A place to be often in spirit (5)
I believe the answer is:
haunt
'spirit' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a place to be often' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'a' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'hunt' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for haunt that I've seen before include "A favourite place" , "Frequent - resort" , "place regularly visited" , "favourite spot" , "Keep appearing" .)