; public areas, restaurants and bars are open to visitors
Albert Robinson, described on the hotel’s plaque as a former slave from Missouri, and his wife Margaret ran a restaurant and bakery in the mountain gold town of Julian and built this hotel on the site in 1897. It is listed on the National Register and bills itself as the oldest continuously operating hotel in Southern California: 16 rooms, cottages and a honeymoon house, an hour northeast of San Diego.
Albert died in 1915, but local legend says he never really left. Guests report catching sight of a man with a pipe in the old mirrors, and of lace doilies and furniture rearranged in the upstairs rooms when nobody has been in. He is described as a host keeping an eye on his hotel rather than a threat, and some of the trees he planted when it was built still shade the street.
Haunted Rooms tip: Make a day of Julian: the old mining town has a gold mine tour and its famous apple pie.
Where to look The upstairs rooms and the upper porch
Reported ghosts Footsteps upstairs, lights switching on, a misty figure, a pacer on the upper porch
Visiting Free state park visitor center; free parking lots (4 hour limit)
Tours Park guided tours; Old Town ghost walks pass by
Hours and season Daily 10 AM to 5 PM; closed Thanksgiving and Christmas
Ghost hunting Not offered
Judge James W. Robinson built this two-story house on the Old Town plaza in 1853 as his home and law office, with an adobe ground floor and a wood-framed upper floor. Over the next half century it held offices, a jail cell, a schoolroom, a newspaper, a store and apartments. Robinson died in 1857, and in 1868 his widow Sarah sold it to Louis Rose for $10,000 in gold coin. Fire destroyed the roof in 1874, and the building was demolished around 1900. California State Parks rebuilt it in 1989, and it is now the visitor information center for Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.
The ghost stories come from staff, tour guides and visitors: heavy footsteps upstairs when nobody is there, lights flicking on and off, an elevator that moves on its own, a misty figure in the building and someone seen pacing the upper porch. Some women say their hair has been tugged. People name the Robinsons, or former tenants of the apartments and jail cell. Treat it as a good first stop for maps and history, then walk to the Whaley House and El Campo Santo, both a few minutes away.
Haunted Rooms tip: Start your Old Town visit here, then pick up the Whaley House and El Campo Santo on the same walk.
Address 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd, Del Mar, CA 92014
Where to look The upper grandstand, the Turf Club and the fifth floor
Reported ghosts Voices and shadows in the Turf Club, a past racegoer in the stands
Visiting Open on race days and for fairground events; ticketed
Hours and season Summer race meet July to early September; fall meet November to early December; San Diego County Fair in June and July
Ghost hunting Not offered
The fairgrounds opened in 1936, and Bing Crosby, Pat O’Brien and other Hollywood partners opened the racetrack in 1937 under the slogan “where the turf meets the surf”. Seabiscuit beat Ligaroti by a nose here in a famous match race in 1938. The original grandstand was torn down and replaced in the 1990s. The 370-acre site is owned by the state and hosts the San Diego County Fair each summer, more than 300 events a year and two race meets, in summer and in November and early December.
The ghost stories center on the new grandstand. Staff have talked of voices, figures in the halls and cold spots after hours in the upper Turf Club, and some blame the rebuild for stirring things up. The investigators of South Coast Paranormal claimed in 2011 to have recorded about 130 voices on the fifth floor, and in 2015 said they had caught a shadow crossing the bar on video; racing writers have joked it might be the late trainer Charlie Whittingham. Treat it all as local lore, best enjoyed on a race day.
Haunted Rooms tip: Go on a race day and look up at the grandstand’s top floors from the paddock; the fall meet runs from early November.
These places appear in older lists of haunted spots. We keep them here so you know the facts before you go, but you cannot (or should not) visit them.
Villa Montezuma, Sherman Heights
The 1887 Queen Anne house built for the musician and spiritualist Jesse Shepard is often called the Spook House, with stories of a grieving servant and piano music from a locked room. It is owned by the city and opens only for occasional tours, so check before you go and do not try to get in at other times.
Changed from our older guide: we removed the claim that the U.S. Department of Commerce certified the Whaley House as haunted (we found no record of it); corrected the Davis-Horton House story (it was prefabricated in Maine in 1850 and later served as a county hospital, but Alonzo Horton founded New Town, not San Diego); dropped the elevator at the Robinson-Rose House, a reconstruction that is now the Old Town visitor center; added the Hotel del Coronado’s sister hotels in the Gaslamp, La Jolla and Julian; and moved Villa Montezuma to the list of places with limited access.
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We collect first-hand accounts from visitors and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your visit. We read every story before it’s published.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most haunted place in San Diego?
The Whaley House in Old Town. It was built in 1857 on the lot where Yankee Jim Robinson was hanged in 1852, two Whaley children died there, and the museum has collected reports of footsteps, apparitions and cigar smoke for decades. It runs evening tours and after-hours investigations.
Can you go ghost hunting in San Diego?
Yes. The Whaley House runs two-hour after-hours paranormal investigations, the Hotel del Coronado runs ghost walking tours, and Old Town has nightly ghost walks and a ghost trolley tour. Haunted Rooms does not run events in California at the moment.
Is the Hotel del Coronado haunted?
It is famous for the ghost of Kate Morgan, who checked in alone in November 1892 and was found dead on the steps to the beach five days later. Guests in her old room report flickering lights and things moving, and the hotel runs its own ghost tours.
Are there graves under San Diego Avenue?
Yes. When a streetcar line was laid through El Campo Santo cemetery in 1889, some remains were moved but many were left in place, and small markers in the sidewalk and street show where graves are thought to remain.
Is the Star of India haunted?
The museum ship has two well-known stories: a teenage stowaway, John Campbell, who fell from the rigging in 1884, and a crewman crushed in the chain locker in 1909. Visitors report a touch on the back and cold spots below decks.
Which haunted places in San Diego can you visit for free?
El Campo Santo cemetery, the Robinson-Rose House visitor center and the grounds of Old Town San Diego State Historic Park are free. The Whaley House, the Maritime Museum, the USS Midway and Cabrillo National Monument charge admission.
Sources and how we research
Every place in this guide is checked against its official website, historic register listings and news coverage, and we confirm whether it is open, closed, private or gone before we list it. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and local historians tell them; we say so where records contradict a story. Each place shows how many independent sources we checked it against; our own Haunted Rooms pages are not counted.
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About the authors
The Haunted Rooms Team are paranormal researchers who write about historic haunted places across the United States. We research every place in our guides using official sites, historic registers, local archives and news coverage, and we report ghost stories as the stories they are. We review each guide regularly so you are not sent to a place that has closed, changed hands or banned visitors. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
