Note: All travel is subject to frequently-changing governmental restrictions—please check federal, state, and local advisories before scheduling trips. 

If a spine-tingling adrenaline rush is enough to inspire your next trip, consider building an entire itinerary around a ghost tour in one of America’s most haunted cities. Each destination below is renowned for its ghost legends and eerie settings where unexplained activity has spooked even the most skeptical visitors. Joining a nighttime walking tour with a skilled storyteller/ghost hunter who can recount these stories is not only good for a scare—but it will peel back layers in a destination’s history that most other tours might omit. (Hey, not every traveler is as brave as you!) So pack your EMF detector, a favorite piece of amateur ghost-hunting equipment, and get ready for the goosebumps: We pulled the top-ranked guided ghost tours bookable on Orbitz for each city.*

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Savannah, GA

Savannah is considered by many to be America’s most haunted city. The Savannah Ghost Walker Tour and Ghost Hunt taps into why the city might be such a hotbed for hauntings: the famous battles, the terrible diseases, and the infamous crimes of passion and deceit. With only 15 tickets available each night, it’s an intimate tour that takes intrepid guests past the city’s most haunted squares, cemeteries, and buildings. Previous guests rave about the use of real K2 EMF meters for you to use during the guided walking tour.

New Orleans, LA

Walk through the horrors of New Orleans with the Adults Only – New Orleans Ghost, True Crime, Voodoo and Vampire Walking Tour. This guided nighttime walking tour for the 17-and-older crowd weaves past some of the Big Easy’s most uneasy settings—places that vampires, voodoo queens, and murderous prostitutes made infamous.

Salem, MA

Explore Salem’s dark and sinister past. The Salem Voodoo, Vampires and Ghosts Guided Walking Tour takes you through some of the town’s most storied and haunted sites, including those affiliated with the 1692 witch trials. An officially licensed public guide and paranormal investigator leads this nighttime tour.

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St. Augustine, FL

It’s no wonder that our nation’s oldest city is considered one of the most haunted places in the United States, as it has experienced its fair share of war, sickness, and death since its founding in 1585. The Walking Ghost Tour of St. Augustine will take you to settings where paranormal activity is seen and felt to this very day: the St. Augustine Lighthouse, the Old Jail, the Huguenot Cemetery, and Castillo de San Marcos, a 350-year-old fort where reports of paranormal activity include sightings of Spanish soldiers patrolling the grounds.

San Antonio, TX

On this tour, you’ll glide past some of San Antonio’s most haunted locations aboard a Segway. The San Antonio Ghost Segway Tour is a two-hour guided adventure that winds past the Spanish Governor’s Palace Hanging Trees, an old burial ground near the Alamo, and locations from the Old West, including the settings of famous gun fights and battles. Expect to hear stories about The Donkey Lady, La Llorona and, of course, the spirits of Alamo defenders.

Chicago, IL

The Gangsters and Ghosts Tour in Chicago brings to life the city’s dark and deadly past. This two-hour guided walking tour explores the history and hauntings of “The Loop,” Chicago’s downtown business core which was better known as the vice district during the 1920s and ’30s. Visit haunted locations and old crime scenes where gangsters like Al Capone once loomed large—and some gangster-era specters, according to witnesses, still linger.

Charleston, SC

Join Charleston’s Pleasing Terrors Night-Time Walking Ghost Tour, a bi-weekly tour that spotlights Charleston’s haunted places, creepy history, and forgotten folklore. Your guide: an acclaimed ghost storyteller who was born and raised in Charleston, and has spent more than twenty years researching the ghostly sightings and associated history. Learn about the “Blood Book” at one of the city’s creepiest libraries; the haunted “Bloody Alley,” a setting associated with duels and tragic deaths; and much more.

New York City, NY

Greenwich Village is purportedly one of the most haunted neighborhoods in New York City. Case in point: It’s home to a building called “The House of Death.” The New York City Ghost Tour of Greenwich Village will take you there, plus to other creepy locations, including a Lenape tribe burial ground and a bevy of other haunted buildings (such as a library, a theater, and a restaurant) where ghosts are said to still spook guests.

*The tour selected for each city needed at least 10 reviews and be the highest-scored option among the ghost tours offered. If two or more tours had the same high score, we featured the tour with the most reviews.

Tagged: Chicago, Chicago, Florida, Georgia, Midwest, New England, New Orleans, New York