New Orleans Ghost Walking Tours, The Four Routes Compared

The French Quarter after dark is the most walked-over haunted ground in America, and the roster reflects that: four separate walking ghost tours work the same square mile of streets, all rated 4.5, all priced between $30 and $37, all lasting 1.5 to 2 hours. On paper they look interchangeable. They are not. Two of them take a group inside an actual haunted location, one leans hard into voodoo and vampire folklore, and one is a straightforward haunted-history walk from the operator that also runs the cemetery tours. Two of the four even meet within a block of each other on Decatur Street, which is why this guide tells them apart by decision name rather than by their near-identical marketing titles.

The comparison matters because the wrong pick is a wasted evening. A traveler who wants to stand inside a haunted building does not want a sidewalk-only history walk, and a visitor with teenagers does not want a tour whose guide spends forty minutes on vampire lore pitched at adults. This guide walks through all four routes in detail, so you can weigh the four walks side by side and spot the moments that matter where one tour clearly beats the other three. For the broader question of which format wins citywide, including bus tours and pub crawls, the best ghost tour in New Orleans comparison covers the whole roster.

What Is A New Orleans Ghost Walking Tour?

A New Orleans ghost walking tour is a guided, on-foot evening tour of the French Quarter's haunted locations, typically 1.5 to 2 hours, priced from $30 to $37 per person on this roster, led by a city-permitted guide who narrates documented deaths, unsolved events and local folklore at a series of exterior stops, with some versions entering one haunted interior. All four are rated 4.5, with review pools from 1,109 to 3,221 guests.

The format is simple and it has not changed much in decades. A group gathers at a stated meeting point, usually a bar or restaurant corner that is easy to find, and a guide walks them through the Quarter stop by stop. The narrative spine is the same body of material every operator draws from: the LaLaurie Mansion's documented history of enslavement and cruelty, the Casket Girls of the Ursuline Convent, the yellow fever epidemics, the arson and murder records of the city's past, and the voodoo traditions that grew around figures like Marie Laveau. What differs is emphasis, route and whether the group goes inside anywhere.

The guides themselves are not freelance storytellers making things up as they go. The City of New Orleans requires anyone conducting paid tours to hold a city-issued tour guide permit, administered by the Ground Transportation Bureau, which involves an application, a fee, valid identification, a background check and a written exam on New Orleans history and culture with a 70 percent minimum passing score, per the city's official tour guide permit page. That is a real regulatory floor under every tour on this roster, and it is worth knowing when a guide cites a date or a death toll: the exam tests history, and the operators' better guides lean on documented records rather than invention.

What the format is not, equally important: it is not a ghost hunt. No walking tour on this roster hands out paranormal equipment. The only roster product that uses EMF detectors is a bus tour, the Night Bus Tour with Exclusive Access, which is a different format entirely. The walks are narrative tours, storytelling with a historical spine, and the honest way to enjoy them is to treat the supernatural framing as the operator's own narrative, which is exactly how the listings themselves present it.

The Four Walking Ghost Tours Compared

Across the four walking ghost tours, prices run from $30 to $37, durations run 1.5 to 2 hours, every rating is 4.5, and review pools range from 1,109 to 3,221. The Voodoo and Vampire Themes walk is the most-reviewed at 3,221 reviews, the Haunted History, Guided Walk is the cheapest at from $30, and exactly two of the four take the group inside a haunted location.

The full lineup in one table, with ratings, review counts, durations and cancellation terms. Every number below is firm: price, rating, review count, duration and meeting point all come straight from the operator data.

Three things jump out of that table. First, the price band is narrow: $7 separates the cheapest from the most expensive, so price alone should not drive the choice. Second, the review pools are large on all four, which means the 4.5 ratings are stable, not a handful of early reviews. Third, two tours meet at literally the same address, Bon's New Orleans Street Food at 620 Decatur Street, run by different operators, with different routes and different interior stops. Booking the wrong one is easy to do if you only skim the title.

The quick selection below pulls the three walks that cover the widest range of what the format offers: the most-reviewed themed walk, the cheapest classic history walk, and one of the two interior-visit tours.

Interior Visit, 2 Hours: The Tour Orleans French Quarter Route

The Interior Visit, 2 Hours walk from Tour Orleans costs from $37, runs 2 hours, is rated 4.5 from 1,109 reviews, and meets at 620 Decatur Street in front of Bon's New Orleans Street Food. Its differentiator is right in the decision name: this tour includes an interior visit to a haunted location, not just exterior stops, and it carries free cancellation up to 24 hours before.

