Where Ghost Tours Become Reality: Haunted Cities in the US

When it comes to Ghost Tours, the US is filled with hotspots for the supernatural. These days, everyone can be a Ghost Hunter and there are more than enough Tours around the most haunted parts of cities all across the country. Tours can last from an hour to an overnight stay in a Haunted House. It’s a culture rooted in the “spook” and “scare” of real stories from lives that were lived.

There are hotels with ghost children playing in the hallways, mischievous apparitions who get a little too close to people, dangerous spirits that don’t like to be disturbed and the list goes on.

But what is at the root of these supernatural instances? Why are Ghost Tours important parts of our culture? They seek answers from the most unclear and notorious stories from our past. They seek clarity in the History.

Below is a listing of other Haunted Cities in the US, where Ghosts and Spirits and Haunted Stories are a part of day-to-day life.

New Orleans

The US is full of cities that have witnessed massive disasters, murders and troublesome times. And none of these cities has a closer connection to its dead, their spirits and how both life and death intermingle in the most bizarre and interesting ways than New Orleans.

Not much, it seems, separates the living from the dead in New Orleans. Tombs sit above ground in the 42 cemeteries within city limits. Ghosts from the War of 1812 still hang around the French Quarter. And visitors to the grave of a prominent 1800s voodoo queen continue to leave offerings and ask for help.

Haunted Experiences:

• Haunted Mansions
• St. Louis Cemetery No. 1
• The Tomb of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau
• Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar
• Muriel’s
• Hotel Monteleone

A New Orleans Ghost Tour That Reveals the History Behind the Hauntings

At nearly 300 years old, New Orleans has been seen more than its fair share of death. Hurricanes, floods, Yellow Fever and cholera outbreaks, duels, wars, and a consistently high murder rate have all resulted in hundreds of thousands of untimely deaths. According to paranormal experts, many of these murdered souls still haunt the ancient buildings of the French Quarter, dating back to the city’s inception in the early 1720’s.

New Orleans Paranormal Tours take you to the most haunted locations in New Orleans, and bring you closer to the city’s most notorious spirits than you’ve ever been before. Learn the history behind New Orleans’ haunted past.

Savannah, Georgia

Over the course of history, bloody battles, massive fires, yellow-fever epidemics, and hurricanes have taken hundreds of lives, leaving behind unsettled spirits in Savannah, Georgia. The city was built, literally, on top of its dead. Homes, roads and city buildings sit above Native American burial grounds and long-forgotten cemeteries of slaves and colonialists.

Haunted Experiences:

• The Historic District
• Colonial Park Cemetery
• Mercer House
• Moon River Brewing Company
• The Haunted Marshall House

Baltimore, Maryland

As a part of the original colonies, Baltimore has seen a lot of death. Several nation-shaping events have played out on Baltimore’s historic streets, leaving the city riddles with disturbed and restless spirits: the American Revolution, the Civil War and the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812 are among the most prominent historical events.

Haunted Experiences:

• Westminster Hall Catacombs
• 18th-century Fort McHenry
• The Rigging of the 1854 USS Constellation Warship
• The Haunted Admiral Fell Inn

Galveston, Texas

When the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 struck, some 8,000 lives were lost—about 6,200 more fatalities than in New Orleans’ devastating Hurricane Katrina seven years ago. Galveston’s was the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, and ghost hunters say most of the town’s spirits linger in its storied harbor and Victorian mansions. Odd occurrences witnessed by hotel staff include dishes breaking with no one around, children’s laughter in the salon bathroom, and an apparition of the legendary Ghost Bride in Room 501.

Haunted Experiences:

• Haunted Harbor and Haunted Cemetery Tours
• The Menard House
• The Tremont House Hotel
• Hotel Galvez

Portland, Oregon

The Shanghai Tunnels of Portland’s Old Town are passageways beneath the cobblestoned streets that swirl with a dark history. As the story goes, men who came to Portland to work—sailors, loggers, cowboys, and others—were “shanghaied,” or kidnapped through trapdoors in saloons, smuggled through the tunnels to the waterfront, and sold to sea captains.

Haunted Experiences:

• Old Town Pizza
• Shanghai Tunnels
• The McMenamins’ White Eagle Saloon & Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel

Chicago

Al Capone and his Prohibition-era gangsters made Chicago a city to be remembered on Valentine’s Day, 1929. Seven men were lined up against the wall of a garage at 2122 North Clark Street and gunned down. Since then, strange mists, screams, and machine gun sounds have been seen and heard at the site of the murders as well as other notorious gangster hideaways and crime scenes.

Haunted Experiences:

• Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery and Pond
• A Haunted Warehouse once used by Capone
• Haunted Spots on the Chicago River
• The Congress Plaza Hotel

San Francisco

In the 1850s, Chinese immigrants came in droves to San Francisco, seeking their fortunes, but when they couldn’t afford to return to their families in China most of these new San Francisco residents tried to make the most of their new lives. Many died alone with unfulfilled dreams. These lost souls are the wandering ghosts of America’s oldest Chinatown, inhabiting its alleyways still looking for their dreams.

Haunted Experiences:

• Chinatown—the gambling houses, narrow streets, and dark alleys
• The Presidio
• Alcatraz