If you’re trick-or-treating on Halloween, you might see a ghost or two. But take this tour of haunted houses and spooky sites on Street View -- and the ghosts are no trick.

Head over to The French Quarter in New Orleans where both the living and dead are having a blood curdling good time. The soft sounds of jazz and the faint smell of beignets waft through the streets, but the dark side of this city is as rich as its melodies and cuisine—around every corner there are ghosts and vampires to be seen. Venture into Hotel Monteleone, where there have been many spooky sightings. This haunted hotel has a restaurant door that opens almost every evening then closes again (even though it’s locked) and an elevator that stops on the wrong floor, leading down a hallway that grows chilly and reveals the ghostly images of children playing. Stay there if you dare—you won’t know when to expect the next surprise.

Now let’s head to the lush green paradise on Oman Island in the Philippines. Don’t let the beautiful landscape deceive you—this place has its fair share of spirits known to pester passers by. Local lore claims there are travelers who trek in circles, never finding their way out … and travelers have reported suddenly feeling weight on their backs, almost as if local ghosts are hunched on their shoulders.

If iconic horror films are your jam, head on over to Georgetown, Washington, D.C., where the Exorcist was filmed. In “The Exorcist,” the character Father Damien Karras fell to his death down  this flight of stairs (though they were padded with half an inch of rubber). The film crew had to construct a false front to the house from which Karras fell, since the actual house was set back slightly from the steps. When the filming took place, Georgetown University students charged people $5 each to watch the stunt from the school’s rooftops.

“Let the Right One In” is a Swedish film about a bullied 12-year-old boy who befriends a vampire child in Blackeberg, Stockholm, in the early 1980s. Check out the town square of Blackeberg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackeberg

That completes our tour, but beware of spooky things of which you may not be forewarned— for this is Halloween!

A chubby French Bulldog keeps watch in front of a vintage-looking tailor shop in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. Meet Bruno, the face of Village Tailor and Cleaners. Vince, the shop’s owner, immigrated to the U.S. from Italy when he was just 18 years old, establishing Village Tailor in 1977. Today, his family-run business has grown into three locations and is best known for its skilled leather and suede alterations. Inside the shop, a wall covered in autographed photos of celebrity customers—Celine Dion, Marc Anthony, Elton John, and others—is a testament to the iconic quality of Vince's work.

While Bruno had been doing a wonderful job bringing in passersby, Vince knew he needed a way to stand out from the many tailoring shops in SoHo and reach more customers.

Vince noticed that most of his customers were walking in with a bag of clothes in one hand, and researching local businesses on their cell phone with the other. So, he decided to get his business online. He saw it as similar to Bruno sitting out front: their online presence could spark curiosity, help them stand out, and invite in new customers.

He set up Village Tailor's Google listing, so that he could edit how his business appears when people find it on Google Search and Maps. He added photos to his listing, posted updates about his skilled alterations, and used Google website builder to create a free high-quality website from his phone in less than 10 minutes. Now, when he asks new customers how they found his shop, they often mention Google.

Today, Vince’s son Vincent Jr. manages Vince's Village Cobbler, the shoe repair shop next door. Building on the family business’s tradition of excellent craftsmanship in shoes and leather goods, he continues to develop Village Cobbler's online presence with an e-commerce website that offers shipping all over the U.S. He also plans to find new customers with Google My Business and Google AdWords, just like his father has, to keep the family business growing. 

Twenty years ago, the spacecraft Cassini launched from Cape Canaveral on a journey to uncover the secrets of Saturn and its many moons. During its mission, Cassini recorded and sent nearly half a million pictures back to Earth, allowing scientists to reconstruct these distant worlds in unprecedented detail. Now you can visit these places—along with many other planets and moons—in Google Maps right from your computer. For extra fun, try zooming out from the Earth until you're in space!

Explore the icy plains of Enceladus, where Cassini discovered water beneath the moon's crust—suggesting signs of life. Peer beneath the thick clouds of Titan to see methane lakes. Inspect the massive crater of Mimas—while it might seem like a sci-fi look-a-like, it is a moon, not a space station.  

Special thanks goes to astronomical artist Björn Jónsson, who assembled the planetary maps of Europa, Ganymede, Rhea, and Mimas by working with imagery from NASA and the European Space Agency.

The fun doesn't stop there—we've added Pluto, Venus, and several other moons for a total of 12 new worlds for you to explore. Grab your spacesuit and check out the rest of this corner of the galaxy that we call home.

Editor’s Note: Today’s post comes from Emma Upton, Quttinirpaaq National Park Manager with Parks Canada. She shares the story behind our new Street View collection that captures the beauty of Canada’s Quttinirpaaq National Park.

Here at Parks Canada, we have a lot to say about Quttinirpaaq National Park. We could tell you it’s the northernmost park in Canada, or that it lies roughly 500 miles (800 kilometers) from the North Pole. We could tell you it’s home to 4000-year-old archeologist sites or that it’s the second-largest national park in the country. But, we don’t need to tell you anymore. Now we can show you, with our new Street View collection.

