New Orleans Ghost Bus Tour: Haunted Neighborhoods & Cemetery Drive

We begin in the heart of the French Quarter at Jackson Square, where the ghost of Pere Antoine - a Spanish Capuchin monk who served the Cathedral from 1785 until his death in 1829 - has been reported wandering the garden paths after midnight for nearly 200 years. Locals and visitors have described a robed figure moving between the iron fence posts, only to vanish at the Cathedral steps. The square itself sits on the site of the original Place d'Armes, where public executions took place under French and Spanish colonial rule.

Built in 1907, Le Pavillon Hotel has accumulated over a century of ghost sightings documented by guests and staff. The most frequently reported apparition is a young girl in 19th-century clothing who appears in the hallways of the upper floors, believed to be connected to a yellow fever epidemic that devastated the neighborhood in the 1850s. Night staff have reported doors opening and closing on their own, unexplained cold spots in the lobby, and the sound of a piano playing from an empty ballroom. The hotel openly acknowledges its haunted reputation - it's been featured on the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures and multiple paranormal investigation shows.

Since opening in 1927, the Pontchartrain Hotel on St. Charles Avenue has hosted presidents, celebrities, and - according to decades of reports - at least three permanent ghostly residents. The most famous is a woman in a red dress seen in the Bayou Bar, believed to be connected to a 1940s-era tragedy. Guests on upper floors have reported mirrors fogging with no temperature change and the distinct scent of perfume in empty hallways. The hotel's proximity to the Garden District's antebellum mansions places it at the intersection of old wealth, dark history, and documented paranormal activity.

If the exterior of Buckner Mansion at 1410 Jackson Avenue looks familiar, it should - it served as Miss Robichaux's Academy in FX's American Horror Story: Coven and Apocalypse. But the mansion's real history is darker than fiction. Built in 1856 for cotton magnate Henry Sullivan Buckner at a cost of $100,000, roughly $3.5 million today, the house has been the site of reported shadow figures, disembodied voices, and cold spots since the early 1900s. Multiple owners have reported servants refusing to enter certain rooms, particularly the third-floor ballroom. The mansion is currently a private residence - our bus stops directly in front for an exterior viewing and full historical narration.

Established in 1833 in what was then the City of Lafayette, now the Garden District, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 holds over 7,000 burials in just one city block. The cemetery's above-ground tombs - a necessity in a city built below sea level - create a haunting maze of marble and brick. Many of the tombs belong to families devastated by the yellow fever epidemics of 1852 and 1858, which killed over 12,000 people in New Orleans. Visitors and our tour guests consistently report the feeling of being watched, unexplained cold drafts between the tombs, and - most frequently - the sound of children's laughter with no source. Anne Rice used this cemetery as inspiration for Interview with the Vampire, and it appeared in the 1994 film adaptation.

Between the mansion stops, our bus winds through the Garden District - one of the best-preserved collections of antebellum architecture in the South. After dark, the oak-canopied streets take on a different character. Your narration covers the history of each block: the enslaved labor that built these mansions, the Civil War occupation that left psychological scars on the neighborhood, and the ghost stories that residents still tell today. This is the part of New Orleans that walking tours can't reach - too far from the French Quarter, but too important to skip.