Sitting on a bluff off the Wilmington River within Savannah’s city limits sits 160 acres of an old plantation lined with moss covered oak avenues and Victorian gardens. It might sound more like a real estate pitch or dream home, but this is a description of the grounds of Bonaventure Cemetery. The history and hauntings from the past generate 45,000 visitors a year yet the real attraction is the scenic avenues and gardens inside. It has been named one of the most scenic cemeteries in the world and served as inspiration of artists for years.

It is one of the magnificent seven and notorious for hauntings, ghosts, rock n roll parties, vampires, and burial ground of London’s elite Victorian members of society. Highgate is one of the top 10 cemeteries in the world and a must see. It has a long history filled with gothic Victorian architecture and surprisingly a nature reserve.

This is the oldest maintained cemetery in the United States. Around 130 headstones have been accounted for, but the number of buried souls is unknown. The grounds were first used as a meeting house/church in 1632 and a burial ground starting in 1634 till 1789. The exact dates of the grounds being used as a cemetery vary due to the erosion of headstone dates. It was then abandoned till 1887 when the Duxbury Rural Society took over the grounds and rediscovered Myles Standish’s grave. A cemetery almost lost from history, neglected until perchance gave it and the residents inside the recognition they deserve in history.

Salem, Massachusetts is one of the most notorious cities in the United States of America. Part of the founding of America, the “witch city” is renowned for its persecution of women accused of “witchcraft” that overshadows its other historical contributions. The quick craze of accusations or ‘witch hysteria’, persecution and death sentences have led to fame and tourist fortune for Salem. The second oldest cemetery in the United States also calls Salem its humble home. The cemetery dates from 1637 with 485 headstones and around 600 residents.

Noun: a love of funerals, cemeteries, and the rituals of death.

Commonly known as a “tombstone tourist”

The definition of taphophilia seems quite simple. The walking graveyards/cemeteries and obsessing with the rituals of death for few or to normal people may seem morbid and not so simple. Yet the human obsession of death/morality is an unknown passage we all make and the unequivocal fate in our lives.