Most people go out for drinks on vacation. Some go sightseeing. But what if you could do both, and hear the city’s most chilling legends along the way?

Enter the haunted pub crawl, a guided walk that stops in historic bars, taverns, and saloons where the spirits behind the bar aren’t the only spirits around. It is a cross between a haunted tour and a night out with friends, where centuries-old stories, a bit of local flavor, and the occasional unexplained shadow play just as big a role as the cocktails.

What Exactly Is a Haunted Pub Crawl?

Copyright US Ghost Adventures

Haunted pub crawls aren’t just a “spooky bar hopping night.” They’re a way of walking through a city that feels alive with its past. You’re not just learning history but feeling it in your bones, with a bit of liquid courage to aid in your otherworldly adventure. 

A ghost pub crawl blends all of the following: 

A guided haunted history tour of the cityStops inside historic bars and speakeasiesLocal legends True crime storiesAnd time to enjoy a drink along the way!

It’s an immersive experience and far more memorable than a typical tour or bar night. 

There’s time to:

Ask questionsSwap personal ghost storiesActually talk to the people around youSlow down and feel the places you’re in

People end up talking, comparing chills, laughing, and bonding. That’s what makes this less of a tour and more of a shared experience.

By the end, you usually remember at least three names, which is more than you can say for most bar nights.

Here are a few of the most interesting haunted pub crawl cities and what makes them special. 

Savannah, Georgia

Savannah is beautiful in that slow, Spanish-moss-dripping-from-the-oaks way. But Savannah’s beauty is layered with a complicated, heavy past. This city has been, at different points in its long and tumultuous history:

A colonial port townA battlegroundA place touched by epidemics, fires, and floods

Savannah has a calm exterior, with oak trees draped in Spanish moss, soft light, and a slow coastal rhythm. However, the city carries a past marked by wars, fires, epidemics, and a complicated history. 

When you step into one of its longstanding pubs, like those tucked near the riverfront or along the older squares, you become aware that you’re entering a space that has seen many different eras of the city’s life.

Sit in a dim booth at Moon River Brewing, and you’ll feel like the silence between conversations is just so thick. Drink at the Olde Pink House Tavern, and the laughter from the table beside you might feel like it doesn’t quite match the room.

Savannah isn’t trying to scare you. It’s just honest. 

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans is the opposite of subtle. It’s loud, musical, and overflowing with life. 

However, that life sits right beside death. This is a place where:

Cemeteries are above ground and visited like parksVoodoo isn’t spooky; it’s part of the cultureJazz and mourning exist in the same breath

New Orleans does not treat history as something that belongs in museums but rather as something that remains part of the present. This is a city where music and mourning share the same language, where spiritual practices are integrated rather than sensationalized, and where the line between celebration and reflection is thin but meaningful.

On a haunted pub crawl in New Orleans, you’ll drink where pirates traded secrets, where duelists once washed their wounds, and where brothels and speakeasies blurred morality and survival.

St. Augustine, Florida

St. Augustine’s history stretches back farther than most cities in the United States, and that age expresses itself not through dramatic hauntings, but through a quieter sense of continuity. Many of the pubs here are the kinds of places where the past feels close because the building itself has changed so little over time. 

You hear stories about innkeepers, soldiers, sailors, and residents whose lives were ordinary rather than legendary, and the effect is grounding rather than eerie. The ghost stories here often feel less like warnings and more like acknowledgments of the people who came before.

Why Haunted Pub Crawls Resonate

What makes a haunted pub crawl meaningful is the way it combines atmosphere, storytelling, and shared experience. You learn history in a setting where that history actually occurred, which gives it texture and immediacy that lectures and museums often cannot achieve. You meet other travelers in a way that feels natural rather than forced, and you participate in a tradition of storytelling that goes back far beyond tourism.

You do not have to believe in ghosts for the experience to matter. You only have to appreciate the idea that places remember the people who pass through them, and that memory has a presence on its own.

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