New Orleans is genuinely one of the most unique, historically rich cities in the world, known for everything from Marie Laveau’s voodoo practices, beautiful architecture, amazing food, and, of course, its hauntings.

It’s no secret that NOLA has a dark history involving slavery, yellow fever epidemics, torture chambers, and much more. If you want to make the most of your time there, I highly recommend going on a proper tour.

I’ve gone ahead and reviewed the 5 top New Orleans ghost tours, which are well worth your time and money. Let’s jump right in!

Be sure to see our reviews of New Orleans Food Tours, New Orleans Plantation Tours and New Orleans Swamp Tours.

Best Ghost Tours in New Orleans

	Adults-Only New Orleans Ghost, Crime, Voodoo, and Vampire Tour	New Orleans Small-Group Haunted History Carriage Tour	Haunted New Orleans Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour
Duration:	1.75 hours	1 hour	2 hours
Departure:	801 N Rampart St, New Orleans	700 Decatur St, New Orleans	415 Dauphine St, New Orleans
Start:	5:00 PM, 7:00 PM, 8:00 PM	Between 12:00 PM & 7:30 PM	7:30 PM
Includes:	Supernatural walking tour with in-person guide, licensed guide, bathroom stop	1-hour mule-drawn carriage ride, licensed tour guide, small group tour	Visits to at least 3 haunted bars, stories of local haunted history, local guide
	Tour Information & Booking	Tour Information & Booking	Tour Information & Booking

Quick Answer: The 5 Best Rated New Orleans Ghost Tours For 2026

1. Adults-Only New Orleans Ghost, Crime, Voodoo, and Vampire Tour
2. New Orleans Small-Group Haunted History Carriage Tour
3. Haunted New Orleans Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour
4. New Orleans Dead of Night Ghosts and Cemetery Bus Tour
5. Destrehan Plantation Haunted Night Tour

New Orleans Ghost Tour Reviews

1. Adults-Only New Orleans Ghost, Crime, Voodoo, and Vampire Tour

Let’s kick things off with a truly intense journey through the darker parts of New Orleans’ past, with the Adults-Only New Orleans Ghost, Crime, Voodoo, and Vampire Tour.

This unfiltered storytelling offers some of the most grisly true-crime stories and disturbing paranormal accounts for those tired of watered-down, family-friendly experiences.

You have an expert local there to take you to some of the most interesting stops, doing each of the stories justice while focusing on respect for the victims.

Start out by meeting your guide and the rest of your small group in the French Quarter, where you’ll quickly become acquainted with some of the most haunted locations in the country. You can expect to see historic mansions with torture chamber histories, vampire legends coming from actual murders, and voodoo sites connected to real practitioners.

While you can certainly walk by many of these places at any time of day or night, your guide adds context and lore you’d likely have no idea about if going it solo.

You also have the option of doing the VIP HELLVISION upgrade, which is essentially a kind of technology that projects historical photos, crime scene images, and archival documentation during the storytelling.

It transforms the experience in a way that almost makes you feel like you’ve traveled back in time, showing you real visual evidence of each event as it’s described. I won’t deny that it was a bit scary for me at some points, but I guess reality really can be stranger than fiction!

Of course, it’s nothing cheesy with jump-scares or anything like that – more so focused on the full concept of the events that have happened here, without censoring anything.

If you’re looking for a genuinely dark New Orleans ghost experience with real historical horror instead of campy entertainment, this one truly delivers.

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2. New Orleans Small-Group Haunted History Carriage Tour

If you already have a packed schedule and don’t have time for a longer tour, this next one is perfect for you. The New Orleans Small-Group Haunted History Carriage Tour manages to create an authentic 18th-century vibe that’s exclusively “New Orleans”, covering more ground than what’s possible on foot.

Not to mention, there’s just something extra creepy about clip-clopping past iron-laced balconies and dark alleyways in old-school transport.

There are a few different tour start times, which also further facilitates planning the day’s schedule. You can count on a small-group setting that caps out at just 8 passengers to keep things more exclusive and an intimate vibe that this kind of subject matter calls for.

