What do you think?
Rate this book
The South Dakota Road Guide to Haunted Locations
Your road guide for finding haunted badlands, banks, bed & breakfasts, bingo halls, brothels, buttes, casinos, castles, coal mines, forts, monuments, museums, parks, restaurants, rodeos, saloons, theaters, towns, and much, much more.
- GenresParanormal
244 pages, Paperback
First published May 25, 2006
1 person is currently reading
23 people want to read
About the author
Chad Lewis
67 books31 followersFor nearly two decades Chad Lewis has traveled the back roads of the world in search of the strange and unusual. From tracking vampires in Transylvania and searching for the elusive monster of Loch Ness to trailing the dangerous Tata Duende through remote villages of Belize and searching for ghosts in Ireland’s haunted castles, Chad has scoured the earth in search of the paranormal.
With a Masters Degree in Psychology, Chad has authored over 15 books on the supernatural, and extensively lectures on his fascinating findings.
The more bizarre the legend, the more likely you’ll find Chad there.
With a Masters Degree in Psychology, Chad has authored over 15 books on the supernatural, and extensively lectures on his fascinating findings.
The more bizarre the legend, the more likely you’ll find Chad there.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 7, 2017
Superficial in its investigations but still a fun read. Perhaps I will have to make a few out-of-the-way stops as I travel to see family in the 605.
Read
January 5, 2025'The South Dakota Road Guide to Haunted Locations' is a novel written by two paranormal investigators aspiring to find haunted locations in each of America's states. This is an older series, with this book in particular dating back to 2006, so it's important to note that while both authors claim that they will be attempting to update the book as new information is released, some of this book still remains largely outdated.
While the book, itself, is fine if you're looking for something to bring along with you on your roadtrip to South Dakota, I do have a few complaints that if they're ever resolved, could make this book a better, more reliable source of information for those looking to find some real scares.
1. The book focuses a little too much on the history of the state or location rather than the main part of the novel: the investigation into the hauntings.
Other reviewers have mentioned the same thing, but the amount of history in this book far outweighs the amount of information received about the actual hauntings or investigations. Some investigations weren't even investigations at all, but retellings of experiences that other people had, vague non-questions that the authors ask (and should be answering themselves, but they don't), or very brief interviews with the owners of various locations.
If one were to investigate the hauntedness of a place, I expect them to actually put some elbow grease into it, y'know? Stay the night in said haunted hotel rooms, actually utilize the "modern technology" that you claimed to have in the introduction and then tell me about the feedback, or even tell stories about the experiences that you, yourself had at these locations. This book claims to have more than it actually does, but reads more like something that I could've easily written by sending out a few e-mails, then reading off the Wikipedia page for anything else that I might need.
While I acknowledge that history is sometimes needed to articulate where the spirits in a place come from, I don't really need to know the nitty-gritty of the dates that a person was born, the dates of their childrens' births, per anything else that has nothing to do with the subject matter. If you're so low on space, like you claim to be in the introduction, perhaps we could save some space by editing out the unnecessary facts.
2. This book seems to get lazier and lazier as it goes on.
With everything that I said above taken into consideration, it seems like the amount of effort put into each location starts to become less and less as the book progresses. In fact, some places have so little documentation on them that it feels like they're only there to fill in space, when they could've easily been replaced with another spot that the authors knew more about.
Not to mention, there were multiple typos throughout the book, too. While other people might not care as much, if a book wishes to be an informational guide about something real, or otherwise serve as an educator for the uneducated, spelling and grammatical errors really take away from the author's credibility. Typos and grammatical errors became more frequent as we progressed; hence, why I put it here.
3. The authors make claims that they cannot carry through with.
In the first section of this book, the authors strongly encourage readers to send in submissions of any paranormality that they've experienced or locations that they wish to see (superficially investigated, mind you) in the future. As far as I can tell, I could be wrong about this part, they don't include anything for contact information and in the 18 years after this book has been published, have failed to make another SD Haunted Locations book. I guess I can't be too surprised, as they haven't made any more additions to this book in terms of quality or editing information, let alone hint at making another one.