Tour Orleans runs two products on this roster, this walk and the Night Bus Tour with Exclusive Access, and the walking version is the one for visitors who want the interior experience without committing to a bus. The listing describes a classic French Quarter ghost route with the interior stop as the centerpiece, and the 1,109-review pool at 4.5 is the smallest of the four walks, which cuts both ways: it is the least mass-market of the four, and its rating rests on a still-substantial thousand-plus guests.

The meeting point deserves a note because it is shared. Bon's New Orleans Street Food at 620 Decatur Street is the gathering spot for this tour and for the Ghost Adventures Interior Visit from a different operator, at Unit 1B of the same address. If you booked one and see a group forming for the other, check with your guide by name before walking off. The two tours cover different material even from the same corner, and mixing groups at the meeting point is a known source of confusion on Decatur Street evenings.

Who this walk suits: the traveler whose main goal is to stand inside a haunted building rather than hear about one from the sidewalk, at the standard 2-hour walking pace, with the flexibility of free cancellation up to 24 hours out. Who it does not suit: anyone hoping for the voodoo and vampire deep-dive, which is a different tour's territory, or anyone wanting the largest review pool as reassurance, since the other three walks all carry more reviews.

Voodoo And Vampire Themes: The Most-Reviewed Walk On The Roster

The Voodoo and Vampire Themes walk from The Witches Brew Tour Company costs from $33, runs 1.5 to 2 hours, is rated 4.5 from 3,221 reviews, and is the most-reviewed walking tour on the entire roster. It meets at 311 Exchange Pl, though the listing notes the meeting point may vary and should be confirmed before arrival, and the listing carries a likely-to-sell-out warning.

This is the themed walk. Where the other three tours spread their narrative across the general haunted history of the Quarter, this one concentrates on voodoo traditions and vampire folklore, the Casket Girls legend, the figures the tours call the city's historical vampires, and the voodoo practice that grew around Marie Laveau as the tours tell it. The supernatural claims here are folklore and operator narrative, and the honest framing is that the tour presents them as its own storytelling tradition, which is exactly what its audience comes for.

The 3,221-review pool is the single biggest fact about this tour. It is the most-reviewed walking tour on the roster and one of the most-reviewed products of any format, behind only the official cemetery walk's 4,684. A 4.5 across that many guests is about as stable as a rating gets in this category, and it is the reason this walk is the site's related pick for anyone choosing a ghost walk without reading further. For travelers who want to go deeper on the theme specifically, the New Orleans vampire tours guide covers the two dedicated vampire walks, one of which is the highest-rated vampire-themed tour on the roster at 4.7 from 2,541 reviews.

Two practical cautions come straight from the listing. The meeting point at 311 Exchange Pl may vary, so confirm it on the live listing before you head out, a step that matters more here than for the tours with fixed restaurant corners. And the likely-to-sell-out flag is real, not urgency theater: the most-reviewed walk in a walk-up tourist city fills its evening departures, and booking a day or two ahead is the reasonable move, especially in October.

Ghost Adventures Interior Visit: The Same Corner, Different Haunt

The Ghost Adventures Interior Visit from New Orleans Ghost Adventures costs from $37, runs 2 hours, is rated 4.5 from 1,304 reviews, and meets at Bon's New Orleans Street Food, 620 Decatur St Unit 1B, the same building as the Tour Orleans walk. It caps groups at 28 travelers, includes an interior visit to a haunted location, and its listing shows a booked-3-times-today urgency flag.

The confusing part first: this tour and the Interior Visit, 2 Hours walk from the previous section meet at the same address, cost the same from $37, run the same 2 hours, carry the same 4.5 rating, and both go inside a haunted location. The differences are the operator, the route, the interior stop itself and the review pool, 1,304 here against 1,109 for Tour Orleans. New Orleans Ghost Adventures also runs the Haunted Pub Crawl on this roster, and its walking tour shares that operator's storytelling style, heavier on the investigation-flavored framing, though no walking tour on the roster uses equipment of any kind. Other pages covering the same trip are gathered on New Orleans Haunted Tours.

The 28-traveler cap is the quiet differentiator. Both interior tours control group size, and a capped group inside a small haunted interior is a materially different experience from a loose crowd of forty on a sidewalk. If your priority is the interior visit and you want the tighter group, this is the one to check first; if you want the same interior format from the operator whose bus tour also runs at night, the Tour Orleans walk is the pick. There is no wrong answer between them, only a preference.

