Forget Salem. We should all be hopping on our broomsticks to check out Sleepy Hollow.

Inside the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Tactical Toadfish/Getty Images/iStock Last fall, I visited Sleepy Hollow, a village around 30 miles outside New York City.

It was immortalized in " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ," the story of the Headless Horseman.

Sleepy Hollow and the adjacent areas go all out for Halloween, without the kitsch of Salem .

Who cares if fall has just begun — for those of us who live for spooky season, Halloween is just around the corner.

And if you're looking to visit a place with eerie history, fun activities, and plenty of pumpkin beer, there's a village in the Northeast that should be at the top of your list.

No, it's not Salem , the Halloween capital of the US.

It's Sleepy Hollow, a village that's a 40-minute train ride from New York City.

You might recognize Sleepy Hollow's name from the Fox series of the same name, the 1999 film starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, the 1949 Disney film "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr.

Toad," or the original 1820 short story by Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." But did you know it's a real place? A real place that goes all out for Halloween every fall? I took a trip to Sleepy Hollow on a beautiful fall day last year to see what it has to offer and whether it's time for the village to be in the same conversation as Salem.

Here's what it was like.

Sleepy Hollow was settled in the 1600s by Dutch immigrants, though various Native American tribes first called the land home.

A sign welcomed me to Sleepy Hollow.

James Andrews1/Shutterstock The Weckquaesgeck Indians were the first people in the area, and have been described as "a Delaware Tribe or a Mohican Tribe, or perhaps some mix of the two," according to the Sleepy Hollow's website .