Our favorite cafe for morning coffee, a light breakfast, or some incredible pastries
Clare loves this place because it reminds her of a classic New Jersey diner bakery! Good for cannoli, donuts, and diner-style cakes. It's also right next to the Satanic Temple, should you plan on visiting there during your stay.
Our favorite place for brunch! Put your name down for a table and browse the stores downtown while you wait. We get the banana pancakes with cinnamon butter every time we're there.
The oldest continuously operating museum in the country (and one of the wealthiest). A lot of collections that have their roots in Salem’s maritime trade history—obviously maritime art, but also East Asian collections of a scale rarely seen in smallish museums. And the special exhibits are always so damn cool—I mean, there’s one right now on *narwhals*
These are the central downtown streets of Salem that are packed with charming shops and restaurants (in rare witch-themed cases some are wildly tacky, but isn't that half the fun?) Walking around here in the spring is what made us fall in love with Salem and decide to look for a home in town.
A really unique and fascinating place, Salem Willows is a oceanfront park and open-air arcade. There are kiddie rides and games so a strong recommendation for those traveling with their little ones, but even if you don't have kids, come for the nostalgic vibe and ocean views.
We get it. This wedding is bringing you to a historically famous town that you may never have a reason to visit otherwise, so you want to Do the Witch Things. We just have some ambivalence about these activities and haven't actually done any of them/been to these places, so we wouldn't know what to recommend. This link is for the city's official October festival/programming so it lists all the attractions that are relevant to the witch theme, most of which are open year-round. (If this is super duper your thing and you can handle crowds, you'd probably love to visit here in October!)