It feels much more meaningful than a crowded tour bus atmosphere, plus you get to ask your guide any questions you may have.

The carriage format is much more convenient, and even comes with elevated seating for fantastic, unobstructed views over crowds (if there are any).

Our tour guide was not only licensed, but had been trained by this tour company that’s been doing this for over 3/4 of a century, so you can bet they know what they’re doing. If, on the contrary to the previous tour, you’re looking for something appropriate for all ages, this is a great option.

You’ll head through all the French Quarter essentials, from the Saint Louis Cathedral, Jackson Square, Napoleon House, and of course, the infamous LaLaurie Mansion.

You’ll learn all about why the city has earned the title of “most haunted city in America”, through devastating fires and floods killing thousands, yellow fever and cholera epidemics, slavery, murders, and more.

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3. Haunted New Orleans Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour

It comes as no surprise that New Orleans is a big drinking city, considering it’s home to the hedonistic Mardi Gras. What better way to combine it all than on the Haunted New Orleans Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour?

On this wild excursion, you’ll hit at least 3 haunted bars while your costumed guide delivers tales of war, voodoo, murder, piracy, and more.

Limited to just 10 travelers max, the small group creates an intimate vibe where you can hear everything your guide is saying while meeting like-minded people from all over the world.

After all, it’s pretty easy to make friends when you know you’re already both into a bit of booze and supernatural history. Our guide’s dress was certainly entertaining, but it was their passion for their city and its intense history that made it so enthralling!

In just 2 hours, you’ll be surprised at just how much you can cover, though this is largely thanks to the great programming. We started off at May Baily’s Place, which was the city’s first licensed brothel – here we enjoyed some craft cocktails while learning about the scandalous background.

Next up was the Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar, which has been serving drinks all the way since the 1700s, and is supposedly the oldest structure used as a bar in the US!

Beyond the bars, you’ll see all the main highlights of the French Quarter, including Pirates Alley – where Jean Lafitte walked along while tasting absinthe, potentially.

Ending up at the French Market was perfect, offering context on NOLA’s commercial background and the tragedies that occurred in the city’s oldest buildings. Oh, and you can even take home a themed can cooler or cup as a souvenir!

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4. New Orleans Dead of Night Ghosts and Cemetery Bus Tour

Next up is the New Orleans Dead of Night Ghosts and Cemetery Bus Tour, which ventures outside the tourist-heavy French Quarter. If you’re looking to explore haunted sites and cemeteries far beyond what most visitors ever see, this is the tour for you.

Traveling in an air-conditioned coach, you’ll cover much more ground than you would by foot, while staying comfortable no matter the time of day or night.

Kickstart the experience by meeting up with your guide at the Rampart Treehouse, and waste no time, heading straight to your first stop: Bayou St. John.

Learn all about the strong voodoo history, where Marie Laveau is said to have performed countless rituals in the 19th-century, with the Magnolia Bridge still serving as a ritual site every St. John’s Eve! They don’t focus on manufactured ghost stories or cheap thrills – these are actual documented practices that helped shape the area’s haunted reputation.

St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 delivers the eerie above-ground tomb experience that you don’t see very often. Constructed during the 1800s yellow fever epidemics, when New Orleans literally ran out of burial ground, you’ll hear all kinds of crazy stories – including the former leper colony factor.

You’re literally walking through a cemetery built on top of another cemetery, which is particularly disturbing. The Charity Hospital Cemetery stop focuses more on ghost sightings and all kinds of paranormal activity, while the Hurricane Katrina memorial honors 85 unidentified victimes offers a sobering recent tragedy context as to what locals have had to go through.

Of course, you can’t forget a visit to “one of America’s scariest streets” – Esplanade Avenue – where you’ll hear all kinds of creepy tales between stops. End up at City Park with an optional stop by Cafe du Monde if you’d like to decompress with some soft beignets at your own expense (highly recommend!).

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5. Destrehan Plantation Haunted Night Tour

Last but certainly not least is the Destrehan Plantation Haunted Night Tour, which is actually the only tour that takes you to an actual plantation after dark! This immediately creates an atmosphere that no other tour can match, creating creepy vibes while still focusing on the very serious, very real historical context.

