Charleston Haunted Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour

Charleston Haunted Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour is a two-and-a-half-hour evening walk run by Nightly Spirits, booking from $39.42 per person at our July 30, 2026 check. The age line is a real one: the listing says all guests must be 21 and over with valid ID, and its only age band starts at 21. A costumed guide, framed by the operator as a pirate, leads a route past four places the listing names, all of them pass-bys: the Powder Magazine, Charleston City Market, the Circular Congregational Church and Washington Square, with historic bars in between. It suits adults who want a drink and documented history in the same evening.

What you will see

The Powder Magazine at 79 Cumberland Street is the oldest building on the route. South Carolina's provincial government commissioned it in 1712, finishing it in 1713 as the colony's principal store of gunpowder for public defense, and Cumberland Street did not exist until 1747, so the building is older than its own address (Nic Butler, Charleston County Public Library). It became a National Historic Landmark on September 27, 1989, and it is the oldest surviving public building in the former Province of Carolina, not the oldest building in Charleston (NRHP nomination 72001200). Its best story is documentary. A mid-March 1731 audit counted 9,844 pounds of government powder inside, and on April 26, 1731 the New-England Weekly Journal printed a Charleston dispatch about a gang that meant to blow the magazine up so that, in the paper's words, "when the people were in the utmost confusion, then they would make their prizes." Nothing exploded: one of the party refused, and Peter French, George Keith and Joseph Somers were prosecuted.

Charleston City Market is where the standard script goes wrong. Guides and ghost-tour sites describe the sheds as the place enslaved people were auctioned and attach cold spots and crying to it. The market was built and run for meat, fish, poultry and produce. The trade in human beings happened elsewhere: on the north side of the Exchange Building at the foot of Broad Street, and after the city's April 1856 auction ordinance in private enclosed marts, with Ryan's Mart on Chalmers Street the surviving example. Six landowners led by General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney deeded the city the ground on March 29, 1788, on condition that a public market be established there within two years (Charleston Time Machine), and the Centre Market, ancestor of today's market, opened in August 1807 (Charleston Time Machine). Fire took the headhouse in 1838, and the ox skulls and rams' heads on Edward Brickell White's 1841 Market Hall are the classical signal for a meat market (NRHP nomination, Market Hall and Sheds).

The Circular Congregational Church at 150 Meeting Street named the street: dissenters founded the congregation in 1681 in the northwest corner of the walled town, and the lane to their meeting house became Meeting House Street (Circular Congregational Church). The graveyard records an unmarked burial in 1695 and an inscribed stone from 1729, and more than 500 surviving gravestones name roughly 730 people. The congregation calls it "likely the oldest English burial ground still in existence in Charleston," and the oldest markers are slate shipped from New England carvers (the church on its graveyard). Two corrections belong here. Lavinia Fisher is not buried in this yard, nor in the Unitarian one; contemporary accounts place her in a potter's field near the site of her execution at the Old City Jail. And the building in front of you is not Robert Mills's round church of 1804 to 1806: that burned in the great fire of December 11, 1861, and the present one went up between 1890 and 1892 from its salvaged bricks, on a modified cloverleaf plan.

The fourth named place is Washington Square, and the listing says nothing else about it, so neither will we. The same restraint applies to the ghost material: at all three sites, what operators describe is cold spots, shadow figures and the sense of being watched, with no named witness, dated incident or published investigation behind any of it. The congregation at 150 Meeting Street publishes a detailed page on its graveyard that mentions ghosts nowhere.

Who it suits

This is two and a half hours on foot after dark with bar stops attached, and the age floor is real, so carry ID. Most Charleston ghost walks we checked do list wheelchair access; this one does not.

• Skip it if anyone in your party is under 21 or cannot produce photo ID.
• Skip it if two and a half hours of walking is too much; the listing rules itself out for travelers with mobility issues.
• Skip it if you want to go inside somewhere, because all four named places are pass-bys.
• Ask what the price covers, since the listing does not say whether a drink is included.
• Book the all-ages version if children are coming.

How it compares

Nightly Spirits runs two Charleston listings. The other is the Charleston Spooktacular All-Ages Ghost Walking Tour, $27 for 90 minutes, same costumed-guide format plus a glow bracelet, and the one to book if anyone in the group is under 21. Its 5.0 rating rests on 17 reviews, thin next to the 1,611 here.

For another 21-and-over evening built around bars, The Charleston Boo Hag and Brews Ghost and Bar Tour is $35 for two hours, rated 4.9 across 207 reviews and including snacks, though it warns off pregnant travelers and anyone with back, heart or other serious medical conditions. Ghost City Tours' Charleston Haunted Pub Crawl is $34.99 for two hours with a cap of 15 and does list wheelchair access, but at 3.8 across 104 reviews it is the joint-lowest rated of the 23 Charleston listings we checked. This one is the dearest of the three bookable 21-and-over listings and the longest by half an hour, and its 1,611 reviews are the largest corpus of any of them. See also Charleston ghost tours compared and our guide to the best haunted ghost tours in Charleston.

Questions people ask

How old do you have to be?

Twenty-one and over with valid ID. The listing's only age band starts at 21, so there is no youth rate.

How long is it and what does it cost?

Two and a half hours, from $39.42 per person at our July 30, 2026 check. Confirm the current rate on the booking page.

Are drinks included?

The listing does not state what the price covers. The route takes in historic bars and the operator mentions cocktails, so ask rather than assume.

Do you go inside any of the buildings?

No. All four named places are pass-bys, and no interior admission appears on the listing.

Is it wheelchair accessible?

No. The listing shows no wheelchair access and says it is not recommended for travelers with mobility issues. Several other Charleston ghost walks do list it.

Were enslaved people sold at the City Market?

No. It was built and run for meat, fish, poultry and produce. The sales happened at the Exchange Building on Broad Street and, after the city's April 1856 ordinance, in private marts such as Ryan's Mart on Chalmers Street.