As a kid, most of our vacations were road trips, many into New England guided by CAA travel books and maps with highlighted routes. I have a lot of fond memories of those vacations, and one that always stood out to me was Salem, Massachusetts. I wanted to visit again, and I wanted to take my kids! We spent a whirlwind 5 days travelling around New England and overall I would rate our day in Salem a big success!

Salem Witch Museum

One of the biggest attractions in Salem is the Salem Witch Museum. I’m pretty sure very little has changed since I visited this same museum in the 80s, but there was a certain charm to that :)

The experience is popular enough that you need to book a time slot ahead of time, and there are long lineups outside as you wait to go in, but their system is well-practiced and efficient.

This is a kitchy old school experience so I think it’s important to remember that going in. You have two presentations - one in a big round room where you sit and watch scenes light up while a narrator that sounds like he’s from the 80s tells you the story of the Salem Witch trials. The second section you walk around to different scenes (I found this one a bit less interesting than the big room.) I think it would be boring for young children but I found learning the history of the Salem witch trials fascinating (and very different than I thought!) Between the presentations they leave you in the gift shop, which clearly works well based on the purchases I made :)

House of the Seven Gables

After the Witch Museum, we spent some time walking around in the rain, and we jumped on a trolley tour.

It was fun to hear about all the different parts of Salem and get a sense for the town. We then decided we wanted to visit the House of the Seven Gables (on the request of my teens!) and heard about the history of the house and its ties to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book of the same name.

The house boasted beautiful gardens, secret passageways, and loud and bold wallpaper I really liked!