Your 3-hour excursion starts with you either meeting your group at the Voodoo Tavern and PoBoys, or getting picked up right from your hotel.

After you’re picked up, you’ll set off to learn all about enslaved Africans, free Creoles of color, Acadians, and Native Americans who even to this day, have shaped Louisiana’s cultural reality. The transportation was very comfortable, with padded seats, plenty of leg room, and complete climate control.

Our guide regaled us with fascinating commentary on the 1811 slave revolt, which was the largest slave uprising in US history, taking place right here at Destrehan and the surrounding River Road plantations.

No detail is spared, and you’ll hear about the most chilling and gruesome stories of what actually happened, including why certain spirits reportedly linger around. Walking the grounds after dark while hearing these accounts is not for the faint of heart!

We also learned a lot about voodoo in South Louisiana, including how enslaved Africans maintained their spiritual practices while being oppressed, and how it’s often a very misunderstood religion.

We gathered up the courage to enter the main house as our historian guide led us through the different rooms while regaling us with all the lore that happened here.

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New Orleans Ghost Tours: What Gets You Inside, and What Is Just Bourbon Street Theater

It is nine at night on Royal Street and a guide in a top hat is pointing up at a gray mansion while forty people crane their necks. That is the LaLaurie house, and you are standing on the sidewalk because that is as close as anyone gets.

New Orleans runs more ghost tours than almost any city in America. Most of them walk the same streets and tell the same handful of stories.

The good ones are worth every dollar. The bad ones are a costumed actor reciting a script you could read on your phone for free.

Here is how to tell them apart before you book.

Why New Orleans Actually Earns the Reputation

This is not a manufactured haunted-attraction town. The history is genuinely grim, and that is where the tours get their material.

Fire leveled the French Quarter twice in the late 1700s. The Good Friday blaze of 1788 alone took out around 850 buildings, which is why most of the “French” Quarter you walk through is actually Spanish rebuild.

Yellow fever epidemics then killed thousands at a stretch across the 1800s, faster than the city could bury them.

The dead go in above-ground tombs here because the water table is too high for graves. Those “cities of the dead” are the real reason the place feels the way it does after dark.

Then layer on Voodoo, the LaLaurie story, and a century of murder. The history under all of it is documented.

The ghost part is folklore, and the vampire part is mostly Anne Rice and Hollywood. A good guide tells you which is which instead of selling all three as fact.

When to Go

October is the obvious pick and the most expensive one. Halloween is a genuine event in New Orleans, tours sell out weeks ahead, and you pay peak rates to share every stop with a crowd.

Spring and late fall are the smart windows. February through May the weather cooperates, though watch out for Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, when the city fills up and prices climb.

Summer is hot and wet, and the French Quarter in August is a sweat lodge. If you go June through August, do an evening tour and carry water.

One hard scheduling note. The St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 tour and many others do not run on Mardi Gras Day, so do not build a plan around that date.

The Tours That Get You Inside Something

Most New Orleans ghost tours are outdoor walks. A guide stops you in front of a building and tells the story while you look at a facade.

That is fine when the storyteller is good. But the tours worth planning around are the ones that get you through a gate you cannot open yourself.

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

This is the one people misunderstand, so here is the current reality. You cannot walk into St. Louis No. 1 on your own anymore.

Since 2015 the Archdiocese has required every visitor to enter with a licensed guide, after years of vandalism, including someone painting Marie Laveau’s tomb pink. Only family members with an official pass get in otherwise.

The official tour runs out of Basin St. Station at 501 Basin Street, lasts about 45 minutes, and caps at roughly 20 people. Expect to pay around $25, though the price moves with the season.

Inside you get Marie Laveau’s tomb, civil rights figure Homer Plessy, chess champion Paul Morphy, and the white pyramid Nicolas Cage built for himself. It is a daytime tour, not a night scare, and the value is the history.

Book ahead. It sells out, and it is an active cemetery that closes for funerals without warning.