The decision-name confusion also runs the other direction for searchers: the operator's name invites comparison to a certain cable-TV ghost-hunting franchise, but the tour is a walking narrative tour with an interior stop, not an investigation. The listing's own description frames it as storytelling with access, and the honest expectation is a guided walk with one indoor haunted stop, not a paranormal hunt. For the family-angle question, the ghost tour with kids guide addresses which roster formats suit children, since the two bus tours carry the only explicit age language on the roster.

Haunted History, Guided Walk: The Cheapest Of The Four

The Haunted History, Guided Walk from Haunted History Tours costs from $30, the lowest price of the four walking tours, runs 2 hours, is rated 4.5 from 2,293 reviews, and meets at the Vampire Apothecary Restaurant & Bar, 725 St Peter St. It caps groups at 28 travelers and its listing shows a booked-5-plus-times-today urgency flag.

Haunted History Tours is the operator that also runs the Cemetery No. 1, 2 Hours tour on this roster, and its walking tour is the classic version of the format: the general haunted history of the French Quarter, told stop by stop, without the themed deep-dive and without an interior visit. That makes it the cheapest of the four walks and the most conventional, which is not a knock. A straightforward, well-reviewed haunted history walk at from $30 is what a large share of visitors actually want, and the 2,293-review pool at 4.5 says the operator delivers it consistently.

The meeting point is the most central of the four: 725 St Peter Street sits in the heart of the Quarter near Jackson Square, a short walk from most French Quarter hotels, where the two Decatur Street corners are a few blocks further toward the river and the Faubourg Marigny side. If your evening plan centers on the Jackson Square area, dinner first and the tour after, this meeting point is the most convenient of the four, and the Vampire Apothecary is itself a themed bar, so the pre-tour wait happens somewhere on-theme.

The 28-traveler cap matches the Ghost Adventures walk, and the booked-5-plus-times-today flag on the listing is the strongest same-day booking signal of the four walks. At from $30 with free cancellation up to 24 hours before, it is also the natural fallback pick: if your first-choice themed walk is sold out for the evening, this one most often has space, and the format overlap is high enough that few visitors leave disappointed.

Which Meeting Point Suits Your Evening?

The four walks meet at three locations: two at Bon's New Orleans Street Food, 620 Decatur St, one at 311 Exchange Pl, and one at the Vampire Apothecary, 725 St Peter St. The Decatur Street corner is closest to the riverfront and Frenchmen Street, the St Peter Street bar is closest to Jackson Square, and the Exchange Pl meeting point may vary and needs confirming on the live listing before you walk out.

Meeting point is a real planning variable in a city where most visitors stay in or near the Quarter and walk everywhere after dark. Here is the practical layout:

Two cautions make the table honest. The Voodoo and Vampire listing explicitly says the meeting point may vary and should be confirmed on the listing, so treat its row as the default, not a guarantee. And all four tours run evening departures, so the walk to the meeting point happens after dark: the French Quarter safety at night guide covers the evening-street picture in detail, and the short version is that the well-lit tourist core between the river and Rampart stays busy and walked late into the evening.

The other planning variable is what you do after. The Haunted History walk's St Peter Street corner puts you at Jackson Square when you finish, with the bars and music of the Quarter around you. The Decatur Street corner puts you closer to Frenchmen Street if your night continues that direction. Neither is a reason to pick a tour over the content, but both are worth knowing when you book a 8-or-9 PM end time and have not planned the next hour.

How To Choose Between The Four Routes

Choose the Voodoo and Vampire Themes walk for the themed deep-dive and the biggest review pool, the Haunted History, Guided Walk for the lowest price and the most central meeting point, and either interior-visit tour when standing inside a haunted location is the priority. All four cost within $7 of each other, all are rated 4.5, all run about 2 hours, and all carry free cancellation up to 24 hours before.

A short decision table, built from the roster facts above, no filler:

One thing no walking tour on this roster offers, and no honest guide should imply otherwise: entry into the LaLaurie Mansion. The mansion at 1140 Royal Street is a private residence, owned since late 2024 by a tour-industry figure unaffiliated with any product on this roster, and it is not open to the public in any form. Walking tours reference it from the street, as legend and documented history both, and the LaLaurie Mansion tour guide covers what is and is not possible there in full.

Beyond the four walks, the format question is bigger than this page. If walking is not the right fit, the cemetery and voodoo tours cover the daytime graveyard format, and the site's full roster runs from an $18 pub crawl to a $55 bus tour with hotel pickup. But for the classic New Orleans evening, a licensed guide, a lantern-lit block of the French Quarter and a story you half believe on the walk home, one of these four walks is the right answer, and the table above is the fastest way to pick yours.

Common Questions About Ghost Walking Tours In New Orleans