If I'm honest with you, the reader, one might have better luck with simply compiling a list of haunted locations off the internet and using that as inspiration for a road trip rather than relying on this book. It's fun and interesting to hear about the intensive history of the South Dakotan people, but fails to do the one thing that this book wanted to do: inform readers about paranormal activity in South Dakota.
While the book, itself, is fine if you're looking for something to bring along with you on your roadtrip to South Dakota, I do have a few complaints that if they're ever resolved, could make this book a better, more reliable source of information for those looking to find some real scares.
1. The book focuses a little too much on the history of the state or location rather than the main part of the novel: the investigation into the hauntings.
Other reviewers have mentioned the same thing, but the amount of history in this book far outweighs the amount of information received about the actual hauntings or investigations. Some investigations weren't even investigations at all, but retellings of experiences that other people had, vague non-questions that the authors ask (and should be answering themselves, but they don't), or very brief interviews with the owners of various locations.
If one were to investigate the hauntedness of a place, I expect them to actually put some elbow grease into it, y'know? Stay the night in said haunted hotel rooms, actually utilize the "modern technology" that you claimed to have in the introduction and then tell me about the feedback, or even tell stories about the experiences that you, yourself had at these locations. This book claims to have more than it actually does, but reads more like something that I could've easily written by sending out a few e-mails, then reading off the Wikipedia page for anything else that I might need.
While I acknowledge that history is sometimes needed to articulate where the spirits in a place come from, I don't really need to know the nitty-gritty of the dates that a person was born, the dates of their childrens' births, per anything else that has nothing to do with the subject matter. If you're so low on space, like you claim to be in the introduction, perhaps we could save some space by editing out the unnecessary facts.
2. This book seems to get lazier and lazier as it goes on.
With everything that I said above taken into consideration, it seems like the amount of effort put into each location starts to become less and less as the book progresses. In fact, some places have so little documentation on them that it feels like they're only there to fill in space, when they could've easily been replaced with another spot that the authors knew more about.
Not to mention, there were multiple typos throughout the book, too. While other people might not care as much, if a book wishes to be an informational guide about something real, or otherwise serve as an educator for the uneducated, spelling and grammatical errors really take away from the author's credibility. Typos and grammatical errors became more frequent as we progressed; hence, why I put it here.
3. The authors make claims that they cannot carry through with.
In the first section of this book, the authors strongly encourage readers to send in submissions of any paranormality that they've experienced or locations that they wish to see (superficially investigated, mind you) in the future. As far as I can tell, I could be wrong about this part, they don't include anything for contact information and in the 18 years after this book has been published, have failed to make another SD Haunted Locations book. I guess I can't be too surprised, as they haven't made any more additions to this book in terms of quality or editing information, let alone hint at making another one.
If I'm honest with you, the reader, one might have better luck with simply compiling a list of haunted locations off the internet and using that as inspiration for a road trip rather than relying on this book. It's fun and interesting to hear about the intensive history of the South Dakotan people, but fails to do the one thing that this book wanted to do: inform readers about paranormal activity in South Dakota.
November 30, 2022
Once upon a time I traveled through South Dakota and I loved it, hopefully I'll be able to go back again some day. This fun book is a hauntings travel guide, provides different information on different haunted locations, and shares information about them such as history, tales of the hauntings and what to expect. It is more than 10 years old so some of the information may be outdated but it is still a fun read for anyone that is a fan of the paranormal.
August 11, 2019
Another book I bought during my trip to Keystone, South Dakota. We visit a few areas ( didn't see any ghosts). It was fun for the family just to read the legends and trying to see the ghosts. I enjoyed it.
October 17, 2017
2.5 stars. I found this book more dealing with history than with ghosts and hauntings. It was just okay.
September 2, 2015
I was disappointed in this book, it lists different places in South Dakota with a brief history and some reasons that people think it is haunted. The history of different sites was interesting. I don't believe in ghosts and this book had nothing in it that changed my mind all the stories were easily explained by natural means or vivid imaginations.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews