One of the night walking tours in London includes a cruise down River Thames. — Unsplash
Forget The Walking Dead, try walking with the dead instead this Halloween.
Alright, maybe the experience won’t be that dramatic (the likelihood of ghouls making a meet-and-greet appearance is admittedly low), but it’s still a fun little activity to do if you’re looking for something other than trick-or-treating.
Leisurely on-foot exploration combined with the thrill of ghost hunting, paranormal-themed walking tours find an audience among people who are fascinated with the unknown. If you belong in this category, you’ll be enthralled by the eerie locations you’ll get to visit during the tours.
Whether tainted by dark history, feared due to superstitions, or revered because of local legends, there’s no shortage of scary places to explore around the world.
Such walking tours typically feature an itinerary that does more than let their participants gawk around and snap pictures, it should also include detailed explanations from the guides about these allegedly haunted or spooky spots.
If you get an exceptionally good guide, you’ll soon be endowed with knowledge about a place’s historical background and its cultural significance within the community as well.
It’s unfortunate that tours like these have ceased to exist in Malaysia, but luckily, they’re still available elsewhere – a fun way to get to know the country you’re visiting for sure.
Here are a few destinations you can start with for walking tours that will give you a hair-raising Halloween.
The Dark Bangkok tour includes spooky places as well as popular tourist attractions. — Unsplash
With the number of horror comedy movies our northern neighbour produces, is it even surprising to hear that Thailand conducts ghost-themed walking tours?
To anyone familiar with the top-grossing 2013 film Pee Mak, you may remember it borrows from the Thai legend of Mae Nak, a woman who died in childbirth but returned as a ghost to continue being a devoted wife.
So popular is this oft-romanticised supernatural tale that it has had various adaptations, from print to film and TV.
Even walking tours are not immune to Mae Nak’s legacy, so to speak. Take the Airbnb experience Bangkok Ghost Story, hosted by Bangkok-born Atichart (who also goes by Esso). His decade-long experience as a guide has led to him honing down his expertise to conduct ghost tours around his home city.
When you join his two-hour tour, which he limits to a maximum of 10 people per group, you’ll get to learn not just about the supernatural but also about Thailand’s history and culture.
One of the temples you’ll visit is Wat Mahabut, named after the first monk who stayed there. But on this tour, you’re more likely to hear it called by its other moniker: Wat Mae Nak Phra Khanong (Temple Of Mother Nak Phra Khanong).
It has a shrine dedicated to Mae Nak, whom the locals pray to for good luck – especially when it comes to winning the lottery.
Expique, a Bangkok-based tour company, has a similar walking tour called Dark Bangkok. Starting from the Sam Yot MRT station and ending near Ratchadamnoen Avenue, its route includes “horror” locations as well as popular attractions like The Giant Swing and Loha Prasat.
The standard tour is conducted in a slightly larger group of 15, but if you opt for a private tour, you won’t have to worry about the limit.
Even if ghost-free, there are Singaporean parks that are haunted by their World War II past instead. — Jane’s Singapore Tours/Facebook
Small as our neighbour to the south may be, the city-state has quite a number of horror-themed walking tours that you can choose from.
One of them, Spooky Singapore, which can actually be further divided into five options, was launched on Halloween four years ago by Jane’s Singapore Tours.
Started by Jane Iyer, a Briton who has called the island her home since 1963, she and her team also offer non-horror-centric private tours, but of course it’s the scary ones that you’re here for.
According to the official website, the spooky tours you can opt for are The Ghosts Of Forbidden Hill Fort Canning, Alexandra Park Trail & Paranormal Activity, Sunset At Bukit Brown Cemetery, Halloween On The Hill At Dempsey and Ancient Pagan Customs & Symbols At Christmastime – Kampong Glam.
As you can see, these not only cover quite a few areas but are also tailored to specific seasons or festivities. So, let’s say you feel like being spooked during Christmas, you can always opt for that Kampong Glam tour.
If you want to try your hand at using ghost detecting devices instead, join the night walks by Oriental Travel And Tours. Listed on its website are Creepy Tales Of Singapore and Singapore’s Famous Murder And Ghost Story Tour.
The former features a stop at a World War II battlefield, while the latter includes a visit to a murder scene and three haunted places. Both tours will allocate time for you to try detecting paranormal presence – using the devices prepared by the guides – at certain areas that are purportedly the typical haunts for such entities.
This walled city within Manila is a popular spot for walking tours. — Unsplash
You’ve probably never considered employing ghost hunting as a tool for team building; Cebu Ghost Hunters International (CGHI) is here to change your mind about that.
You can reach out to the CGHI team on their Facebook if you intend on subjecting your employees to some supernatural-themed bonding time. But even if you don’t, you can always engage CGHI for their ghost tours or paranormal investigations, which means you’ll get to tag along with the team when they go explore some of Philippines’ most haunted places.
While not a walking tour per se, it is an exciting activity nevertheless as you get to see and learn about abandoned places like Cebu’s Riverstone Castle and Baguio’s the Diplomat Hotel.
Over in the capital Manila, the historic walled city of Intramuros is the hotspot for night walking tours. You can join WanderManila’s One Night In Intramuros, which the travel company labels as a “dark history tour” of the 0.67sq km area that houses famous landmarks like Fort Santiago, Manila Cathedral and the Casa Manila museum.
