Ghouls, demons and the galloping spirit of a headless horseman aren’t really the things on my mind when the sun’s setting over the romantic Charles Bridge in Prague. Little did I know then, a couple of hours later, that’s all I would be obsessing about. It’s 8 p.m., dreamy lights sparkle to life, cafes and restaurants brim with people, snazzy night clubs open their doors… but in another part of the city, a group of people gather by the powder tower in the Old Town. That’s the meeting place for enthusiasts doing the walk with McGee’s Ghost Tours, a company started in 2007 to highlight the wealth of haunted locations. Shortly, I join them, and together we are led by a caped, lantern-carrying young woman, who guides us through the winding streets in search of the supernatural. She’s like the poster child for Gothic fashion, and has on a big black magician’s hat and dramatic eye make-up. Her voice quivers and changes with theatrical perfection, as she narrates stories of departed souls who are “still wandering among us”. The setting is appropriate… imposing old monuments and spires against the inky blue sky, gleaming cobble-stoned paths, dimly lit, deserted streets.
Lifting her lantern, she points to an apartment. It has a boutique on the ground floor and offices on the upper floors, but the first floor wears a desolate look. “Nobody dares stay there… the House of Death has seen plagues and deaths. And the spirit of the lady of the house is still there… looking at us from the window as we speak,” she says, dropping her voice to an eerie whisper. After customary photographs, the 70-minute walk continues. Next stop is an alchemist’s lair; a street where processions of ghosts pass by, the Kafka statue… each has a story, some goose bumps-inducing (or that could be the cold breeze) and some inherently silly.
But there are intense ghost tours too — those that advertise themselves as tours where attacks may take place; a few pump up the gimmicks bursting a firecracker or two for effect and creeping up from behind to send walkers into terrified screams. Depending on their intensity, they have guidelines which don’t allow children, pregnant women and those with heart conditions. With ghost tourism becoming a popular trend, almost every city nowadays boasts of haunted precincts. While a few may have just one or two ghost walk organisers, Irish cities with all their castles, and Scottish ones with their dungeons and vaults known for paranormal happenings, have many competing to get the tourists’ attention.
Jan Henderson, who started City of the Dead Tours in Edinburgh in 1999 and wrote a book titled The Ghost That Haunted Itself , after a few experiences, says, “I heard about recent unexplained and, apparently, supernatural attacks in Greyfriars Graveyard. I figured that would be a good focal point for a dark, spooky walking tour. It turned out to be very effective indeed, probably because Edinburgh has a supernatural reputation, a pretty horrific past and architecture that looks old and creepy.” He organises six walks a day, and during summers, nearly 200 tourists register for walks every day.
Ghost walk tour companies offer a variety of walks with varying levels of scare quotient. For Jan, it’s his Haunted Graveyard Tour that’s the scariest. “There is a fair bit of history and it finishes in the Covenanter’s Prison in Greyfriars. Poltergeist attacks are frequent there. We have 100 pages of eyewitness accounts and dozens of photographs,” he says.
Ghost tourism had its beginnings around a decade ago, and is more mainstream now. For those looking to start a new business, this is a good idea, considering it doesn’t require much investment. Just a nose for history, knowledge of supernatural occurrences, gruesome tales of death, murder, a little bit of courage and some powerful storytelling skills. Jan says, “I give my ghost walk guides a script, but encourage them to throw it away as soon as possible. I prefer they follow our best guides to see how well a tour can be done, and work in their own jokes and the stories they want to tell. If it’s more fun for the guide, it’s more fun for the customers.”
Cities with dark historical tales have more of a pull. Salem (Massachusetts, USA), for example, delves deep into the witch trials during ghost tours; New Orleans focuses on tales of voodoo and narrates stories of those who lost their lives to yellow fever; Colorado’s tours include the Stanley Hotel which was creepy enough to inspire Stephen King to write The Shining ; Bhangarh, a fort in Rajasthan apparently has unexplained happenings taking place post sunset (the Archaeological Society of India even has a board that prohibits people from staying on after the sun goes down); Transylvania makes the most with the legend of Dracula, and Halloween is perhaps the best time to rake in more moolah with a party in Bran Castle. And what does that include? A night tour with Vlad the Impaler, and an after-party hosted by a Romanian DJ. Cities devoid of such folklore manage their own horror zones, making use of rundown mills, ancient crumbling mansions, cemeteries, amusement parks like the pop-up House of Horror in Miami, uninhabited hospitals like the Beechworth Lunatic Asylum in Victoria, Australia, where participants can take part in paranormal investigations, or stay a night in the wards where thousands of inmates died. Sightings may be as rare as spotting a tiger at a mall, but if you’re lucky, you may just see an orb, or not. But given its authenticity or lack of it, these walks are entertaining, and the bucks you spend are worth the occasional jitters.
