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- Dillon, South Carolina - Haunted South of the Border Motel
I was 17, part of a group traveling in two cars from mid-Florida to Virginia, one of which was a "driveaway" to be delivered at our destination. It was my way of getting back to my family in Connecticut, as I had been essentially a runaway for a year.
We all stopped at the South of the Border Motel for just a few hours of food and rest. We had taken a room for each "pair" (We weren't really couples, it just happened that we were all going the same way). We weren't there more than 10 minutes before I started hearing the voices that now I finally read were heard by several others over the years. I asked my partner, "Can't you hear those voices?" Then, "We have to leave." We did.
But I've been telling this story ever since.
[Betsy Sloan, 11/03/2013]South Of The Border:RoadsideAmerica.com Team Field Report
- Address:
- 3346 US 301 N., Dillon, SC
- Directions:
- I-95 exit 1. Follow the billboards.
- Hours:
- Always open. (Call to verify) Local health policies may affect hours and access.
- Phone:
- 843-774-2411
- Admission:
- Sombrero Tower: $2.
- RA Rates:
- The Best
You guys did a story on the haunted room at South of the Border. I am blown away! We thought we were crazy! We stayed there in 1996 when my son was 2. We were driving from Florida to New York and stopped there overnight. We stayed in the honeymoon suite because we thought, with the baby, it would be a bigger room.
During the night, I heard voices whispering in my ear from the headboard! It sounded like a man and woman. Every time I was just about to fall asleep it would happen. I don't think I slept a wink all night! I was so scared. Also, at 3 in the morning we heard a load knock on our door. My husband ran to open it, and no one was there! We were both very scared.
When we checked out, we told them at the front desk our experiences, and they said they never heard such a thing. All these years I thought I was crazy. I'm so happy that I wasn't alone. That this happened to other people. So thank you for your article. Much peace now...
[maureen pata, 01/26/2011]Haunted Hotel Room Keeps Low Profile
Mysterious power outages, ghostly apparitions, and dogs going crazy are some of the manifestations reported to us by guests of Room 305 at the South of the Border Motor Inn (a.k.a. "Pedro's Pleasure Dome") in Dillon, South Carolina.
We asked general manager Gerald Moody, who's managed the Motel since it opened in 1984, about Room 305. He confirmed what we already knew: that the hauntings didn't start until a few years ago -- we received our first report in 1999 -- which pours cold ectoplasm on the theory that the Motel was built on an old cemetery with angry cadavers. Moody dismissed as fiction a report that we had received that two people had died in the room, on two different occasions -- either becoming the ghosts or BECAUSE OF the ghosts.
We visited the room, one of dozens of identical cinderblock-and-bleached-wood bungalows, set in a back courtyard that isn't even used in the off-season. Our photographs revealed no glowing orbs or spectral beings; our senses sensed nothing otherworldly -- although this place probably would be spooky at night, especially if you're out here all alone.
Moody told us that he's never received a complaint about the room, and that the only people who've mentioned it are people who want to rent it. South of the Border should advertise Room 305 as a Haunted Hideaway, a special destination for those wishing to stay in places that others would flee. How can you beat a real haunted motel room only a few hundred feet from a restaurant shaped like a Mexican hat?
[11/11/2007]- Dillon, South Carolina - South of the Border - Haunted Room 305
Room 305 is not haunted. I stayed in this room (before I read about it being haunted) with my mother and two kids - nothing happened. I'm a very light sleeper and I'm very jumpy, but nothing happened in this room!
[Cindy, 06/15/2005] - Dillon, South Carolina - South of the Border
To everyone who thinks room 305 at South of the Border is haunted. IT'S NOT. I repeat IT's NOT. I am a freelance journalist and stayed in that very room the night of Saturday March 29, 2003 and I did not see, hear or feel anything at all. I stayed in that room specifically because I read these postings and I am doing a travel piece. I wanted to see for myself. Nothing happened, absolutely nothing. Not exactly exciting material for my piece, but it is the truth!!
[Kris Antonelli, 04/13/2003]Thanks for the warning. BTW, Kris made her name as a journalist after an award-winning expose on Snipe Hunting. Next assignment: Unmasking the talking Paul Bunyan statue!
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Yes, the lulling peace of those who want to believe they have escaped the hideous WHISPERING HEADBOARD OF S.O.B.!