Ghost Cities · The Research Desk
We lead walking tours in Arizona. We research haunted history everywhere. Field notes and honest picks for Massachusetts, from the same team that leads our tours in Flagstaff, Tucson and Prescott.
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The History and Hauntings of Salem Guided Walking Tour is the best overall ghost tour in Salem, and our top pick. A local historian walks you through 400 years of the city, past architecture that dates back centuries, and the nighttime option runs by lantern light with the truth about the 1692 witch trial hysteria. 4.9 stars across 15,335 reviews, the largest review base of any tour on our pages, from $36.
The Ghosts of Boston Night-Time Walking Tour is the best overall ghost tour in Boston, and our top pick. Ghost City Tours Boston runs it as a 90-minute night walk, and it is the walk we would book first in Boston: the deepest review record of any walking tour in our Boston comparison, wheelchair access and strollers both listed, and free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start. 4.4 stars across 306 reviews, from $29.99.
Massachusetts means two cities for us, Salem and Boston, and we cover both as researchers: Freaky Foot Tours leads walking tours in Arizona and nowhere else. Our two city guides compare eighteen ghost tours, every price and rating checked on Viator between July 28 and July 30, 2026, with Boston's trolley and pub-walk numbers re-checked August 2, 2026 and Salem's Haunted Footsteps walk and self-guided route re-verified August 3, 2026.
The 1692 witch trials built the field here. Our Salem guide compares twelve walks, led by the History and Hauntings of Salem Guided Walking Tour: 4.9 stars across 15,335 reviews, two hours from $36, with a nighttime lantern option, and the largest review base of any tour listed on this site.
Behind it: Salem's Best Ghost Tour, 4.6 across 4,352 reviews from $24; a daytime witch trials walk at 10 am, 1 pm and 4 pm from $30; a ghost hunt and a pub crawl at $36; a self-guided route at $7.75. Full table in our Salem guide.
Boston is the walking-history metropolis, settled by the Puritans in 1630, its oldest burying grounds still downtown. Our Boston guide compares six tours. The Ghosts of Boston Night-Time Walking Tour leads at 4.4 across 306 reviews, 90 minutes from $29.99; the Ghosts and Gravestones trolley carries the deepest record, 4.4 across 2,570, from $46.20.
The top rating goes to the 21 and over Booze and Boos pub walk, 4.6 across 161 from $36.16, gathering inside the Omni Parker House. None of the six publishes a daytime departure, and the cheapest walk starts at $25. Full table in our Boston guide.
Salem is cheaper and carries the deeper crowd verdict; Boston is the denser history walk. October is the crunch in both, so book that month early.
Salem's file is the one everybody knows and few read. Per Destination Salem's account, more than 150 men and women filled the prisons, the Court of Oyer and Terminer sat in June of 1692, and Bridget Bishop was hanged on June 10. Eighteen more followed before Governor William Phipps disbanded the court that October: nineteen hanged, one man pressed to death.
The paperwork survives. "I can say before my Eternal father I am innocent, & God will clear my innocency," Rebecca Nurse told the court at her March 24, 1692 examination, per her case file in the Salem Witchcraft Papers. She was hanged on July 19.
Boston's record is older. The city dates King's Chapel Burying Ground to 1630 and calls it Boston Proper's oldest burying place, noting overcrowding as early as 1660 and most interments ending in 1796. Boston Common was founded in 1634, the country's oldest park by the city's reckoning, its early uses including public hangings and an eight-year British encampment from 1768.
The modern entry is the waterfront: on January 15, 1919 a molasses tank near Keany Square let go, and the next morning's Springfield Weekly Republican, held by the Library of Congress, printed the first count of the dead beside two million gallons loose in the streets.
A room near the meeting points makes the end of a walk a walk home. Salem offers the Victorian Hawthorne Hotel, the Salem Inn and its haunted reputation, and The Hotel Salem's rooftop bar on Essex Street: where to stay in Salem. Boston puts the Godfrey three minutes from Boston Common and The Langham in the old Federal Reserve Bank building, with the waterfront and airport tiers in where to stay in Boston.
One pick from each city, in the booking cards above. Neither is ours.
Salem, on name recognition, and the crowd agrees: its twelve compared tours carry more than 26,900 reviews against more than 3,600 for Boston's six. Boston argues from age instead.
Whichever has your daylight. Salem publishes the only daytime departures of the two, at 10 am, 1 pm and 4 pm; every Boston tour we compared runs evening or night. A high-speed ferry connects the two.
Yes, if you time it. October books out weeks ahead, and free shuttles run between satellite lots and downtown on October weekends, per the City of Salem. September and November give the same streets, minus the crush.
Guided walks run $23 to $46.20 a person, checked on Viator between July 28 and July 30, 2026. Salem starts at $23, with a self-guided route at $7.75, re-verified August 3, 2026; Boston runs $25 to $46.20. From-prices move.
No. Our guides lead walking tours in Flagstaff, Tucson and Prescott, Arizona, and nowhere else. Here we read the record and link the operators guests rate best; the booking links are partner links we disclose.
Evening departures run year-round in both. Salem peaks in October and rewards the shoulder months; Boston is steadiest spring through fall. All eighteen cancelled free to 24 hours before start at our checks.
Compare Massachusetts with our other haunted city guides, or walk with the team that writes them on our Arizona tours.
How we work: every route on this site starts in the archives. Read how we research our tours.
The One State Where We Hold the Lantern
Everywhere else, we write the guide. In Flagstaff, Tucson and Prescott we lead the tour, nightly, in person, with five generations of Arizona roots behind every story.