If any US city has earned the name of being genuinely haunted, Charleston is high up there!

With over 350 years of intense, documented history, colonial settlement, Revolutionary War conflict, the brutal antebellum slave trade, devastating earthquakes, yellow fever epidemics, AND Civil War siege – you can see that the city that sits now involves a past that feels not-so-distant.

Simply stroll (or walk quickly) through the French Quarter after dark, and you’ll quickly get why it’s become one of the biggest ghost tour destinations in the country.

However, if you really want to maximize your experience, I highly suggest going on one of the 5 top Charleston ghost tours out there. Let’s get started!

Be sure to see our reviews of Charleston Food Tours, Charleston Horse Carriage Rides and Charleston Boat Tours.

Best Ghost Tours in Charleston

	Haunted Evening Horse and Carriage Tour of Charleston	Charleston Haunted Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour	Charleston Haunted Horse and Carriage Evening Tour
Duration:	40 mins	2.5 hours	45 mins
Departure:	14 Anson St, Charleston	Henry's On The Market, 54 N Market St, Charleston	8 Guignard St, Charleston
Start:	Between 5:30 PM & 10:00 PM	4:30 PM. 7:00 PM	Between 5:30 PM & 9:00 PM
Includes:	40-minute Haunted Evening Horse & Carriage Tour, Certified Guide, Hear spooky tales from Charleston’s history as you pass haunted alleys, graveyards, and a dungeon	Costumed Tour Guide, 2.5 hour walking tour, Visit local, historic bars, Stories of local hauntings and ghosts	Learn about Charleston’s history, architecture, flora, and people, Professional Guide, Evening haunted history tour exploring the sinister side of Charleston, SC
	Tour Information & Booking	Tour Information & Booking	Tour Information & Booking

Quick Answer: The 5 Best Rated Charleston Ghost Tours For 2026

1. Haunted Evening Horse and Carriage Tour of Charleston
2. Charleston Haunted Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour
3. Charleston Haunted Horse and Carriage Evening Tour
4. Charleston Ghost & Graveyard Night-Time Guided Walking Tour
5. Ghosts of Charleston Night-Time Walking Tour with Unitarian Church Graveyard

Charleston Ghost Tour Reviews

1. Haunted Evening Horse and Carriage Tour of Charleston

If you’ve ever been to Charleston’s historic district, you can probably tell that it was made for horse and carriage transportation. The cobblestone alleyways, narrow side streets, and walled garden passages are not only beautiful but also define the “old city”, where this type of travel was the only realistic way to do it.

You’ll get to experience it the way it was intended, on the Haunted Evening Horse and Carriage Tour of Charleston. Lasting 40 minutes, it’s perfect if your day or evening is already packed with plans, and you don’t have the time to commit to a longer excursion.

Not only that, but it’s ideal if you don’t want to deal with walking tours or being on your feet – instead, you’ll cruise on by to the sounds of hooves and the carriage wheels. Experiencing those streets after dark, gliding past these haunted buildings in the lamplight, offers an atmosphere that walking tours can’t quite replicate.

There are a few different start times available, so you’re bound to find something that works for you. Covering more than 15 blocks of Charleston’s original walled city in 40 minutes is virtually impossible on a walking tour, so you’re really getting the best bang for your buck here!

Starting at the Old South Carriage Company stables, you’ll get to meet the draft horses before boarding on an inclined ramp (super accessible!). The certified guide greets each carriage before everyone sets off throughout the different sites.

Expect to see the Provost Dungeon – the colonial-era prison beneath the Old Exchange building – providing a dark and insightful look at America before the Revolution. Move on to the Circular Congregational Graveyard, St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, the Old City Market, and more.

All throughout, listen to interesting commentary on the history, culture, and architecture of each site!

More Information & Tour Booking

2. Charleston Haunted Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour

Charleston definitely does two things extremely well: haunted tours and bar culture. Combining both of them not only makes sense, but makes for a whole lot of fun, no matter if it’s your first or fiftieth time in the city.

With the Charleston Haunted Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour, you’ll get enough personality and local knowledge to make for a seriously entertaining atmosphere, all while learning.

Lasting around 2.5 hours, it’s the perfect amount of time to really experience the city’s history and culture, without having to commit to a longer experience.

There is some flexibility with start time as well, so it’s as easy to fit it into your schedule as a trip to the pub would be, anyway. Plus, you get to try and learn so much more than you would with a trip to the bar on your own.