Last summer, our team threw on the Google Trekker and explored the park’s incredible terrain—it was the furthest north Street View has ever gone. Wilderness and extreme isolation characterize this area, where fewer than 50 people visit each year. The park’s name itself translates to “the top of the world” in Inuktitut, the local indigenous language.

With treks along the ocean shoreline, climbs up to lofty ridges, strolls beside glacial melt-water rivers, and scrambles at the foot of monumental glaciers, the resulting imagery is spectacular—a digital reflection of one of the world’s most rural locations

Aside from Quttinirpaaq National Park, we captured Street view imagery of Grise Fiord, Canada’s northernmost community, and Resolute Bay, which has a population of just under 200 people.

Internet access and bandwidth are challenging in this part of the world, but we wanted the people who live in and around the area to be able to enjoy the new Street View collection. We revealed the imagery, as well as the behind-the-scenes story of how it was captured, at an event hosted by Parks Canada. And we were moved to see how excited people were to see their remote home online for the world to explore.

See all the highlights in this gallery, and a few photos of our trek below:

Editor’s note: Jacqui Kenny is a New Zealander who now lives in London, U.K. On World Mental Health Day, we asked Jacqui to tell her story about a surprising use of Street View.

For over 20 years I have lived with severe anxiety, and eight years ago I was diagnosed with agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder in which you fear and avoid places or situations where you might feel panicked, trapped, helpless or embarrassed. Sometimes walking to my local supermarket can be a challenge, let alone traveling far from home.

Almost two years ago, after closing down a decade-old business I had co-founded, I lost confidence in myself, and my agoraphobia worsened. I wasn’t ready to face the world, but I knew I needed a creative outlet to help keep the negative thoughts away.

I found a surprising and unique refuge in the creative possibilities of Google Street View. As I clicked through Google Maps, I left my London home and navigated the streets of faraway countries like Mongolia, Senegal, and Chile. I encountered remote towns and dusty landscapes, vibrant architectural gems, and anonymous people, all frozen in time. The more I traveled, the more I found scenes that appeared to be plucked from a strange and expansive parallel universe. What began as a hobby quickly became a pursuit of the hidden, magical realms of Street View.

I began to take thousands of screenshots of these dreamlike scenarios; to date I’ve taken 27,000 screenshots. I realized that the billions of photographs that Google captured for functional purposes were ripe for creativity. And when framed and angled with care, they could be as beautiful and emotional as traditional photography. I had found a way to experience places across the world that I had long yearned to explore but would find hard to travel to in real life.

I started to upload my images to Instagram, where I found a supportive community of both creatives and people that share similar struggles with mental health and anxiety disorders. I receive messages daily from people that want to share their own stories with me.

The community I had built around my photos helped embolden me to go outside my comfort zone. When I was offered the opportunity to have a solo exhibition in Nolita, New York, I got on a plane for the first time in many years years. I was offered the opportunity to have a solo exhibition in New York, NY. The Agoraphobic Traveller exhibition showcases a series of my favorite images, as well as a series of 360 experiences that help explain my process. On opening night, hundreds of people turned up to show their support, many from my Instagram community. It was a night I’ll never forget.

World Mental Health Day, October 10, is a time to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world. By telling my story and sharing my own experiences, I want to help de-stigmatize and normalize the conversation around mental health. I hope my journey will encourage others not only to open up and talk about their mental health struggles but also to look for creative ways to get through the tough moments.

More than 65 million people worldwide need wheelchairs. I became one of them after an accident eight years ago, and I discovered what it’s like to navigate the world on wheels.

As I learned, those of us with mobility issues need information about places before we arrive. Does the art museum have a stair-free entrance? What about the cafe across the street? And is there an accessible restroom at that new restaurant?

Google Maps now offers answers that allow me—and millions of others on wheels—to find accessible places. Because anyone can identify and label wheelchair-friendly locations directly on the map, it’s easy to share this knowledge around the world. But not everyone knows this tool exists, so we want to do more.

And wheelchair users aren’t the only ones who will benefit. You'll also be making life easier for families with strollers, seniors with walkers, or anyone making plans with a friend who has impaired mobility.

It takes seconds to have this type of impact. First, make sure your Google Maps Location History is turned on. Then visit “Your contributions” in the upper-left menu, tap “Answer questions about a place,” and indicate whether businesses you’ve visited are wheelchair-friendly. (If you aren’t sure, take a look at a brief guide to answering accessibility questions.) On Google Maps for Android, you can even seek out places that need this info.

All month, Local Guides across the globe are getting together at meet-ups to answer wheelchair accessibility questions on Google Maps. Join a meet-up, or even host your own (if you’re a Local Guide Level 3 or higher). Or gather some friends and explore a neighborhood, adding info as you go.

We hope you’ll contribute your knowledge to the map to help those of us on wheels more easily navigate the world.

Spread the word using #LocalGuides and #a11y.