Mount Carroll, Illinois: Raven's Grin Inn

Easily the best haunted house I've ever been in. The owner/creator will tell you ghost stories in a dark room and then give you a personal tour -- the website says 1-1 1/2 hours, but our's lasted more like 3 -- of his amazing creation. There's an endless labyrinth of rooms, tunnels, stairways, and slides, with lots of fun and kitschy gags along the way. He'll scare you as much as you want to be scared, and tell you lots of great stories.

A haunted house that was turned into .....a haunted house. A guy lives there and gives tours of his lavish haunted mansion 365 days a year. It's definitely worth the drive and the 10 bucks to get it. It's a blast!!

Called a "Year-round Haunted House," built in 1870 in downtown Mt. Carroll, IL. The owner has turned it into a...fun house? He takes tour groups through ... one of the highlights is the bed slide. It is a bed set up on the 3rd or 4th floor of the house, and you lay on the bed with a sheet wrapped around your body, then he tips the bed upright and you drop through about, I think, 5 or 6 stories down this dark slide that he's built right into the middle of the house. You end up in a sub-cellar, and one by one, he shoots people down the chute (If you think it's too scary, you don't have to ride it). After everyone is down, he comes down (he takes the stairs!) and tells some ghost stories.

The owner bills the house as "No chainsaws, no Jason, no Freddy, Hey! Its a REAL haunted house!" He will modify tours for any type of groups, and he takes reservations.