The pirate guide format is theatrical, yes, but it actually didn’t feel gimmicky at all – probably because the guide really committed to the bit with enthusiasm and education to back it up.

Vanna and Jo were wonderful, and even extended our tour a bit beyond the regularly scheduled time just because they were so into it – even better for us, too!

You’ll get to see the Powder Magazine, the Circular Congregational Graveyard, Washington Square, and its famously ghost-frequented Four Corners of Law, the Charleston City Market, and 3 bar stops.

Each bar stop is along the way and logically ties into the stories we’ve already been hearing about. While you’ll get to try some great drinks, the ghost stories involved are definitely at the forefront. So, it’s not a traditional pub crawl, but definitely a ton of fun, regardless.

More Information & Tour Booking

3. Charleston Haunted Horse and Carriage Evening Tour

Charleston’s oldest stories need to be told from the right vantage point, and Palmetto Carriage Works (one of the city’s most established carriage tour operators), has curated a 45-minute haunted night tour that puts you at just the right height, speed, and perspective to properly receive them.

The Charleston Haunted Horse and Carriage Evening Tour covers approximately 30 blocks of the historic district through the city’s most atmospheric and historic streets, with a certified pro there to narrate the darkest parts of Charleston’s past from the early 19th century and up.

The starting point just off the Charleston City Market at the Big Red Barn sets an old-school vibe before the carriage even moves. From there, the route is assigned on departure, so you may not get the same tour twice.

It keeps the experience feeling organic rather than scripted, going through landmarks that represent some of the eeriest and most compelling history in the American South.

St. Philip’s Church, the oldest congregation south of Virginia, and the Circular Congregational Church – whose graveyard dates to 1681 and generates ghost stories as reliably as any location in Charleston – offer a foundation to the intense history that runs through the tour’s whole story.

The Old Exchange Building and Provost Dungeon, the colonial-era prison that held both Revolutionary War prisoners and, earlier, enslaved people awaiting sale, provides the tour’s most historically heavy stop.

The Powder Magazine, completed in 1731 and the only surviving public colonial building in South Carolina, adds another bit of genuine historical rarity that most cities can’t quite come close to.

The U.S. Custom House, its construction halted by the threat of secession and completed only after the Civil War, connects the tour’s colonial threads to the 19th-century conflict that created so much of Charleston’s character, afterward.

Again, lasting just 45 minutes, you’ll be able to see and learn so much more than you would by walking. It’s perfect for those who can’t, as well as those who want to avoid the daytime heat!

More Information & Tour Booking

4. Charleston Ghost & Graveyard Night-Time Guided Walking Tour

There’s one important detail about this tour that places it in a different category than every other ghost walking tour in Charleston that I’ve taken: exclusive after-hours access to the Circular Congregational Church graveyard!

The graveyard dates to 1681, making it one of the oldest in the country, and experiencing it after the gates close to the general public – with a guide who knows the exact histories of the people buried there and the burial practices that surrounded them – creates an atmosphere that no amount of atmospheric lighting or theatrical storytelling can create otherwise.

If you want to experience it for yourself, check out the Charleston Ghost & Graveyard Night-Time Guided Walking Tour.

The tour company has been operating ghost tours long enough to have developed a solid knowledge base and understanding of the city’s darkest history, and that’s evident right from the very beginning.

The stories here go far beyond standard “spooky tours”, and we even learned that the origins of sayings like “graveyard shift” and “saved by the bell” came from 18th and 19th-century fear of being buried alive! It’s facts like that that keep you even further engaged, and just enrich the experience in every way.

The voodoo history leading through the tour shares background into Charleston’s cultural complexity, including the African spiritual traditions that survived the slave trade and influenced the locals’ beliefs.

This tour did a fantastic job of addressing them directly rather than sanitizing the history, doing something more honest than most. It may not be the absolute best for younger kids, but if you want it completely unedited, this is the one to take.

Each guide runs a unique route through the historic district, influenced by their own knowledge, the evening’s conditions, and the questions the group asks along the way. Again, this only helps keep the experience feeling genuine rather than checking off boxes on a list.

More Information & Tour Booking

5. Ghosts of Charleston Night-Time Walking Tour with Unitarian Church Graveyard

As Charleston’s oldest ghost tour, which has been running continuously since 1996, has had a whopping 3 decades to refine what it does, and the Ghosts of Charleston Night-Time Walking Tour reflects that.

