Bloody good: 8 great vampire destinations

If your office life is soul sucking, trade it for a vacation that is blood sucking, as in a visit to a destination that is either legendary as a stomping ground for the undead or one that has been made famous in popular works of vampire fiction—we’re looking at you, Twilight. Here are 8 great vampire destinations.

Abandoned houses at the Brush Park neighborhood in Detroit. Photo courtesy of Cristina Torres.

Detroit, MI
A newer entry into the vampire canon, Only Lovers Left Alive is more contemplative than its gory and occasionally campy counterparts. Its lead character Adam lives in a giant Queen Anne at 82 Alfred Street in the Brush Park neighborhood. At night Adam and his lover Eve drive through the abandoned city streets where the film’s camera sets its sights on D-town icons like Packard Plant and the Michigan Theater.

Highway 101, Olympic Peninsula near Forks, Washington. Credit to Sam Beebe | Flickr Creative Commons

Forks, WA
A timber town for much of its history, rain-soaked Forks in the Olympic Peninsula is now a tourist hub thanks to its setting in the fictional Twilight series. Its annual Forever Twilight in Forks celebrates the series and its author Stephanie Meyer with a September celebration featuring a Vampire Habitat Walk, house tours, a Meet ‘N’ Eat, bowling and karaoke. If you’re not around in autumn, swing by the visitors center anytime to see Bella’s trucks and grab a Twilight map of Forks and take a self-guided tour.

Related: These are America’s 10 creepiest, coolest ghost towns.

Tombstones at Highland Cemetery, London, England

London, England
Jolly old England isn’t so jolly after hours when vampires run amok—or do they? Rumors spread in the 1970s that a vampire was spotted at Highgate Cemetery in London. It turned out to be false—shocker!—but the city is nevertheless part of vampire pop culture. It was the intended destination for Count Dracula and is home to a thriving community of self-described vampires. Highgate Cemetery is open to visitors.

View from the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA
What does the City of Angels have to do with vampire mythology? Plenty if you consider that its sunny, fictional suburb of Sunnydale is where vampire slayer Buffy kicked serious butt in the long-running series. Torrance High School stands in for Sunnydale High, meanwhile UCLA exteriors sub for campus life for Buffy and her Scooby gang in later seasons. Also, check out the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis House at 2607 Glendower Avenue in Griffith Park where villain Spike and Drusilla hang out in season two.

NewOrleans, LA
The Crescent City is a focal point in vampire folklore thanks in part to its historic 18th and 19th century architecture, its status as a melting pot for the bizarre and the occult and the author Anne Rice. Although the scribe who brought us the Vampire Lestat no longer pens tomes about bloodsuckers, fan tours lead visitors past residences which were formerly owned by Rice and also the setting for some of her novels. There’s also a vampire shop, a Vampire Lestat Ball, a community of self-identified vampires and more.

Paris, France
Put down that baguette and hold off on that stroll through the Marais, a different attraction awaits in the City of Lights.Le Musee des Vampires (aka the Vampire Museum) is a small, appointment-only museum located just beyond the 19th and 20th arrondissements that is devoted to vampire folklore and is filled with books, movies posters, fine art objects, an autograph collection and other vamp-related ephemera.

RELATED: These cities throw the country’s most amazing Halloween parties.

Portland, OR
Count Dracula never once visited the City of Roses (that we know of), but he surely would’ve felt right at home at the annual Vampire Masquerade Ball which gathers 800 guests annually for a night of formal elegance steeped in Edwardian grandeur. Although not a bloodsucking event per se (no need to show up with a false set of fangs), the Ball nevertheless seeks to recreate the Gothic splendor prevalent in vampire mythology so expect a night of outrageous decadence with a hat tip to the dark, exotic and supernatural.

Dracula’s Castle, or Bran Castle, in Romania

Transylvania, Romania
This region in central Romania is vampire ground zero thanks to Dracula, Bram Stoker’s 1897 horror novel which introduced the character of the infamous Count Dracula who resides in Bran Castle on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia. The castle now functions as a museum and is a magnet for vampire enthusiasts, but of course the history of Bran has nothing to do with Dracula who is a work of pure fiction.

Tagged: California, Europe