Best Ghost Tour (2015)

Visitors can learn a lot about Charleston by spending time on the cobblestone streets, walking through the gardens and visiting the graveyards. Bulldog Tours offers a variety of walking tours of the area, including a handful of ghost tours every night. The Haunted Jail Tour takes visitors to the Old City Jail; the Ghost and Dungeon Walking Tour follows the shadowy edges of alleys, churches and cemeteries; and the Darkside of Charleston Walking Tour introduces visitors to the region’s history of crime, prostitution and scandal.
Photo courtesy of Bulldog Tours

Appalachian GhostWalks in Tennessee aims to offer a “positive perspective” on the afterlife, so the tours are family friendly starting for kids around age 5. Visitors can learn about the region’s history and culture, visit western-style towns and haunted sites and feel like they are traveling back in time. GhostWalks features 14 different lantern-led walking tours every day or night in Southern Appalachia. The company also organizes “haunted vacations” and Bigfoot Adventure Tours. Here, it’s all about where the unknown intersects with history.
Photo courtesy of Appalachian GhostWalks

Blue Orb Tours in Savannah have a great reputation for quality. This company offers three different ghost tours to meet different needs. The most popular and original tour is The Uncensored Zombies Tour, which centers around Colonial ghost stories of the undead walking Savannah’s streets at night. The City of the Dead Tour is shorter and better suited for families, but that doesn’t mean it sacrifices any creepy quality. The newest tour, The Modern Haunting Tour, includes more recent ghost tales of the region and blends them with Savannah’s history.
Photo courtesy of Blue Orb Tours

For eight years, the Old Bisbee Ghost Tour has brought visitors right up close to and even inside some of the area’s most haunted locations, to spots after dark where vehicles can’t even go. The tour ventures through streets, alleys and stairways, where ghosts of miners, moms and “a lady of the evening” are said to still linger. The tour company also offers a Haunted Pub Crawl through Bisbee’s most haunted bars, complete with “spirits” to drink.
Photo courtesy of Old Bisbee Ghost Tour

The Haunted Heartland Tours are led by paranormal researcher and author, Sherri Brake, in various different states. She takes guests to various haunted historical spots, such as the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, the Ohio State Reformatory and the West Virginia Penitentiary, known as “Bloody Alley” for its executions. In fact, guests can stay overnight in the old prison. No blatant spooks here. Just the eerie history of the Heartland. And beyond. Blake also organizes haunted history tours in Ireland and Scotland.
Photo courtesy of Dianne Blosser / Haunted Heartland Tours

Chattanooga Ghost Tours in Tennessee claims to be the first ghost tour in the world to offer participants “ultimate ghost hunts” using the newest technology (the Xcam) that lets users also see the ghosts. This special camera can pick up images of ghosts, according to the tours, and has been seen on “Ghost Adventures.” The company runs nightly ghost tours, as well as an adult-only ghost hunt in the cemetery, using temperature guns, a KII meter, the Ovilus X (which is supposed to pick up the sound of ghosts) and other ghost-hunting equipment.
Photo courtesy of Chattanooga Ghost Tours

The Ghost Tours of Harpers Ferry in West Virginia centers around the 1977 book, A Ghostly Tour of Harpers Ferry. The hour-and-a-half-long tour claims to be the oldest ghost tour in the nation. Visitors learn about the unusual paranormal activity in Harpers Ferry, which some attribute to its violent history in the Civil War. Don’t expect any ghost hunting or attempts to talk to ghosts in this tour. Although it can be spooky, it’s even appropriate for many kids.
Photo courtesy of Ghost Tours of Harpers Ferry

The stories aren’t only remains after the Battle of Gettysburg. Ghosts of some of the soldiers continue to linger in the town, or so says the organizers of the Ghosts of Gettysburg ghost tour. This company has been leading candlelight historical walking tours through the town since 1994. While winding through dark streets and past haunted buildings and cemeteries, guests can learn about the history of the region, and even some legends that don’t exist in the books. 
Photo courtesy of Ghosts of Gettysburg

Ybor City in Florida has an unusual history, as a melting pot of immigration, and that colorful history lives on in the Ybor City Ghost Tour. After dark, guides take visitors to the most haunted spots in town. Visitors can hear the historically based stories about lovers who died sealed in the basement of the theater, a young boy who drowned in the pool and a shopkeeper who still visits his work, years after his death. The two-hour tour does not guarantee ghosts, of course, but it does tout an educational night of entertainment.
Photo courtesy of Ybor City Ghost Tour

The Ghost Tours of Catalina, in the Avalon area on Catalina Island in California, take visitors on a walking tour of the area like no other experience. Spirits roam here, according to the tour company, and the locals who lead the one-hour tours specialize in paranormal activity. These ghost tours are the real deal. Ghost Tours of Catalina boasts that every story told is accurately based on history and facts verified by at least five different sources. As the quote goes, sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.
Photo courtesy of Catalina Island Chamber of Commerce