Minnesota might not be the first place that comes to mind for spooky season fun—but it should be. Two of our cities here just landed on a national list of the best places in the country to celebrate Halloween, and their mix of haunted happenings and spooky shenanigans might surprise you.
Move Over, Salem: Why Minnesota is America’s Next Big Halloween Hotspot
The Land of 10,000 Lakes may be known for many things, and now we’re creeping up on the list of best places for Halloween, too. While cities on the East Coast, like Salem, Massachusetts (famous for its 1692 witch trials) or Sleepy Hollow, New York (home of the classic short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) often get the most of the Halloween attention, don’t go to sleep on Minnesota for Halloween.
Halloween is once again big business here in the North Star State and across the country. WalletHub says that the average U.S. household is expected to spend $114.45 on Halloween expenses, from decorations to treats to costumes this year.
But where are the best places to spend some of your Halloween budget? A new WalletHub survey set out to find the best cities for Halloween in the entire U.S. They looked at 20 different categories, ranging from costume stores per capita to the crime rate to the share of potential trick-or-treat stops.
Top 10 Trick-or-Treating Cities: Find Out Which Minnesota Cities Cracked the List
And when they crunched all the numbers, two Minnesota cities came out ranked as some of the top cities in the country for Halloween. New York City topped the list, but our own state capital was the highest-rated Halloween city in Minnesota:
WalletHub noted that St. Paul was ranked 6th in the nation in the ‘Trick Or Treater Friendliness’ category, while receiving slightly lower scores for ‘Halloween Fun’ and ‘Halloween Weather’ (anybody heard of the Halloween Blizzard of ’91?!?)
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Minnesota’s Twin Cities Dominate Spooky Rankings: See Where Minneapolis Ranks for ‘Halloween Fun’
Meanwhile, Minnesota’s other entry on the WalletHub list of the Best Cities for Halloween in 2025 was our state’s largest city, Minneapolis, which cracked the list at #36:
WalletHub noted that Minneapolis ranked fairly high (28th) in the ‘Halloween Fun’ category but scored slightly lower in the ‘Trick Or Treater Friendliness’ and ‘Halloween Weather’ categories…