Every old city keeps its ghosts. Some of them charge admission.
Which Edinburgh tour actually goes down into the vaults. Why a St Louis cemetery walk in New Orleans needs a licensed guide. Whether the Salem tour you booked is history or a haunted house. Reviews of the ghost tours you can book for tonight.
Salem, New Orleans, Edinburgh, London: the four ghost walks to book first.
The four nights that decide what everyone thinks a ghost tour is. What each costs, and what the people who walked it say.
01The witch-trial townHistory and Hauntings of Salem Guided Walking TourSalem after the day-trippers leave, walked by guides who keep the trials and the tourist myth apart.
02The French QuarterNew Orleans Premier Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Walking TourGhosts, voodoo and vampires in one loop of the Quarter. The tour every other New Orleans night is measured against.
03Under the Old TownHaunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard TourDown into the Edinburgh vaults, then out through a plague-era graveyard. Bring a jacket; it is cold under there.
04Whitechapel, 1888The Original Jack the Ripper Walking TourThe original Ripper walk, on the streets where it happened, with the case laid out in order rather than for shock.
Six cities where the ghost tour is the reason to be out after dark.
A French Quarter cemetery, a vault under a bridge, a burying point from 1692, live oaks dripping Spanish moss, Whitechapel, and a Georgian jail. Six places that built an industry on being haunted, and the best walk in each.
Ghost tours in the USA: a walk, a graveyard, a trolley or a jail.
America runs more ghost tours than anywhere on earth, and they are not the same night out. Four formats, what boarding each one costs, and the city each one belongs to.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · History and Hauntings of Salem Guided Walking Tour
The walking tourTwo hours on foot, a guide with a lantern, no props.
Dark historyReal crimes and epidemics, told without the jump scares.
Cemetery walksAbove-ground tombs and burying grounds, guide required.
Trolley and busSit down, cover the whole city, good in bad weather.
All 338 ghost tours across the States →
Two hours, a lantern and a guide: the ghost walk everything else copies.
No theatre, no actors jumping out, no bus. One guide, a mile and a half of old street, and stories told standing where they happened. It is still the best value night in this catalogue and the hardest one to do badly.
The ghost tours more travellers book than any other.
Every ghost tour we have reviewed →Tens of thousands of people have walked each of these. Here is what earns them the slot, and what you pay to join.
1
History and Hauntings of Salem Guided Walking Tour
Walk Salem for about two hours with a local historian such as Lisa, Michael, Sean, or Ryan. Hear the truth behind the 1692 witch trials, see the Witch Trials Memorial, Ropes Mansion, Witch House, and McIntire District, and choose a lantern-lit evening departure for extra atmosphere.
From · $36
Read our review →
2
New Orleans Premier Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Walking Tour
from $27
3
The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour
from $26
4
The Original Jack the Ripper Walking Tour
from $25
5
Gangsters and Ghosts Walking Tour
from $52
6
Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard Tour
from $32
7
Adults-Only New Orleans Ghost, Crime, Voodoo, and Vampire Tour
from $37
8
Ghost Walking Tour Where Legends Come To Life
from $27
What a ghost tour costs, from a $12 walk to a private investigation.
Almost every haunting in this catalogue is cheaper than dinner. Grouped by price, with the most-walked tour in each band.
Standard city ghost walks, self-guided phone trails and the shorter graveyard loops.
Where the good ones live: vault access, candlelit walks, pub crawls and trolley loops with entry included.
Overnight ghost hunts with equipment, private guides, carriage rides and paranormal investigations inside a building.
Jack the Ripper tours: the one case with its own tour industry.
Five murders in ten weeks in the autumn of 1888, and a case file that never closed. The walks cover the same square mile of the East End; what separates them is whether the guide handles the victims as people or as props. The good ones name all five women.
Every Ripper walk →
Edinburgh ghost tours go under the street, not past it.
The vaults inside South Bridge and the sealed close under the Royal Mile are the only places in this catalogue where the venue does the frightening on its own. Book the ones with underground access; a walk that only points at the doorway is a different, cheaper night.
- 1The World Famous Underground Ghost Tourfrom $26
- 2Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard Tourfrom $32
- 3Comedy Horror Ghost Bus Tourfrom $28
Three hauntings you can only walk into where they happened.
Every city has a ghost walk. A courthouse that hanged nineteen people for witchcraft, a religion still practised three streets from the tour, and a street built over an eighteenth-century one do not travel.
The Salem Witch Trials
Nineteen people were hanged at Proctor’s Ledge and one was pressed to death, none of them for anything supernatural. The trials ran on spectral evidence, property disputes and neighbours who had been arguing for years. The better Salem guides spend the walk on the court records and the surviving houses, and are honest that the town has been selling the story since the 1970s.
- 1The Salem Witch Walk★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,301 reviews
- 2Wicked Awesome Tours: Witch Trial History and Salem Haunts!★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,032 reviews
- 3Best Salem Witch Trials Historical Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 743 reviews
New Orleans Voodoo
Voodoo in New Orleans is a living religion with West African roots, not a horror prop, and Marie Laveau was a real hairdresser and herbalist with a real address. St Louis Cemetery No. 1, where her tomb stands, has been closed to unaccompanied visitors since 2015 after years of vandalism, so a licensed guide is now the only way in.
- 1New Orleans Premier Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 12,856 reviews
- 2Adults-Only New Orleans Ghost, Crime, Voodoo, and Vampire Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 6,545 reviews
- 3New Orleans Adults-Only Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,291 reviews
The Edinburgh Vaults
When South Bridge was finished in 1788 the arches under it were sold as storage, flooded within a decade and were sealed and forgotten until the 1980s. They are pitch dark, several degrees colder than the street and completely silent. Nothing has to be staged down there, which is why the tours that get inside cost more than the ones that stop at the door.
- 1The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 9,272 reviews
- 2Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 6,607 reviews
- 3Evening Underground Ghost Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 3,092 reviews
Four ghost tours that October will take away from you.
Most of this catalogue can be booked on the afternoon of. These four cannot: they run small groups, they sell out for weeks around Halloween, and the towns they are in have nothing else on that night.
- 01History and Hauntings of Salem Guided Walking TourSalem’s whole October is spoken for. The town caps crowds and the walking tours are gone by late September.
- 02Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard TourUnderground access is capped by the size of the chamber, so groups are small and the evening slots go first.
- 03Medieval Torture Museum with Ghost Hunting and Tiny Art GalleryOvernight investigations run once or twice a week with a fixed number of handsets, not on demand.
- 04Haunted Evening Horse and Carriage Tour of CharlestonOne carriage, one driver, one route. When the horses stop for the night that is the last departure.
A ghost tour starts when it gets dark, and midsummer is cruel about that.
In Edinburgh in June the sky is still bright at half ten, so the evening walks either start at an hour nobody wants or run in daylight. Savannah and New Orleans are the other way: dark by seven in December, and cold enough to want the trolley. Two answers — go somewhere the story does not need the dark, or go somewhere the dark comes early.
Ghost tours split two ways: with the children, or definitely not.
The adults-only tours earn the label — autopsy detail, execution methods, and a lot of standing outside bars. The family versions keep the history and lose the gore, and most guides will tell you which one you have booked if you ask. Below, the walks that state it plainly.
By city — where the ghost walks are
Savannah to St Augustine: the American ghost trail most people drive first.
NashvilleThe newest ghost tour reviews.
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