Haunted Places in New Orleans

One cemetery you legally cannot enter alone, one house you can only see from the pavement, and how to tell which New Orleans tour is selling which.

St Louis No 1: the tour is the only lawful way in

This is the rare case where the guided tour is not a convenience. After Marie Laveau's tomb was vandalised in 2013, the Archdiocese of New Orleans closed St Louis Cemetery No 1 to the general public: entry is now restricted to relatives of the interred and to groups with a licensed guide, tickets must be booked before you arrive, and the gate turns away anyone without one. Every other verdict on this site tends toward “you can do this yourself”. Not here.

The LaLaurie house is a private address

1140 Royal Street is the most notorious building in the Quarter and it is somebody's house. There is no tour inside, no museum and no admission - every tour that features it stops on the pavement opposite and tells the story there. Knowing that in advance is worth something: a tour promising the LaLaurie mansion is promising the exterior, and the difference between operators is the quality of the telling, not the access.

Voodoo is a religion before it is an attraction

New Orleans voodoo tours span a wide range, from serious accounts of an actual living practice and its history in the city to costume-shop theatre. The distinction matters more here than in any other city on this site, because one version treats a faith with practitioners today as a spectacle. Read a tour's own description: the good ones name historical figures and places, the weak ones lean on the word “curse”.

What is free, and what is not

Walking the Quarter is free and most of the famous exteriors - LaLaurie, the Bourbon Orleans, Lafitte's - cost nothing to look at. St Louis No 1 genuinely cannot be entered without a ticketed guided tour. So the honest split is: pay for the cemetery, and pay for a guide whose telling you actually want, but do not pay for access to a street you can walk.

The entry price is cheaper than three quarters of US ghost tours, which start around $25, so this is genuinely cheap for a ghost tour rather than just cheap.

New Orleans ghost tours

13 of the 13 New Orleans tours we track . Ordered by review depth.

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Questions people actually ask

What is the most haunted spot in New Orleans?
The LaLaurie Mansion at 1140 Royal Street is the most notorious, on the strength of documented cruelty rather than folklore. St Louis Cemetery No 1 is the most visited, and the only one of the two you can go inside - and then only with a licensed guide. Both appear on nearly every ghost tour in the Quarter.
What are some haunted attractions in New Orleans?
St Louis Cemetery No 1, which requires a licensed guided tour to enter; the LaLaurie Mansion, viewable only from the street since it is a private residence; the Bourbon Orleans and Hotel Monteleone, both working hotels with long-standing ghost stories; and the voodoo museums and shops on and around Royal and Dumaine.
Do you need a guide to visit St Louis Cemetery No 1?
Yes. Since 2013 the Archdiocese has restricted entry to relatives of the interred and to visitors with a licensed tour guide, after repeated vandalism of Marie Laveau's tomb. Tickets must be booked in advance, and arriving at the gate without one means not getting in. This is the exception on this site: normally we would tell you to walk it yourself.
Why is New Orleans so spooky?
Above-ground tombs, a high water table that made ordinary burial impractical, repeated yellow fever epidemics, a living religious tradition that outsiders have always found unsettling, and three centuries of French, Spanish and American rule layered into a few walkable blocks. The atmosphere is real and mostly architectural.
How much do New Orleans ghost tours cost?
Prices here are live from GetYourGuide, shown against the national ghost-tour median. New Orleans has one of the deepest tour benches in the country, so the entry price sits low - but cemetery tours cost more than street walks because they carry licensed-guide access you cannot get otherwise.