It started out as a Halloween tour but encouraging reception has led to it now being held beyond the spooky season as well. You can either join the public version of the tour or book a private one via WanderManila’s website.
If you head to the Intramuros After Dark: Night Walking Tours And Beyond Facebook page, you will find another popular Intramuros tour. This was formerly led by Butch Pedalino, or Kuya Butch, but his deteriorating health means that now his fellow tour guide friends and his daughters have taken the helm.
The group also holds an annual Halloween night walking tour called Walk In The Dark, which this year is held from Oct 31 until Nov 2.
Walk through Seoul at night to learn of its ghostly hauntings. — Unsplash
Crafting spine-tingling horror movies is something South Korea excels at, so it’s a safe bet that the ghost tours in this country will give you chills.
Naturally, these tours are concentrated in Seoul, since it is the most visited city in Korea. Unfortunately, most of them seem to be on hiatus now, possibly due to the same reason that ghostly walks in several countries (such as our own) have shuttered in the past years – they just couldn’t resurrect their businesses after the prolonged pandemic pause.But, do not despair, arguably the most renowned of these tours, named The Dark Side Of Seoul (which claims the title of “Korea’s number one ghost and dark history tour”), is still operational.
This tour is available in two versions. The original is Ghost Walk, with guide “Joe” retelling haunting tales of the places visited during the tour, and Ghostlore And Urban Legends, where guide “Shawn” takes tour guests through 600 years of Korea’s hauntings.
Like most walking tours anywhere, these can be booked via the official website or travel platforms like Get Your Guide, Hello Tickets and Tripadvisor.
You’ll notice another ghost tour also offered on various travel platforms, namely the Seoul: Sindang-dong Occult Tour by travel agency Korea Tour Guide. This one features “real” shamans as the tour guides, whose expertise enables them to provide an in-depth look into Korean shamanism, traditional beliefs and exorcism.
Eerie walking tours are held at this Kyoto bamboo grove once darkness falls. — Unsplash
Also a master of horror, Japan is rife with paranormal beings and tales to share. From creepy onryo (vengeful spirit) like in Ju-On to cute tanuki (raccoon dog) like in Studio Ghibli’s Pom Poko, the country boasts a wide range of supernatural entities.
The possibility of you encountering them on your average trip to Japan is likely non-existent, but who knows, if you join a ghost tour or two ...
One of these tours is probably somewhere you never expected, though you may already be familiar with the area: It’s Kansai’s famed Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.
Kyoto Ghost Tour – Dark Tales And The Bamboo Forest At Night by Japanify Tours takes you through the bamboo grove when the last of the day visitors have vacated the place. Surrounded only by darkness and silence, the eerie atmosphere is a stark contrast to the lively ambience the forest holds during the day.
With only up to 10 participants allowed per trip, being in a group this small in a forest so vast intensifies the foreboding feeling while walking through it and listening to the scary stories told by the guide.
If you want to be spooked beyond just the forest, take the Dark Kyoto Tour by Atticus Sims. The founder of Kyoto VR, an immersive media company that preserves the prefecture’s heritage through virtual reality, shares the spooky tales he’s amassed during his 17 years of living in Kyoto.
Over in Japan’s capital, Spectral Drive: Tokyo’s Haunted Secrets by Opatrip and Tokyo’s Scariest Shitamachi Ghost Tour by Tokiotours are two options you can explore to discover the city’s ghoulish side. For the latter, it’s been noted by past participants that the tour focuses more on macabre deaths and less on the paranormal.
With a reputation that has earned itself the epithet “most haunted city in Europe”, it’s no wonder that York is brimming with ghost tours.
Shadows Of York: Award-Winning Historical Ghost Walk, The Devilish Ghost Hunt Of York and Dark Tales Of York, these are among the first few ones that will pop up when searching for ghost tours in the English city.
But if you’re planning to do things a little differently, you can go for York’s Famous Ghosts Smartphone App Walking Tour by WalknTours York.
A self-guided tour reliant on a smartphone app provided by the tour operator, you simply follow the directions to get to each location, whose spooky tales and background will be relayed to you via the app.
For those not keen on walking, there is a variant of these ghost tours that you’ll enjoy: Ghost Bus Tour Of York. A 1960s Routemaster bus (it’s the cute vintage double-decker bus) will be carting you around to some of the city’s most haunted sites, while a guide regales you with eerie facts about each one.
The same bus tour is also available in London. But if you prefer a boat ride while listening to the dark history of England’s capital city, Ghost, Ghouls And Gallows Walking Tour With Boat Ride includes a cruise on the River Thames.
Another non-walking option is The Horror Of Haunted London – Mostly Ghostly! by Black Cab Heritage Tours. The company’s name says it all: You will be chauffeured around the city in one of London’s classic black taxicabs on this ghost tour.
Of course, should you wish to stick to navigating the cobbled streets on your own two feet, there is quite the list of walking tours you can opt for, such as Ghastly Ghost Walking Tour In London, London Witches And History Walking Tour and London Jack The Ripper Guided Walking Tour.
By the way, when it comes to Jack The Ripper, that topic itself has a plethora of walking tours available. The 1880s serial killer’s grip on London is unrelenting, it seems.
