Destination Fear Returns With a Frightening New Season in July

The world might have been on a major lockdown for most of 2020, but those conditions didn’t slow down the Destination Fear team, as the lack of people in creepy locations is exactly what they’re used to. Given that the team has spent multiple seasons exploring empty and abandoned facilities across the country, the global lockdown allowed them to go even further with their investigations, not only in regards to the climates in which they spent time but also the methods they used to uncover supernatural evidence. The new season of Destination Fear premieres on Travel Channel and discovery+ on July 24th.

Across this season’s eight one-hour episodes, the fear-chasing foursome will be driven to the edge of endurance. Exploring under the harshest conditions they’ve ever faced, and using sensory deprivation tactics to augment their paranormal experiment, this trip will test their mental, emotional and physical strength to the extreme. Venturing inside notoriously haunted locations such as Ohio State Reformatory, the Villisca Axe Murder House, and Odd Fellows Home, the team confronts intense supernatural forces – and they quickly learn these entities do more than go bump in the night.

“We’ve been through a lot together but even after all of our dark encounters, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s out there,” Dakota Laden shared in a statement. “I usually save the worst location for last, but this time I am throwing us head-first into one of the scariest places in the entire country. And I have a few surprises up my sleeve to fuel the terror even more.”

In the season premiere, Dakota takes the team to one of the most frightening and infamous places in America: Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky. The death rate was so high at this former tuberculosis hospital that a “body chute” was created to hide the constant flow of deceased bodies from those who were living in the facility. Dakota, Chelsea, Tanner, and Alex have dreamed of visiting this location for years, but they’ve always been too afraid to confront the sinister forces lurking within, until now. Facing a dark history of brutal deaths and paranormal violence, the team is taunted by several tortured souls still looming within the abandoned halls. Physical afflictions and ghostly apparitions put the group through the ultimate test of strength and endurance.

“No other season has challenged our limits of fear like this one,” Chelsea Laden pointed out. “It’s really forced us to exceed those limitations and do the unthinkable.”

Tanner Wiseman added, “I think this is the most vulnerable we’ve ever been. Even our pit stops are challenging. It adds a whole new layer to our experience.”

Here’s how the new season of the series breaks down:

Episode 1: “Waverly Hills Sanatorium”

• Begins Streaming Saturday, July 24th on discovery+
• Premieres Saturday, July 24th at 9 p.m. ET on Travel Channel
• The team is back, and their first stop is straight out of a nightmare! They’ve feared Waverly Hills Sanatorium their entire lives, and for good reason. What they catch on video lives up to the location’s reputation as the most haunted in all of America.

Episode 2 – “Missouri State Penitentiary”

• Begins Streaming Saturday, July 31st on discovery+
• Premieres Saturday, July 31st at 9 p.m. ET on Travel Channel
• Dakota blindsides the team when he decides to amp up the fear at what once was the bloodiest prison in America – Missouri State Penitentiary. Chelsea can barely hold it together when the ghost of a child kidnapper won’t stop trying to communicate with her.

Episode 3 – “Fort Knox”

• Begins Streaming Saturday, August 7th on discovery+
• Premieres Saturday, August 7th at 9 p.m. ET on Travel Channel
• The team is left with less-than-warm feelings for Dakota when he hatches a chilling plan to communicate with the dead at an abandoned fort in Prospect, Maine. Things get even more heated when a ghostly caretaker threatens to throw them all out into the cold.

Episode 4 – “Ohio State Reformatory”

• Begins Streaming Saturday, August 14th on discovery+
• Premieres Saturday, August 14th at 9 p.m. ET on Travel Channel
• All bets are off when Tanner picks one of America’s most depraved prisons to investigate – the Ohio State Reformatory, also known for its role in The Shawshank Redemption. He unveils a fear experiment so diabolical that the team is forced to decide whether to part ways or to continue on this road trip from hell together.

Episode 5 – “Greene County Almshouse”

• Begins Streaming Saturday, August 21st on discovery+
• Premieres Saturday, August 21st at 9 p.m. ET on Travel Channel
• Fed up with Tanner’s and Dakota’s experiments, Chelsea picks a revenge location unlike any other. The dark, untapped energy of this Pennsylvania poorhouse is overwhelming, and it forces the team to make a stunning decision to save their sanity.

Episode 6 – “Odd Fellows Home”

• Begins Streaming Saturday, August 28th on discovery+
• Premieres Saturday, August 28th at 9 p.m. ET/ on Travel Channel
• Alex has a diabolical plan for revenge that quickly turns to regret once he realizes he has unleashed something terrifying on the team. His location, once home to a mysterious secret society that entombed skeletons in the walls of its buildings, will reveal things to the team about their fear threshold that they may wish they never knew.

Episode 7 – “Edinburgh Manor”

• Begins Streaming Saturday, September 4th on discovery+
• Premieres Saturday, September 4th at 9 p.m. ET on Travel Channel
• Six years ago, Dakota and Alex attempted to explore Iowa’s menacing Edinburgh Manor, where it’s said that residents literally slit their own throats to escape the misery. Without a plan, they were chased away by something in the basement. Now they return with the entire team, armed with a new understanding of the paranormal. But they once again encounter something in the basement. Can Dakota turn the tables on the poltergeist known as The Joker?

Episode 8 – “Villisca Axe Murder House and Malvern Manor”

• Begins Streaming Saturday, September 11th on discovery+
• Premieres Saturday, September 11th at 9 p.m. ET on Travel Channel
• In an unprecedented move, Dakota takes the team to not one, but two locations … at the same time! Combined, it will make for an exploration of one of the most gruesome events in American history. A family was brutally murdered in the now-infamous Villisca Axe Murder House, and many believe that a dark and nefarious entity haunts the home. But it’s the seemingly paranormal connection to a hotel 40 miles away that has intrigued Dakota, and he and the team are the first to explore it.

Check out the new season of Destination Fear when it premieres on Travel Channel and discovery+ on July 24th.

Are you looking forward to the new season? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!