My favorite Savannah ghost tours

Okay. Let’s get one thing straight before I start. If you’re looking for historical accuracy, ghost tours really aren’t the place to look.

Savannah has plenty of historic tours you can choose from for that, but right now we’re looking at tours with the best ghost stories/experiences. Unless otherwise noted, all the tours are walking tours.

Blue Orb Tours

Blue Orb is the first ghost tour I ever went on, and I loved it! They do a fantastic job of storytelling and make you feel like you’re part of the ghost story.

They offer two different styles of ghost tour: the family-friendly version and the 18+ Zombie Tour. I’ve been on both. Personally, I like the Zombie Tour more, but I also don’t have kids.

You can find out more about costs and booking here.

Ghosts & Gravestones

I went on this tour once with visiting friends. They picked this tour because it was on a trolley, and they were tired from walking all day.

While driving around town doesn’t give a storyteller much time to convey the sense of dread you’d normally find in a ghost story, I thought the ghosts hosts made good use of their time.

Even though, most of the tour is spent riding around, the tour groups do get to go into two locations. Right now, those are the Andrew Low House and Perkin’s & Son’s Ship Chandlery.

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Happy Friday, Savannah! We're back exploring America's Most Haunted City! Get ready for some stories and scares throughout historic Savannah!

A post shared by Ghosts & Gravestones (@ghostsandgravestones) on Aug 7, 2020 at 5:05am PDT

As much as I love walking tours, I know there are people with mobility issues. Ghosts & Gravestones does offer accessibility help. They just ask that you contact them ahead of time, so they can prepare.

Hearse Ghost Tours

Always wanted to ride around in the back of a hearse, but didn’t want to die to get there? Your macabre dreams can come true on the Hearse Ghost Tour.

I’ve gone of this tour twice. It was fun, but it definitely depends on your driver/guide as is true with any ghost tour really. The first guide I had was a good storyteller. The second guy? Not so much.

But I did get to ride around in a hearse! The ride is a little bumpy though.

Click here for more info.

Sixth Sense Savannah Ghost Tour

Some of my derby teammates and I went on one of these tours a few years ago when the company sponsored our team. Part of it could have been because of my friends, but we all enjoyed ourselves.

The guide stopped to take EVP readings and replay them for us. At one point, he asked one of my teamies to try talking to the ghost of Casimir Pulaski in Polish. He caught a voice saying hello back to her.

I’m not sure if the EVP readings are a staple of the tour, but it was certainly a unique experience.

More here.

Savannah Supernatural Tours

Recently, I wrote an article for Do Savannah about how COVID was affecting the ghost tourism industry. Jodie, the owner of the tour company, was nice enough to let me tag along during one of his tours.

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The crowd for his, and some of the other tours we passed, was certainly smaller than normal, but it put us in the mood to listen to Savannah’s struggles with yellow fever in the 19th century.

Jodie had great stories and periodically stopped to share tidbits about other Savannah things. Since some tours can feel scripted, that was a nice personal touch.

You can book a tour with Jodi here.

If COVID is keeping you from going out this Halloween, you can always catch up with my haunted and weird stories about Savannah on my TikTok.

Gallivanting through the graveyard

A graveyard may seem like a strange place to take your dog for a walk, but Savannah is used to the strange and unusual.

It’s okay. Unleash your inner Lydia Deets.

Cemeteries aren’t just got Goths and ghost hunters. The South has plenty of fun graveyards to explore; each with its own unique stories to tell. Savannah is no exception.

Driving through the gates of Bonaventure Cemetery, it’s easy to see why it was used for the opening of the 1997 film adaptation of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” The branches of oak trees laden with Spanish moss crisscross over dirt roads winding through old headstones.

My dog, Vash, and I like walking here for different reasons. I like it because it’s quiet and easy to socially distance from people, and I also enjoy spotting the names of tombstones that match with streets, squares, and nearby towns. Vash likes it because it’s shaded against the summer sun and there’s plenty of wildlife to smell.

Vash loves all the smells the wildlife provide for discerning doggie noses.

It isn’t just local historical people you’ve never heard of buried there. You can follow the same paths that inspired poet Conrad Aiken to write Cosmos Mariner, and even stop by his grave site, sit on the bench inscribed with his name, and see what words it inspires in yourself.

If you’re a music fan, pull up a Johnny Mercer playlist on Spotify (Yes, the guy who wrote the song Moon River.)and wander over to his family’s plot. Snippets of the songwriter’s vast catalog can be found engraved on some of the headstones as well as a bench.

Given the recent scrutiny Confederate memorials are receiving, it’s worth pointing out that there are some graves of those who served in the Confederate army. A few years ago, you would’ve found tiny battle flags next to the headstones. Those have all been removed, but you can recognize some of them by a small Maltese cross sticking out of the ground nearby.

If you love a good ghost story, don’t forget to stop by and say hello to Little Gracie.

When you pull up to the cemetery gates, you’ll notice there are two entrances. The one to your right leads to the Jewish side. Savannah is Georgia’s first city and is home to the state’s oldest Jewish congregation. If you’re wondering why the Jewish side has a separate entrance, it’s a religious custom. There’s also a special chapel.

On one trip to Bonaventure, Vash and I found the Holocaust monument.

While Vash and I walk here year round, I think the best time to go is in the spring when the azaleas are in full bloom. If you have seasonal allergies like me, make sure to take your antihistamine before you go, but the sight of all the pink flowers spilling out everywhere is worth a few sniffles.

There are plenty of tours available to give you a better history (and some ghost stories) of Bonaventure Cemetery. The Bonaventure Historical Society also has a free app available if you’d like to tour by yourself. And if you happen to see me and Vash out there, you can definitely ask me for directions.

Here’s some video of my favorite spots with a Johnny Mercer tune.