Every old city keeps its ghosts. These are the walks that tell on them.
Which New Orleans walk actually gets you inside a cemetery. What an hour under the Edinburgh vaults costs. Whether the Ripper tour with the projections beats the plain one. Reviews of ghost tours, city by city.
Four nights that made people fans of this whole idea.
The walks that turn a sceptic into somebody who books one in every city after. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first nightNew Orleans Premier Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Walking TourThe French Quarter after the day crowds leave: cemetery gates, voodoo, and the houses nobody puts on a postcard.
02Under the streetThe World Famous Underground Ghost TourEdinburgh built new floors over its old ones. You go down into what got left behind, with no daylight anywhere.
03The case fileThe Original Jack the Ripper Walking TourWhitechapel, walked in the order the murders happened. The guides here know the inquest transcripts, not the films.
04By candlelightSavannah History and Haunts Candlelit Ghost Walking TourSavannah is laid out on top of its own burial grounds. This one goes slowly, by candle, and takes the squares in turn.
Six cities that never stopped telling their ghost stories.
A French Quarter built over its dead, vaults sealed under a Scottish bridge, Whitechapel’s murder beat, squares laid on top of burial grounds, a town that hanged nineteen of its neighbours, and a harbour full of fever houses.
The American ghost tour has four shapes. Pick the one you can stand.
More than half the ghost tours in the world run in the United States, and they are not the same night out. A guided walk, a crawl with a drink in your hand, a graveyard after closing, or a seat on a trolley when the legs have had enough.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Gangsters and Ghosts Walking Tour
The walkNinety minutes on foot, a guide, and the houses in order.
The crawlThree or four bars, a story at each, drinks not included.
The graveyardInside the gates, usually after the day visitors are out.
The seatA trolley or a hearse-black bus when nobody wants to walk.
All 315 American ghost tours →
The ghost tours more people book than any others.
Every ghost tour we have reviewed →The walks with tens of thousands of travellers behind them, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
New Orleans Premier Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Walking Tour
Walk through the French Quarter for 1 hour 45 minutes with guides such as Spooky Rob, Lisa, Logan, and Juju. Hear stories tied to Madame LaLaurie, the Casket Girls, voodoo, vampires, yellow fever, and old medical practices. Expect outdoor stops, uneven sidewalks, street noise, and a group of up to 28 people.
From · $27
Read our review →
2
The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour
from $26
3
The Original Jack the Ripper Walking Tour
from $25
4
Gangsters and Ghosts Walking Tour
from $52
5
Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard Tour
from $32
6
Adults-Only New Orleans Ghost, Crime, Voodoo, and Vampire Tour
from $37
7
Ghost Walking Tour Where Legends Come To Life
from $27
8
Ghosts, Legends, Medieval Underground & Dungeon Tour
from $31
New Orleans buries its dead above ground and talks about them all night.
The French Quarter has the densest run of ghost tours anywhere: cemetery walks that need a licensed guide to get through the gate, voodoo nights that go to the tomb of Marie Laveau, and adults-only crawls where the stories get considerably worse after the second stop.
Every New Orleans ghost tour →
Three nights that cannot be copied anywhere else.
Most cities can put a lantern in a guide’s hand. These three are selling something that only exists at that address: a murder beat, a sealed street, and a town that went to trial.
The Ripper Beat
Five murders inside ten weeks, in streets that have mostly been rebuilt since. What survives is the geography: how little distance separates the sites, how many people were awake, how thin the walls were. The better guides work from inquest testimony and the contemporary press, and they will tell you which of the famous suspects the evidence never supported.
- 1The Original Jack the Ripper Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 7,833 reviews
- 2London Jack the Ripper Guided Tour with Ripper-Vision★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 4,840 reviews
- 3Jack the Ripper Small Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,159 reviews
The Edinburgh Vaults
The chambers inside South Bridge were built as storage in the 1780s, leaked from the first winter, and ended up housing people who had nowhere drier. They were filled with rubble and forgotten until the 1980s. There is no natural light, the temperature holds around ten degrees whatever the month, and the good tours let the rooms go quiet instead of talking over them.
- 1The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 9,272 reviews
- 2Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 6,607 reviews
- 3Ghosts, Legends, Medieval Underground & Dungeon Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 5,104 reviews
Witch Country
Salem hanged fourteen women and five men in 1692 and pressed one more to death; Scotland burned people into the 1720s and Bamberg built a prison specifically for the accused. The tours that are worth the money walk the actual sites and stay with the court records, because the documented version is far worse than the costume-shop one.
- 1Bewitched Walking Tour of Salem★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,895 reviews
- 2The Salem Witch Walk★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,301 reviews
- 3Witches & Haunted History Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,290 reviews
What a ghost tour actually costs, everywhere.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The gap between the cheapest walk and the dearest is mostly access: a locked gate, a set of vaults, or a piece of equipment somebody has to carry.
Self-guided app walks, the tip-based tours, and the short late loops in European old towns.
The standard night: a guide, ninety minutes, a route of houses and one graveyard.
Vault entry, ghost-hunting kit, carriages, harbour boats and the small-group evenings.
A ghost walk, a true-crime beat and a legends tour are three different evenings.
One is architecture and atmosphere, one is documented murder with the dates attached, and one is folklore the city has been retelling for four hundred years. Read the description properly before you take anyone nervous.
Britain has been running ghost walks since before anyone called it tourism.
Edinburgh sells a sealed street under a bridge, London sells 1888, and York sells a claim to more hauntings per acre than anywhere in Europe. Book the late slots; the early ones are for coach parties.
Four things a ghost tour listing never tells you plainly.
These run outdoors, at night, in whatever the weather is doing, and a fair number carry an age limit that is there for a reason. Check the start time against sunset, check the walking distance, and check whether the adults-only label means strong language or the full autopsy detail. If any of that is a problem, there is a seated version, a daytime version, or one you can walk yourself.
- 1Comedy Horror Ghost Bus Tourfrom $28
- 2Comedy Horror Show: York Ghost Bus Tourfrom $26
- 3Ghost Bus Tour of Edinburghfrom $24
Four ghost tours that will be gone by the time you land.
Most of this can be arranged over dinner for the same night. These four cannot: they run on locked-gate access, small headcounts and one very busy month.
- 01The World Famous Underground Ghost TourThe vaults take a handful of people at a time on a fixed rota, and the late slots close first.
- 02Salem’s Best Ghost TourSalem in October is the busiest ghost-tour month on earth. Tickets go weeks out, not the afternoon of.
- 03Medieval Torture Museum with Ghost Hunting and Tiny Art GalleryA hunt runs to the number of people the equipment covers. Once that is full, that is the night.
- 04Savannah Ghosts & Gravestones Trolley TourTrolleys leave on a printed timetable and the last one rolls before midnight, full or not.
New Orleans to Gettysburg: the run people do a fortnight of.
Savannah
Charleston
St Augustine
Salem
GettysburgBy city: where the walks run
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