What to See in Salem, Massachusetts, United States: Free Audio Guide

The best things to do in Salem, Massachusetts, include exploring the history of the 1692 witch trials, visiting historic houses and museums, and discovering the city’s maritime heritage. Salem’s attractions also reveal a wider story of colonial settlement, global trade, immigration, art, and popular horror culture. Neywo offers a free audio guide for Salem, Massachusetts, with 12 narrated places.

Salem is part of Massachusetts, in the United States, and its compact historic center brings many of its most important sites within one walk.

What to see in Salem, Massachusetts

Salem’s witch trials history

The Salem witch trials took place from February 1692 to May 1693. The accusations began in Salem Village, now known as Danvers, before spreading to communities across the region. More than 200 people were accused, and the major hearings, trials, and executions took place in Salem Town.

Thirty people were found guilty. Nineteen people were hanged, including fourteen women and five men. Giles Corey died under torture after refusing to enter a plea, while at least five others died in jails without trial. The prosecutions eventually collapsed after leading clergymen questioned the use of spectral evidence. Massachusetts declared the trials unlawful in 1702, and the convictions were annulled in 1711.

Several Salem museums explore this history from different perspectives. The Witch History Museum uses dioramas and first-person narration to show the fear and hysteria surrounding the events. Its exhibits also discuss the nineteen people accused of witchcraft who were put to death.

The Witch House, also known as the Jonathan Corwin House, is one of the few surviving Salem buildings with a direct connection to the trials. Judge Jonathan Corwin lived there for more than forty years, after buying the unfinished house in 1675. Today, the City of Salem manages it as a museum, where a self-guided visit examines the trials through the setting of an everyday historic home.

First Church in Salem and First Universalist Church

Salem’s religious history is also visible in its historic churches. The First Church in Salem, Unitarian Universalist, was designed by Solomon Willard and built in 1836.

At 211 Bridge Street, the former First Universalist Society of Salem occupies another historic church building. Its earlier identity as a place of worship remains part of the story of Salem’s architecture and communities.

Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery

Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery takes Salem’s fascination with the darker side of popular culture in a different direction. This horror film museum displays creatures, characters, filmmaking objects, movie props, and life masks of horror actors and directors. It is a focused collection devoted to the imagery and people of horror cinema.

The Peabody Essex Museum

The Peabody Essex Museum brings together art, history, and global culture. Its collections include maritime and American art, as well as works from Asia, Africa, Oceania, and elsewhere. Asian art is a particular strength, with Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Asian export art represented alongside Indigenous American, African, Oceanic, photographic, contemporary Indian, and other collections.

The museum has about 1.3 million objects and twenty-two historic buildings. Its history reaches back to the East India Marine Society, established in 1799. The Peabody Essex Museum is the successor to the former Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute, making it one of the oldest continuously operating museums in the United States.

The earlier Peabody Academy of Science was founded in 1865. From 1915 to 1992, it was known as the Peabody Museum of Salem, before merging with the Essex Institute to create the Peabody Essex Museum. The East India Marine Hall, built on Essex Street in 1825, is now incorporated into the modern museum structure and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.

Salem Maritime National Historical Park

Salem Maritime National Historical Park connects the city to Salem Harbor and the trading networks that shaped its history. The waterfront park covers about nine acres and includes twelve historic structures, open waterfront land, and a replica tall ship.

The site was established as the first National Historic Site in the United States on March 17, 1938. On July 16, 2025, it was redesignated as Salem Maritime National Historical Park. The National Park Service manages the park and operates a regional visitor center in downtown Salem.

The buildings and ship help explain Salem’s commerce, international trade, privateering, war, and the human lives affected by them. This is one of the most important places to visit for understanding Salem beyond the witch trials.

House of the Seven Gables

The House of the Seven Gables is one of Salem’s most distinctive historic houses. Built in 1668, the colonial mansion is also known as the Turner House or Turner-Ingersoll Mansion. Captain John Turner commissioned it, and the property remained with his family for three generations.

Its roofline gives the house its familiar name and makes it an especially recognizable part of Salem’s historic landscape.

Pioneer Village

Pioneer Village, also known as Salem 1630, is a living history museum recreating Salem as it was during the seventeenth century. It opened in June 1930 as the first museum of its kind in the United States.

The village includes a blacksmith’s shop, sawmill, saltworks, gardens, fireplaces, thatched-roof cottages, a dugout, and a wigwam. Its Governor’s House represents what the building might have looked like after being disassembled in Cape Ann, transported to Salem, and rebuilt for Governor John Endicott in 1628.

St. Nicholas Orthodox Church and Rectory

Salem’s historic buildings also reflect the city’s immigrant communities. St. Nicholas Orthodox Church and Rectory, at 64 to 66 Forrester Street, was built in 1908 for immigrants from Galicia in Eastern Europe. The congregation was established in 1901.

The wood-frame church is distinguished by its domes. A square tower rises into an octagonal belfry, onion dome, and cross-shaped spire, while smaller side towers carry their own onion domes. The building was designed by local architect William Devereaux Dennis.

Explore Salem with a self-guided audio tour

For a Salem, Massachusetts self-guided walking tour, download Neywo and follow the city’s narrated route at your own pace. The app has one walking tour in Salem: “Salem 1692: Judges, Museums and the Harbour.”

The walk covers 2.88 km, takes about 102 minutes, and includes 11 narrated stops. Along the route, you encounter the First Church in Salem, The Witch House, First Universalist Church, Salem Witch Trials, Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery, Witch History Museum, Witch Mansion Haunted House, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem Maritime National Historical Park, House of the Seven Gables, and Russian Orthodox churches in Massachusetts.

Neywo tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.

Download Neywo and discover Salem

Download Neywo for a free audio guide to Salem, Massachusetts, with 12 narrated places. Follow the 2.88 km walking tour through Salem’s witch-trial history, museums, churches, waterfront, and historic houses while the app narrates each stop when you arrive. No group, no schedule—just the freedom to explore Salem at your own pace.