The death-themed board game that outsold Monopoly

In our travel news round-up this week: Nevada’s haunted clown motel, Rome’s crypt adorned with the bones of 4,000 friars, plus Seoul’s legendary honky-tonk bar.

Ouija boards explained

Back in 1967, commercial Ouija boards were so popular that they outsold Monopoly in the United States. But what is the history of these alphabet-marked panels which some believe can open a portal to the valley of death?

CNN visited the world’s first Ouija board museum in 2023 – in the fittingly witchy location of Salem, Massachusetts – to talk to owner John Kozik about the history of the paranormal parlor game and what drew people to it.

“The spiritualist movement in America really starts in the mid-1800s, and that’s because so many people have been affected by death because of the Civil War,” says Kozik,