You’ll benefit from your guide’s vast experience in ways that newer operations are oftentimes still working to achieve. The foundation is the company’s own bestselling book, The Ghosts of Charleston, which gives the tour a literary and research credibility that offers even the most supernatural stories in valid historical accounts.

The standout feature is exclusive after-hours access to the Unitarian Church Graveyard, which would make the tour worth it, alone. Established in 1772 and deliberately left in a state of overgrowth, you have live oaks, hanging moss, and vines reclaiming the older plots.

It’s an atmosphere that I don’t think any other burial grounds in the world offer. The combination of antiquity, nature’s wildness, and the stories of the people buried here creates an experience that is quite special.

The tour operators note that since 1996, visitors have reported visual, tactile, and auditory encounters in the graveyard on a recurring basis, and you may get lucky and experience some yourself!

The 90-minute walking tour rotates ghost stories nightly, drawn from the full catalog of The Ghosts of Charleston, which means repeat visitors get different material on each tour.

Your tour starts off at Buxton Books, where the book I mentioned is available for purchase before or after the walk. I highly recommend doing it – plus, it’s quite affordable. St. Michael’s Church appears along the route, adding another layer of Charleston’s history to an evening already filled with it.

The option to do graveyard-only access without the full city tour offers more flexibility for return visitors or those with limited time who want the Unitarian Church Graveyard experience specifically.

More Information & Tour Booking

Charleston Ghost Tours: Which Ones Get You Inside, and Which Ones Just Talk

It is nine at night on Church Street and there are four tour groups inside a hundred yards of each other. All of them are being told a version of the Lavinia Fisher story.

That is the first thing to know about Charleston ghost tours. The city runs more of them than it has ghosts, and the gap between the good ones and the tourist mills is wide.

I have taken the tours that walk you into a locked graveyard after dark. I have also stood on a sidewalk for ninety minutes while a guide pointed at a building I could see fine on my own.

Here is how to tell them apart before you spend the money.

Why Charleston Actually Earns the Reputation

Most “most haunted city in America” claims are marketing. Charleston has the history to back it up.

The Old City Jail held prisoners from 1802 to 1939. Denmark Vesey was locked there before his hanging in 1822 for organizing a slave rebellion.

Pirates, Civil War prisoners, and the jail’s most famous inmate, Lavinia Fisher, all passed through.

The rest of the dark history is just as real. The 1886 earthquake killed more than a hundred people and cracked buildings you can still see today.

Fires leveled entire blocks. The city was a major port in the domestic slave trade, and a lot of the heaviest material on these tours is tied to that, not to ghosts.

Here is the honest split. The hauntings are folklore.

The history underneath them is documented, and the good guides tell you which is which instead of blurring the two.

When to Go

October is the obvious answer and the wrong one for most people. Every tour sells out, the streets are packed, and you are sharing your “spooky graveyard” with three other groups.

Go in spring or late fall instead. March through May the weather is good and the evenings are comfortable.

Summer is hot and humid, and the mosquitoes in the graveyards are real. If you go June through August, bring bug spray and do not expect a jacket.

One local trick. Book a 10 p.m. tour if one is offered.

The crowds thin out and the meter parking in the Historic District is free after 10.

Weekends book up first year-round. If your dates are fixed, reserve a few days ahead.

The Tours That Get You Inside Something

This is the whole game. Most Charleston ghost tours are outdoor walking tours that stop in front of haunted buildings you cannot enter.

A handful get you through a locked gate or a heavy door. Those are the ones worth planning around.

The Old City Jail

This is the one people fly in for, so here is the straight version. Bulldog Tours has exclusive access, the jail reopened in late 2023 after a two-year renovation, and the tour now covers the ground floor only.

You see six rooms over about 45 minutes. The upper floors were turned into office and event space, so the “explore the whole building” pitch you may read in older articles is out of date.

It runs around $45. Some people find it genuinely creepy and some find it thin and theatrical, and both reviews are common.

My take. The building is the real thing and the history is heavy, but manage your expectations on how much of it you actually walk through.

It is not built for young kids, and Bulldog gates it at roughly age 12.

The Graveyards You Can Walk Into After Dark

Two companies get you inside a locked cemetery, and they are not the same graveyard.

