Witches aren’t just in Salem anymore.
Each year, millions of tourists pour into Salem dressed in pointy hats and black garb, hoping to get a glimpse of real witches—or at least pretend to be one for a day. And while the proclaimed Witch City has plenty of parades, events, and metaphysical shops, it’s hardly the epicenter for witches in the U.S.
The truth is, real witches are everywhere.
“Salem has its own culture and isn’t reflective of witchcraft as a whole,” says Thorn Mooney, a Raleigh-based witch and author. “No town ever could be.” Similarly, Jason Mankey, a coven leader in the Bay Area, says that while his personal visit to Salem was “akin to a religious pilgrimage,” at some points it started to feel less like a celebration of witchcraft and more like a celebration of commerce, riddled with clichéd tropes of the craft.
If you’re looking to explore witch-friendly towns outside of Salem, there’s plenty more to be found in the American South, Midwest, and West Coast.
North Carolina
Raleigh is home to a number of covens, pagan groups, metaphysical shops, and organizations meant to connect witches. Thorn Mooney, a priestess and coven leader in the Gardnerian tradition, says that her coven has been active for more than a decade.
“We’re really lucky in this part of the South,” says Mooney, who is also the author of several books, including Witches Among Us: Understanding Contemporary Witchcraft and Wicca. “I’ve never seen a community bigger than the one we have here in the Carolinas. People write the South off and buy into a lot of the stereotypes about Southerners being uneducated, backwards, or conservative, but this has always been one of the most culturally and religiously diverse places in the country,” she adds. “We have all kinds of magic here, and all kinds of people working that magic. And always have.”
Within her tradition, covens tend to meet out of the leader’s home at various times throughout the year (with some folks coming in from neighboring cities or even out of state) to work magic together.
“I’ve always lived in cities, and mostly travel in queer, eclectic networks made up of musicians, artists, scholars, and writers,” she says, adding that she doesn’t experience much prejudice surrounding her craft because of this.
Still, it’s not always easy to find your people, even in a bigger city like Raleigh. Finding a coven in the specific tradition that you’re interested in, as well as making sure the group dynamic works with your personality and spiritual goals, can still be a Herculean task. But with longstanding groups like the Triangle Area Pagan Alliance (a social networking group with events that helps locals make friends and find working groups), she says the search for like-minded folks is a bit easier.
Mooney recommends simply going to a local metaphysical shop (like The Holy Rose or Energessence), chatting up the person working at the counter, and asking about meetups or events in town. “And if you pass through Durham, NC, check out Arcana,” Mooney says. “Order a cocktail and ask the bartender to introduce you to the community. We’re probably watching you from a table in the corner.”
Portland, Oregon
Back in 2022, I spent several days exploring the witchy scene in Portland, Oregon. Not only is it home to tons of artisans and artists, but plenty of magic makers, as well. The New Renaissance Bookshop—housed in an eclectic, Victorian-style home in the Nob Hill neighborhood—is the largest metaphysical resource in the Pacific Northwest. After a several hours-long visit, I left wildly impressed with not only their selection of pagan books, but the sheer number of in-store psychic readings from a roster of local professionals. Nearby, you can also pick up herbal balms, salves, and serums at Roots & Crowns, a queer-owned, small-batch apothecary.
Clay Sage Herbarium, a tiny yet mighty shop in the Alberta Arts District, has been selling organic dried herbs, teas, and intention candles since 2011, while Psychic Sisters, a larger eclectic witchy shop with crystal gardens, tarot, and locally-made goods, connects customers to healing practitioners in the area. Over in the historic Kenton neighborhood, WOO PDX offers a serene vibe with a collection of earth-based magic tools, while Moonshadow (Portland’s oldest Pagan resource since 1995) specializes in Wiccan, Druidic, and Celtic themes, as well as other esoteric paths. Given its sheer number of pagan-friendly shops (which are thankfully thriving!), as well as the inclusive, intersectional vibe of the culture, Portland is definitely a hub for all things witchy.
Northern California
Jason Mankey, a third-degree initiate in the Gardnerian tradition and author of 10 witchcraft books, including The Horned God of the Witches, has been living in Sunnyvale in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley for over 15 years. There, he and his wife are part of two covens, one rooted in the Gardnerian tradition and the other as a more eclectic coven called “The Oak Court.”
