Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum in Las Vegas

Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum is a must for any fan of the paranormal. Set in a haunted 1938 mansion, the museum is home to some of the most haunted objects from around the world. Read all about my visit and the weird experiences I had with some of the spooky artefacts.

Back in 2019, I found the time to visit Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum, during my whistlestop road trip of America’s west coast. My friend and I spent four days living it up in Las Vegas, and my visit to Zak Bagans’ paranormal museum was highly anticipated in the run-up to our trip.

Funny enough, once we arrived in Vegas we were so busy having fun that I completely forgot I’d planned to check out the museum! My friend isn’t really into the paranormal, so my plans were easily forgotten…until a bus drove past us, and I saw a huge advertisement for the museum! It felt like fate.

So the very next evening, I booked my Zak bagans’ The Haunted museum Tickets and attended alone. Here’s what happened.

Full disclosure: This post originally appeared on my other travel blog in 2019.

All About Zak Bagans’ the Haunted Museum

Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum is a paranormal home to a collection of artefacts Zak – of Ghost Adventures fame – has collected over the years. The 1938 mansion-turned-museum has 30 different spooky rooms inside, with a collection of spooky artefacts. Guests can take tours around the intimate museum to hear about different rooms, hauntings and stories behind the items.

Before attending, I hadn’t actually haven’t ever watched Ghost Adventures but felt like I understood Zak’s passion for the paranormal!

The ambient and spooky museum is home to some of the most haunted items in the world, such as:

💀 The Dybbuk Box
💀 Peggy the Doll
💀 Dr Death’s Van
💀 The staircase from the famous Indiana Demon House

You can book onto a small guided tour around the museum. If you’re brave enough, you can instead attend a late-night flashlight ghost tour experience, which allows guests free reign of the museum. Different events take place there, and Zak himself is often wandering around the museum (he was outside when my tour finished).

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Zak Bagans’ Haunted Museum review: my experience

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first arrived. But when we were all handed a waiver, I definitely started to get nervous. The waiver pretty much warned us against anything odd happening to us within the museum, such as feeling sick or ending up possessed from touching a haunted object. Basically, we were entering at our own risk and couldn’t sue if, say, we touched a cursed object, got possessed and killed someone. It may have been a scare tactic, but all of a sudden I sort of regretted going alone!

Once it was time to enter, we listened to a short introduction and a guide took our small group back outside to another entrance to the house. Here, we learned about the house’s history before stepping inside.

The first room is a jumble of artefacts. It was here I wondered just how the tour would go; so far, it seemed to be curated for fans of Zak/his show, and most of what we were being told related to the man itself. But as we began to move on to the different themed rooms, we were told more history about the relics in the rooms or particular events/hauntings. Zak was still mentioned a lot and we were often told about why he purchased certain things or how he went about getting ahold of them, but thankfully it wasn’t too bad.

I saw a lot on the tour of Zak Bagans’ Haunted Museum, but only had around ten minutes max in each room. I believe each tour is slightly different, so the rooms are varied each time. Our group visited relics and rooms such as Peggy the Doll, the Dybbuk box and the staircase from the demon house.

Each experience was fascinating – especially with Peggy the Doll when one member of our tour asked a question and had a reply! Inside the room, we were encouraged to be respectful and say hello to Peggy (and goodbye when we left). By Peggy, there was some sort of audio device playing white noise, where audio responses could supposedly come through. All I can say is that Peggy’s reply to the question asked made complete sense.

Read more: Exploring Nottingham’s One and Only Haunted Museum (& Oddities Collection)

MY EXPERIENCES WITH THE artefacts in the haunted museum in las vegas

I had a couple of my own weird experiences in Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum. The first – and most interesting – was in the room with Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s Death Van.

The Dr Death van is the van that Dr. Kevorkian used during his string of 130 assisted suicides. Some suicides took place inside the actual van, which was believed to be crushed. Except it wasn’t. And Zak now has possession of it, on display in the museum. We had the choice between going inside the room or waiting outside. I wasn’t sure what to expect – maybe just a small part of the van or whatever, so I just said yes without thinking.

The entire van sat inside the small room. It took up so much space, almost in an overbearing way. We had a few minutes to look inside and read further information on the walls about the people who had lost their lives inside. And then I just suddenly became really emotional! It was sad, and I have visited similar things where I have felt sad, but never to this extent.

It really stuck with me. In actual fact, when I told my friend about it all later, I just started crying! Maybe I just felt caught up in it all. Or maybe the atmosphere and set up of the room encouraged us to feel that way. It may have been something else entirely. All I know is that after that, I constantly felt uneasy during the rest of my visit. Even to the point where I almost wished I hadn’t visited.

In fact, when we left the museum, Zak was hanging around outside. But I felt so deflated by my experience that I didn’t want to meet him – I just wanted to go home.

I also felt particularly weird in the room with the Dybbuk Box and, the final room of the tour, The Demon House Staircase. I don’t know too much about this, but before we went in we watched a clip from Zak’s documentary about an infamous Demon house in Indiana. After investigating the house, Zak demolished it, but brought the staircase (and some dirt) from the house back to the museum. Our small group had the option to enter the room or leave. Over half left.

I followed the few who decided to stay into the room, where some partitions separated us from the staircase. Once the partitions dropped, I stayed for about 30 seconds. Then I felt too creeped out and left!

Overall, my visit to Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum was absolutely fascinating. I’ve been to a fair few scare attractions/haunted places before, but nothing ever like this. Each room or artefact had so many stories behind them and I only wish that I had longer to explore. It was so eye-opening.

For a while after leaving, I felt so weird. After my experience with the Dr Death van, my fascination with the paranormal didn’t seem so fun anymore. It just made me feel emotional and sad.

I think enough time has passed now to make me want to go back though.

THE NEED TO KNOWS

There is so much fun stuff to do in Vegas, but you’ll totally kick yourself if you don’t make time for Zak Bagans’ Haunted Museum. Especially since it’s voted as the #1 best haunted destination in America.

Fans of Ghost Adventures will absolutely love the aspect of learning more about Zak Bagans’ and his haunted adventures. But even non-fans with an interest in the supernatural will find this museum fascinating.

I will honestly say though that it’s not for the faint hearted. Not only does the waiver you have to sign remind you of this, but I have no doubt in my mind that there truly were some haunted/cursed objects in there. I don’t scare too easily, but I came away from the museum feeling totally emotional and deflated.

At $48 per basic ticket, Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum tickets aren’t the cheapest – but it’s certainly worth the price. The famous haunted museum is a must-visit for anyone intrigued by the paranormal. As I mentioned before, there are other tour tiers available too. A RIP ALL ACCESS costs $79, and the late night flashlight ghost tour experience costs $199.

Would you visit Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum? Do you watch Ghost Adventures? Let me know!

Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum
www.thehauntedmuseum.com
600 E Charleston Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89104, United States
Tickets from $48/£38.73 per adult.
There are toilets on site and a car park. Tours are around two hours long and guests must be aged 14+. It’s recommend to pre-book.