10 of the West’s Best Ghost Tours for Scary Stories and Creepy History

Though the infamous prison-turned-national park technically doesn’t have ghost tours, the nighttime visits are plenty chilling. The Night Tour includes a narrated ferry ride to the island, as well as on-site guides who share stories of the prison’s history, as well as legendary criminals and escape attempts. But you also get a chance to explore solo on a self-guided audio tour. Keep your ears open for sounds of clanking chains, Al Capone’s twanging banjo, and mysterious waling—just some of the examples of paranormal activity reported at the penitentiary, which once functioned as a military fortress.

Follow longtime guide Peter Sinclaire as he combines fact and intrigue to spin a yarn about the notable figures who haunt the historic town. On this tour, you’ll meet characters like the 19th century hostess Julia Saab, who has been drawing ghost-seekers to Santa Fe since the 1970s, when it’s rumored that she began to appear in her old room at La Posada de Santa Fe Resort & Spa; La Llorana, the wailing woman who walks along the Santa Fe River weeping for the children she drowned; and the 1600s brujas (witches) who reportedly beheaded a stubborn client. $18

Los Angeles ghost tours get to bank on plenty of drama and famous characters. Dearly Departed does it best with its Tragical History Tour, which spends 2.5 hours cruising around Sunset Boulevard and to about 75 places where famous murders and crimes went down. You’ll hear 911 calls and news coverage, as you learn the dark stories behind The Black Dahlia, Michael Jackson’s death, and Sharon Tate’s murder. For those especially interested in the Manson family, though, the Helter Skelter Tour—led by a guy who did a documentary on the cult and consulted on Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood movie—can’t be missed.

Hop from haunted pub to haunted pub on this doubly spirited (booze and ghouls) tour that doesn’t sensor Seattle's gritty past. Nightly Spirits starts at Kells Irish Restaurant & Bar, a former funeral home and allegedly the most haunted bar in America, where guides in Victorian garb share stories of the pub and neighboring Pike Place Market's lost souls. In less than a mile, you cover dozens of stories with a solid mix of urban history and haunts delivered with tons of personality. Guests rave about the guides.

Built by the heiress of the Winchester Repeating Arms (a.k.a “The Gun That Won the West”), this Victorian mansion is filled with oddities and alleged apparitions. Local lore says that Sarah Winchester, tormented by the ghosts of those fallen by her family’s guns, kept building on her 24,000 square-foot home with construction never ceasing from 1886 until the day she passed away in 1922. Today, visitors go to explore secret passageways and odd features, like a door that leads to a 15-foot drop, stairs that end at the ceiling, and a cabinet that opens to 30 other rooms. Daily tours include stories (and maybe sightings) of the employees who still wander the house. But this year’s “Unhinged” experience takes it a step further. The full-blown haunted house production is complete with access to rooms that have been off-limits and performers enacting sinister scenes between the missing people who never found their way out of the labyrinthine home.

Using ancestral and researched information, the Oahu Ghost Tours guides share stories of legends and disturbed spirits whose ancient burial and other sacred sites were built atop as the island was developed. The daytime Sacred Spirit Tour blends nature, culture, and the supernatural as you wind through the island for 5 hours to landmark locales like the dwelling place of Pele (the fire goddess) and Manoa Falls, where sightings of the Night Marchers (phantoms of ancient warriors) are often reported.

Like Salt Lake and Park City, Provo has seriously spirited ghost tours on offer. Founded in 2013, Pedal Provo combines cycling and spooky storytelling in its two ghost tour routes that cover history-based, spooky stories. You’ll meet at the cemetery, then you might cruise across the Provo River and learn about Old Bishop, the Ute man who walks along the water. Or, stop in front of the Hotel Roberts, where guests have reportedly heard the walls screaming. The rides, which run on Friday and Saturday nights at 9 p.m., are gentle and short enough (about five miles) for most to join.

Like many of the Pacific Northwest’s maritime towns, Townsend has a seedy history that’s left many a good ghost stories. Native American curses, shipwrecks, shanghaied fishermen, underground tunnels, and madams all play roles in the history-based tales told during Twisted History’s colorful ghost tours. (Pssst: The company also leads similar tours seasonally in Port Townsend and Astoria, nicknamed “The Most Wicked Place on Earth”). In October, the group also offers Grymms Tales, led by the master storyteller founder.

Led by members of the International Ghost Hunters Society, Beyond Bizarre doubles as a crash course in paranormal investigation. You get hooked up with electromagnetic field meters before heading out to haunted streets of Portland's Old Town and spook-laden locales like the Merchant Hotel’s basement, a former opium den. Unlike the 7 p.m. family-friendly tour, the 10 p.m. slot covers the city's sordid history in more vivid detail.

Ghosts aren’t the only things that go bump in the night, and this San Francisco tour—ideal for history and architecture buffs—channels the lore surrounding vampires in Nob Hill. For nearly 20 years, Kitty Burns, a self-professed vampire that goes by Mina Harker (from Bram Stoker’s Dracula), has led this family-appropriate jaunt that stops in front of Grace Cathedral (modeled after Notre Dame), Nob Hill Café, and the Fairmont Hotel, among other neighborhood landmarks. At each place, she shares the official history and the lesser-known stories of the vampires who helped shape San Francisco.