Mankey says that California’s Bay Area has traditionally been “a hotbed of paganism and witchcraft,” and while that’s still the case near Berkeley and north of the Golden Gate Bridge, “things are a lot quieter in the South Bay’s Silicon Valley.” This is due in part to the affordability crisis, which has driven away a lot of practitioners. Although theirs aren’t the only covens around, since “the area has become more and more dominated by software engineers and tech bros, there are less and less Witches living and working in Silicon Valley,” Mankey says.
Similarly, Jesamyn Angelica, a high priestess and founder of the Sisterhood of the Moon Tradition, also considers San Francisco a center for witchcraft, calling it “one of the biggest and most diverse in the world.” After moving from the East Coast in 2001, Angelica found a welcoming, queer, pagan community there, which makes a lot of sense considering the Bay Area’s history in counterculture and spirituality. “I find it to be a true ‘let your freak flag fly’ kind of place. In many spaces here, authenticity is valued far more than attempts to ‘fit in,’” she says. “There’s not a real need to hide in the metaphorical broom closet unless one wants or needs to for whatever reason.”
Angelica highlights how much of the women’s spirituality movement of the early ‘70s was born in California, specifically practices with a Goddess-centered perspective with figures like Starhawk, Shekhinah Mountainwater, and Luisah Teish at the helm. Not only has their presence “deeply influenced the vibe” in the Bay Area, Angelica, who holds regular Goddess-centric rituals in nearby Hayward, says that Cali’s general counterculture energies have made the area a welcoming place for alternative spiritual practices.
“You can find practitioners of pretty much any tradition that interests you, and even discover ones you may not have heard of before,” she adds.
One drawback though, is the climate takes some getting used to, especially for those who celebrate Sabbats and Equinoxes. “Most of the lore and traditions associated with the eight sabbats (sabbats being the ‘high holidays’ in many Pagan traditions) revolve around agricultural cycles found in England and the Northeastern United States, and not the ones that exist in my own backyard,” says Mankey. “That has required some adjustment by those of us who live out here.”
TRAVEL ETIQUETTEWitchcraft is a very broad term that represents many individual practices and traditions across the United States and abroad. One thing to remember is to never bring bias or prejudice to a region when you travel: “When it comes to Witchcraft, there are often very regional flavors. Different areas of the country have their own chants, rituals, traditions, and even pronunciations of Witchcraft-specific words,” says Mankey. So even if you may want to “correct a pronunciation or a misconception, it’s best to mostly be quiet until you really know the people in a community.”
American South and Midwest
Jason Mankey also says there are more witches in the American South and Midwest (like South Dakota, rural Tennessee, and Kentucky) than anywhere else in the country.
“They are in small towns, rural communities, suburbs. In other words, they are everywhere,” he says. “Witchcraft is an empowering practice, and it’s often people in more rural or impoverished areas that need to feel empowered, hence, the rise in Witches in these places.” But also, since so much of witchcraft has its roots in folk magic, it makes sense that there are pockets within ultra-rural places where these practices (and ideas) are much more accepted as a general way of life.
It would be amiss, for instance, not to mention the power and impact of West Virginia and the Appalachia region when it comes to American witchcraft. So much of the wild mountainous area is steeped in folk and magic, lore, herbalism, and conjuring magic. In his book Backwoods Witchcraft, Jake Richards explores how witchcraft is deeply embedded within Appalachian culture, and conjure magic is often syncretized within Christianity. While the term ”witchcraft” can still harbor some taboo and stigma, its practices are often built into the fabric of the culture. Even in a tiny West Virginian town, for instance, on any given Main Street, you may be surprised to find at least one metaphysical or magical store. There are also websites like Mandragora Magika designed to help folks find covens or meetups within the state.
Angelica also finds the greater Detroit area to be a burgeoning hub for witches: “Every February there is a conference there—ConVocation,” she says. “I think that many of the people in the ConVocation community might have been born in that area. It is my favorite conference, and I do my best to attend every year; I feel so welcomed and cared for there.”