This past weekend, I took a great mini-vacation with my girlfriend before returning to an all-but-empty office, since the majority of the Global Traveler team is in Chicago for the Global Business Travel Association convention.

We left on Wednesday night after work and set out to drive north to visit Boston and Salem. Neither of us had ever been to Massachusetts, so it seemed an obvious choice when we were deciding where to go.

We stopped midway through the drive on Wednesday night and picked it up again early Thursday morning. The total drive time was less than five hours, but breaking it up was a great way to make the trip feel a little shorter. On Thursday morning we arrived in Boston, found parking and went to the New England Aquarium. I’ve never been to an aquarium before, but this was an excellent first choice. After seeing all the aquarium had to offer, we took a walk along the harbor and looked for a good place to grab lunch.

We settled on the Boston Sail Loft. We shared a cup of clam chowder and got a few sandwiches before heading out to explore the rest of the city. After lunch, we went to Faneuil Hall and the nearby marketplace. After we saw our fill, we decided to head to the hotel, north of Boston proper in Danvers, Massachusetts.

On Friday morning we got up and took our time getting ready before heading to Salem. Even though we visited in the off-season, there were plenty of visitors in town. We visited the Salem Wax Museum, went through a haunted house and did some exploring before our first tour, at 4 p.m. We explored the town and learned all about the history of the 1692 Witch Trials. We grabbed a dinner of lobster ravioli before our next tour.

Our last tour of the night started at 8 p.m., perfect for a mid-late summer ghost tour. Throughout the tour, our guide, who happened to be the same guide from our earlier tour, told us all about the documented murders and crimes in Salem and went into detail regarding known haunts. At one point, we visited Ropes Mansion and the infamous Salem Witch House.

When we were leaving the garden behind the Ropes Mansion, I saw a ghost.

Rebecca and I were the last two of the tour to leave the garden. There was only one way into or out of the garden for our tour, a narrow path on the right side of the mansion. As we started down the path, we were about 15 feet behind the next tour member. I thought I caught another member of our tour behind us out of the corner of my eye and turned to see a man walking down the path toward us. We made to walk toward the front of the mansion as I looked over my shoulder once more to make sure we didn’t lose our tour member. He was still coming up the pathway. Once we were in front of the mansion, we moved quickly to catch our tour group, who were already rounding a corner and moving up another dark street. Before going down the street, I turned once again to make sure our guy was behind us, but in the five seconds we took to cross the street, the guy was gone. He never emerged from the path and did not come in sight before we looked again.

We walked pretty quickly to catch up with the rest of our group.

— Erich Martin, assistant editor