Bulldog’s Ghost and Graveyard Tour takes you inside the Circular Congregational Church graveyard, the oldest English burial ground in the city, dating to 1681. It runs about 90 minutes.

The catch is timing. Several tours cluster in the same cemeteries at the same hour, so a peak-season slot can feel less like a private haunting and more like a queue.

Tour Charleston runs the Ghosts of Charleston Night-Time Walking Tour, and it is the only company with after-hours access to the Unitarian Church graveyard. That one was established in 1772 and is deliberately left overgrown, all live oaks and hanging moss and vines pulling the old plots back into the ground.

That graveyard is the most atmospheric spot on any Charleston ghost tour I have taken. The tour starts at Buxton Books, is built on the company’s own book, and rotates its stories nightly, so a repeat visit gets you fresh material.

If you only do one graveyard, do this one.

The Provost Dungeon

Bulldog also runs a Ghost and Dungeon tour that takes you inside the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon at the foot of Broad Street. British forces held American prisoners in those cells during the Revolution.

It is dark, cold, and old in a way a sidewalk story cannot match. Good pick if the jail is sold out or you want something pre-Revolutionary.

The Ones Where You Stay Outside, and That Is Fine

Plenty of good tours never take you indoors. A strong guide with real stories beats a mediocre one standing inside a famous building.

• Small-group walking tours. Adam’s Charleston Dark History and Ghost Tour starts around $33 a person and keeps groups small, which means you can actually hear the guide. On a crowded night that is worth more than interior access.
• Pleasing Terrors. A 90-minute walking tour led by Mike Brown, who hosts the podcast of the same name. More storytelling craft than jump scares.
• Carriage tours. Old South Carriage and Palmetto Carriage run haunted evening rides. A carriage cannot enter a graveyard or a dungeon, so you are getting narrated history from a seat, which is the right call if you cannot do a mile on cobblestones.
• USS Yorktown. Bulldog runs a ghost tour aboard the WWII aircraft carrier across the harbor. Completely different vibe, industrial and echoing, and a solid change of pace if you have already done the downtown circuit.

What It Costs and How to Book

Ballpark the money like this. A standard outdoor walking tour runs roughly $28 to $35.

The Old City Jail is around $45. Small-group and specialty tours land in the $33 and up range, and private tours jump to $149 or more.

Most walking tours cover about a mile over 90 minutes on uneven cobblestone and brick. Wear real shoes, not the cute ones.

Book direct with the operator or through Viator or GetYourGuide, all of which show live availability. Book ahead for October, holiday weekends, and anything that includes interior access, because those sell out first.

One honest warning. If you want a haunted house with actors jumping out of the dark, this is not that.

Charleston ghost tours are story-and-history experiences, and the good ones are worth it for exactly that reason.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are the ghost stories real or made up?

The ghost part is folklore, so treat it as entertainment. The history underneath is documented, and the better operators base their stories on real records and real deaths.

If accuracy matters to you, ask your guide directly which parts are recorded history. The good ones will tell you without flinching.

Which tour should I pick if I only have one night?

Go with a tour that gets you inside a locked gate, because that is what you cannot do on your own. The Ghosts of Charleston tour and its after-hours Unitarian graveyard access is my default pick.

If the jail is the specific thing you came for, book that instead and accept that you only see the ground floor.

Is it worth it if I do not believe in ghosts?

Yes, if you like history and a good storyteller. The graveyards, the jail, and the dungeon are real places with real pasts, and a strong guide makes the evening worth it on history alone.

Skip it if you need actual scares. Nobody is going to grab you in the dark.

Can I bring kids?

Most outdoor walking tours are fine for kids, and some carriage and pirate tours are aimed right at them. The Old City Jail tour is the exception and is gated around age 12 because the material gets grim.

Use your judgment on younger kids and the darker walking tours. When in doubt, ask the operator what the tour actually covers.

Do I need to book ahead?

For a random Tuesday in spring you can often walk up. For weekends, October, and any tour with interior access, book a few days out.

The interior tours sell out first because access is capped. That is the whole reason to plan those.

Is October worth the crowds?

Only if the Halloween atmosphere is the point of the trip for you. Otherwise you are paying peak prices to share every stop with other groups.

Late October books solid weeks ahead. If you want the same tours with room to breathe, come in spring instead.