Getting there is simple. Basin St. Station is a short walk from the Quarter, has restrooms and a cafe, and sits directly across from the cemetery gate with a paid lot next door.

The Nonprofit Cemetery Option

Save Our Cemeteries is the city’s only nonprofit tour operator, and your ticket money funds actual tomb restoration. They run St. Louis No. 3, St. Roch, Metairie, and others, most around $25.

This is my pick if you care more about real burial history than about being spooked. The guides are scholars, not performers.

The French Quarter Walking Tours

This is the core of the category, and the guide matters more than the company name on the ticket.

• Haunted History Tours. Running since 1995 and the oldest company in town. Tours last about two hours, cover ghosts, vampires, cemeteries, and the Garden District, and go rain or shine except on Mardi Gras.
• French Quarter Phantoms. Locally owned since 2006, groups kept small, about an hour and forty-five minutes over just under a mile. The ghost and vampire walk is the standard, and the good guides here are very good.

Both stop at the LaLaurie Mansion at 1140 Royal Street. Fair warning, it is a private residence now, once owned by Nicolas Cage, and you only ever see it from the street.

The house that stood in for the coven in the show American Horror Story sits next door, which is part of why guides linger on this block.

The mill tours use a costumed actor and heavy theatrics. The strong ones use a guide who actually knows the history and can hold a group without a cape.

The Other Formats Worth Knowing

Not every good tour is a French Quarter walk. A few formats solve specific problems.

• Bus tours. Air-conditioned coaches that reach cemeteries and neighborhoods outside the Quarter, usually around $36 to $56. The right call in August heat or if you cannot walk a mile on broken sidewalk.
• Voodoo tours. Voodoo is a real religion, not a horror prop. The good ones center Marie Laveau and Creole spiritual history and skip the Hollywood nonsense.
• Vampire tours. Built on Anne Rice and the literary myth. Fun if you know going in that this is fiction with a walking tour wrapped around it.
• Haunted pub crawls. Usually 21 and up, around $30, ghost stories between bar stops. More night out than history lesson, which is sometimes exactly what you want.

What It Costs and How to Plan

Ballpark the money like this. A standard French Quarter walking tour runs roughly $34 to $45.

The official cemetery tour is around $25, and bus tours land in the $36 to $56 range. Private tours jump to $299 and up, and pub crawls sit near $30.

Tip your guide 15 to 20 percent if they were good, because guiding is a tip-driven job here. Wear real shoes, because the Quarter is uneven brick and stone.

Book ahead for October, holiday weekends, and anything that enters a cemetery, since those cap attendance and sell out first. In summer, bring water and bug spray.

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

New Orleans ghost tours are history and storytelling, and the good ones are worth it for exactly that.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I visit St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 on my own?

No. Since 2015 you must enter with a licensed guide, and someone is posted at the gate to enforce it.

The only exception is family members of people buried there, who can get an official pass. Everyone else books a tour.

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

Take a French Quarter walking tour with a well-reviewed local company like French Quarter Phantoms or Haunted History Tours. It covers the most ground and the best stories in about two hours.

If cemeteries are your real interest, do the St. Louis No. 1 tour during the day and a walking tour at night.

Can I go inside the LaLaurie Mansion?

No. It is a private home at 1140 Royal Street, and every tour views it from the sidewalk only.

Do not knock, do not climb the steps, and do not believe any guide who says they can get you in. They cannot.

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

Yes, if you like history and a good storyteller. The fires, the fever, the burial customs, and the Voodoo history are real and genuinely interesting.

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

Are the vampire tours real history?

Not really. They are built on Anne Rice novels and the literary vampire myth, not documented events.

They can still be a good time if the guide is sharp. Just go in knowing you are getting fiction, not facts.

Do I need to book ahead, and is October worth the crowds?

Book ahead for weekends, all of October, and any cemetery tour, because those sell out. A random weeknight walking tour you can often catch last minute.

October is worth it only if the Halloween atmosphere is the point of your trip. Otherwise you pay more for bigger crowds, and spring gives you the same tours with room to breathe.