French Quarter Ghost Tour vs Cemetery Tour — Which One Should You Book in New Orleans?

Walk into New Orleans for the first time and you’ll see two very different “haunted” tour categories on every booking page: French Quarter ghost tours (evening walks past haunted buildings) and cemetery tours (daytime walks through above-ground tomb cities, usually St. Louis Cemetery No. 1). They sound similar. They are not. This guide compares them on what you’ll actually see, what it costs, who the licensed operators are, and which is the right pick for your trip — or whether you should do both.

If you only have time for one, the short version: the French Quarter ghost tour is the better introduction for most travelers. The cemetery tour is the right pick when voodoo, Marie Laveau, and above-ground burial culture are specifically what drew you to New Orleans.

Side-by-side comparison

What they actually share

Both are guided experiences with licensed local guides. Both are evergreen — they run year-round, rain or shine (with operator’s-call cancellations for severe weather only). Both are bookable with free cancellation up to 24 hours before. And both centre on the macabre history New Orleans is famous for: documented crimes, slavery-era atrocities, voodoo practice, and the city’s distinctly Catholic-French-Caribbean relationship with death.

What they don’t share is the territory. A ghost tour is about buildings, streets, and stories. A cemetery tour is about graves, families, and burial practice. They are complementary, not interchangeable.

What the French Quarter ghost tour gives you

The featured French Quarter ghost tour is a 2-hour evening walking tour starting from the Red Door ticket booth at 620 Decatur Street, one block from the Mississippi riverfront. A licensed local guide — Tour Orleans bills theirs as “professors, historians, and educated lovers of the macabre” — walks you through the gas-lit Quarter and tells the documented histories behind the city’s real haunts.

What’s on the route:

• LaLaurie Mansion (1140 Royal Street) — the wrought-iron-balconied site of the 1834 fire that exposed Madame Delphine LaLaurie’s atrocities and forced her flight to Paris. The mansion is a private residence, so you view it from the sidewalk while the guide tells its story.
• Pirate’s Alley — the narrow lane behind St. Louis Cathedral, named for the Lafitte brothers’ alleged smuggling.
• Royal Street vampire spots — buildings tied to New Orleans’s surprisingly rich vampire-lore tradition.
• The interior haunted-building stop — a private haunted location the operator is the only ghost-tour company with access to. You go inside, hear its history, and have time for photos.

The interior stop is the differentiator. Every French Quarter ghost tour passes the same exterior landmarks; only this one takes you inside a haunted building. For $37 over 2 hours with a licensed historian guide, it’s the most-reviewed walking ghost tour on the route at the time of writing — 4.5/5 from 1,070+ guests.

What the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 tour gives you

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is the oldest cemetery in New Orleans (founded 1789) and home to Marie Laveau’s tomb — the Voodoo Queen’s grave covered in offerings, X marks scratched by visitors over generations, and the regular subject of restoration efforts. It also holds the grave of Homer Plessy (of Plessy v. Ferguson) and dozens of historic Creole and free-people-of-colour families.

Visiting it is a different category of experience. The cemetery is above-ground because New Orleans’s high water table makes traditional burial impractical — you walk among “houses of the dead” rather than across graves. Plot ownership runs centuries; a single family tomb may hold 30+ generations of remains.

Critical: since March 1, 2015, the Archdiocese of New Orleans has restricted entry to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Today only two categories can enter:

1. Immediate family members of those interred (with a Family Pass).
2. Groups accompanied by an Archdiocese-licensed tour operator.

Independent visitors are turned away at the gate. The 2015 restriction was put in place primarily to stop vandalism — Marie Laveau’s tomb had been repeatedly defaced with markings and graffiti. The licensed-operator price (typically $25-29 per person in 2026) includes a per-person fee the operator pays to the Archdiocese; there’s no separate gate fee for tour-ticket holders.

The dedicated St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 access rules guide covers who’s currently licensed, what the Family Pass process looks like, and the open-access alternatives. One note on Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in the Garden District: it is closed to the general public for restoration as of late May 2026 — call the NOLA Cemeteries Division at 504-658-3781 to confirm status before you go. St. Louis No. 3 (esplanade at Bayou St. John) remains open and free.

When to pick which

Pick the French Quarter ghost tour if:

• You’re visiting New Orleans for the first time and want a broad introduction to its haunted history.
• Evening atmosphere matters to you — gas lamps, shadows, Bourbon Street energy in the background.
• You want a longer, more story-rich experience (2 hours vs ~1 hour for the cemetery walk).
• You have older kids (10+) or are traveling with a family that wants something less morbid than tomb-walking.
• You want the indoor haunted-building access — no other operator offers it.

Pick the cemetery tour if:

• You came to New Orleans specifically for voodoo, Marie Laveau, or above-ground burial culture.
• You’re a tomb-art or historical-cemetery photographer.
• You prefer daytime experiences (heat permitting — cemetery tours run year-round but are most pleasant October through April).
• You have only an afternoon and prefer a shorter, focused experience.
• You’re already booked for an evening ghost tour and want a complementary morning activity.

Pick both if:

• You have 2+ days in New Orleans.
• You’re a paranormal / history-of-the-macabre enthusiast and want full coverage.
• You’re staying near the French Quarter, where both tours start within walking distance.

Doing both adds roughly $62 and 3 hours to your itinerary, and they cover almost no overlapping ground.

What about a “do-it-yourself” French Quarter walk?

A free third option: download a walking-tour app (or just a map) and self-guide the French Quarter. You’ll see the same exteriors — LaLaurie Mansion, St. Louis Cathedral, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop — for $0.

What you miss:

• Stories. Most haunted buildings have no visible markers. You’ll pass them without knowing what happened there.
• Interior access. The cemetery is gated to non-licensed visitors; the haunted-building stop is exclusive to the licensed operator.
• Pacing. A guide knows which 8-10 stops are worth telling about and skips the others. Self-guiding, you’ll waste time on dead ends.
• Safety after dark. The French Quarter is one of the most-patrolled neighborhoods in New Orleans, but solo wandering on Bourbon Street and side alleys carries the standard pickpocket-and-distraction risks.

Self-guiding works for travelers on a tight budget who already know New Orleans history well. For everyone else, the $37 ghost tour is the better value.

Where the featured tour sits in the NOLA market

A handful of other licensed operators run French Quarter ghost walks. Comparing 2026 pricing helps frame what the featured $37 tour is — and isn’t.

Tour Orleans sits at the top of the standard walking-tour band. The premium framing rests on two things: the licensed-historian guide credential, and the interior haunted-building stop — neither of which the cheaper budget options include. If price is your primary filter, NOLA Adventures or French Quarter Phantoms cover the exterior route at a lower cost. If the interior stop and the guide credential matter, $37 is the going market rate for that combination. Prices in this table are from operator-listed rates in May 2026 and do shift seasonally.

The comparison most people don’t make: walking vs bus tours

A second New Orleans-specific category is the cemetery bus tour after dark — a vehicle tour that visits multiple cemeteries (typically St. Louis No. 1, No. 3, and sometimes Lafayette) at night, with exclusive after-hours access for the bus’s licensed operator. These typically run $36-45 for 2 hours.

The walking ghost tour is the most popular pick for first-time visitors. The cemetery bus tour appeals to travelers who want to see multiple cemeteries efficiently or who’d find the walking pace difficult.

What does the “haunted pub crawl” category cover?

A fourth option worth knowing about: haunted pub crawls are 21+ ghost tours that wind through 3-5 French Quarter bars (often including Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, among the oldest standing structures in the French Quarter — most likely 18th-century Spanish colonial period, with the Lafitte association being local legend rather than documented history). They typically run 2 hours and $18-32. Atmosphere is looser, story-density is lower, and the experience is closer to a guided night out than a history tour.

Pick a pub crawl if drinks and a sociable group are part of what you want from the evening. Pick the standard ghost tour if the stories are the point.

Ready to Book?

The featured French Quarter ghost tour is a 2-hour licensed-guide walk through the most haunted blocks of the Quarter, with interior access to a private haunted building no other operator can enter. Rated 4.5/5 by 1,070+ guests, from $37 per person, free cancellation up to 24 hours before.

See availability and book your French Quarter ghost tour →