"The Shining" Hotel - Colo

The infamous Stanley Hotel inspired Stephen King’s The Shining, and not only can you tour the hotel, but you can also stay the night. Just don’t take an ax to any of the bathroom doors. Only 90 minutes north of Denver, the 100-plus-year-old hotel had paranormal connections long before Hollywood got its hands on it. Real-life ghost sightings and hauntings have been recorded (and rumored) at The Stanley Hotel since as far back as 1911, just two years after its opening in 1909. Rooms 217, 401, and 407 receive the most complaints from guests and are believed to be haunted. In the time since Jack Nicholson graced the legendary grounds overlooking Rocky Mountain National Park, the hotel has embraced its stardom and even hosts the popular Shining Ball among other Halloween festivities. You can also take part in the Night Ghost Tour year-round.

In the novel, the infamous hotel room was 217, but it was changed to room 237 at the request of Timberline Lodge, where the exterior shots were filmed. King’s novel is based on the famous Stanley Hotel in Colorado, but the exterior shots in the movie are of Oregon’s Timberline Lodge.

Author Stephen King said he was inspired to write “The Shining” after he and his wife spent a night at the Stanley in September of 1974.

“We were the only guests as it turned out; the follow-{ ing day they were going to close the place down for the winter,” King wrote. “Wandering through its corridors, I thought that it seemed the perfect – maybe the archetypical – setting for a ghost story.” }

The 1977 novel tells the story of an aspiring writer who, along with his wife and child, agrees to take a job as a caretaker at a large hotel in the Colorado Rockies, which will be shut down and isolated over the winter. The book was adapted into the now legendary 1980 film of the same name, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson.