New Orleans Ghost Bus Tours: Haunted Night Tour by Cajun Encounters

Before it was the picturesque square tourists photograph today, Jackson Square was the Place d'Armes — where the French colonial government carried out public executions, floggings, and brandings. The square has been a gathering place for the living since 1721, but locals say it never stopped being a gathering place for the dead. Our narration covers the documented hauntings of the Cabildo (the old Spanish colonial courthouse next door) and the 200-year-old reports of a monk's ghost circling the Cathedral grounds.

The Travel Channel didn't pick Le Pavillon for "Ghost Adventures" by accident. This 1907 hotel has a documented history of paranormal reports going back decades — the most consistent being a girl in period clothing on the upper floors, cold spots in the lobby that maintenance has never been able to explain, and a piano in the ballroom that hotel staff have heard playing when the room was locked and empty. We've collected guest accounts from over 15 years of running this tour, and Le Pavillon generates more questions from our riders than any other stop.

The Pontchartrain has been hosting guests on St. Charles Avenue since 1927 — and some of them apparently decided to stay permanently. The hotel's "lady in red" sighting in the Bayou Bar is one of New Orleans' most repeated ghost stories, but the real interesting reports come from the upper floors: mirrors that fog with no temperature change, the smell of a perfume brand that hasn't been manufactured since the 1950s, and an elevator that occasionally stops at a floor no one pressed. Our narration includes firsthand accounts from hotel staff who agreed to share their experiences with our research team.

At 1410 Jackson Avenue, the bus slows for the mansion most riders recognize from "American Horror Story: Coven," then peels back the TV version. The house rose in 1856 with Buckner family cotton money, and its reputation did not wait for Hollywood: neighborhood accounts describe voices in empty rooms, sudden cold pockets, and a third-floor ballroom staff avoided after sunset. We pause at the curb for the full exterior view while the narration connects the pop-culture landmark to the older, stranger history still attached to the property.

Anne Rice chose Lafayette Cemetery for "Interview with the Vampire" because it looked like exactly what it is — a place where thousands of people, many of them children killed by yellow fever, are buried in above-ground tombs that have been crumbling for nearly two centuries. The cemetery holds over 7,000 burials from the epidemics of 1852 and 1858 alone. Our guests report the most consistent paranormal experiences here: unexplained cold drafts between tombs on windless nights, the sound of children, and a persistent feeling of being watched. Our bus approaches the gates at a pace that lets you take it all in.

Between stops, the bus winds through the Garden District's canopied streets — past the homes of Anne Rice, the former residence of Jefferson Davis, and mansions built by the enslaved labor that defines the neighborhood's complicated history. The narration shifts between documented hauntings and the broader story of how the Garden District became what it is: a neighborhood built on cotton wealth, devastated by war, and haunted — literally and figuratively — by its past.