The Edinburgh Tour Guide
Search "ghost tour Edinburgh" and you get four operators, two booking sites and a couple of forum threads of people asking which one to pick, because the listings all use the same vocabulary and none of them tell you the thing that actually separates them. A ghost tour here can mean a walk into 18th-century chambers under a bridge, a locked graveyard enclosure, a theatrical show on a 1960s bus, or a two-hour walk that never goes indoors at all. Those are not variations on one product. They are four different purchases, and the deciding question is simple: what does this ticket get me into?
Want to be underground in the South Bridge vaults: Mercat or Auld Reekie. Want the Covenanters' Prison, the walled enclosure in Greyfriars you cannot walk into on your own: City of the Dead, which states it holds sole access. Want a show rather than a site: the Ghost Bus, 75 minutes, enters nothing. Want the most walking for the money: the two-hour Darkside tour, cheapest per hour of anything paid here. And the number that surprises people: the short vaults tours are the most expensive per hour, not the least.
Goes underground
Vaults tours only
Covenanters' Prison
City of the Dead
Enters nothing
Ghost Bus, street walks
Cheapest per hour
Darkside, £12.26
The access map: what each ticket actually gets you into
This is the table the listings will not give you, because for three of these four categories the honest answer reduces the perceived value. Sites in Edinburgh's underground are privately controlled: Mercat holds the Blair Street vaults, Auld Reekie runs chambers off Niddry Street, and the Covenanters' Prison sits behind a locked gate. No ticket gets you into all of them, and one popular option gets you into none.
| Type of tour | Actually goes inside | Adult price | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Underground vaults tour | Chambers under South Bridge | £19 to £26 | 60 to 90 min |
| Haunted graveyard tour | Covenanters' Prison and Black Mausoleum | £19 | 90 min |
| The Ghost Bus | Nothing, it is a bus | £19 | 75 min |
| Street-level ghost walk | Nothing, all outdoors | £24.52 | 120 min |
| Free ghost tour (tip-based) | Nothing, all outdoors | £0 plus a tip | 90 min |
On the Covenanters' Prison, one thing stated carefully: City of the Dead says on its own booking page that it has sole access to that enclosure and the Black Mausoleum. We have not independently verified exclusivity, only that this is the operator's own claim and that the enclosure is genuinely gated and locked. What is not in doubt is that you cannot wander in yourself.
The maths nobody puts in a table: price per hour
Every one of these sits in a narrow £19 to £33 sticker band, which makes them look interchangeable on price. Divide by the actual running time and they separate sharply, in the opposite direction to what the sticker suggests.
| Tour | Price | Length | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darkside ghost walk (6785EDGHOST) | £24.52 | 120 min | £12.26 |
| Covenanters' Prison (City of the Dead) | £19.00 | 90 min | £12.67 |
| Underground Ghost Tour (36194P8) | £19.00 | 75 min | £15.20 |
| The Ghost Bus | £19.00 | 75 min | £15.20 |
| Extreme Paranormal (36194P2) | £21.00 | 80 min | £15.75 |
| Haunted Vaults & Graveyard (8752P4) | £26.00 | 90 min | £17.33 |
| Small-group Blair Street (2934P19) | £33.48 | 105 min | £19.13 |
| Underground Vaults (8752P1) | £21.60 | 60 min | £21.60 |
| Haunted Vaults (8752P11) | £24.00 | 60 min | £24.00 |
The two cheapest per hour are the two that never go underground. The most expensive per hour are the 60-minute vaults tours, which cost roughly twice as much per hour as the two-hour street walk. That is not a rip-off, it is what access costs: an operator maintaining a leased underground site with limited group sizes cannot run you through it for two hours at £12. But it does mean the honest way to read these prices is "am I paying for time, or paying for a door?" If you want time on your feet and stories, the long walk is better value. If you want the door, pay for the door and accept the hourly rate.
Underground: the vaults tours
The chambers under South Bridge are the reason most people search for a ghost tour here at all. Two operators control the accessible stretches: Mercat owns the Blair Street vaults outright, and Auld Reekie runs separate chambers reached from Niddry Street off the Cowgate. They are different rooms under the same bridge, and neither ticket gets you into the other's.
Because that choice deserves more than a paragraph, and because it also involves Mary King's Close, which is a completely separate buried street rather than a vault, we gave it its own guide. If the underground is what you are here for, read Edinburgh Vaults vs Mary King's Close before booking. It has the full operator comparison, the per-hour maths between Mercat and Auld Reekie, and the honest verdict on which suits which visitor.
The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour
Over 10,500 reviews, the biggest evidence base of any ghost product in Edinburgh. 75 minutes in the Old Town and the South Bridge vaults.
Haunted Vaults and Graveyard Walking Tour
Ninety minutes combining the Niddry Street vaults with a graveyard walk, so you get underground and a kirkyard in one booking.
The graveyard: the Covenanters' Prison
The history here is not invented for tourists, which is what makes it the strongest stop of any ghost tour in the city. After their defeat at the Battle of Bothwell Brig on 22 June 1679, around a thousand Covenanters were held in this walled section of Greyfriars Kirkyard on a starvation diet for four months. Many died there, some escaped, others were executed for treason, and a ship transporting survivors sank off Orkney with almost none saved. The enclosure is walled with a locked gate, so it is not somewhere you can walk into on a normal visit to the kirkyard.
City of the Dead runs the Haunted Graveyard Tour into it and states it holds sole access to the Prison and the Black Mausoleum. The draw is the Mackenzie Poltergeist, which the operator markets hard and which has produced a large body of claimed incidents. Treat the supernatural claims as entertainment, treat the 1679 history as documented, and note that the operator itself warns the tour can cause distress and that you join at your own risk.
The practical detail that catches people out has nothing to do with ghosts: this tour runs only on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, at 9.00pm from Easter to Halloween and 8.30pm from Halloween to Easter, meeting at the "Tree of the Dead" by the roadside wall of St Giles' Cathedral on the Royal Mile. It costs £19, or £17 concession, and runs about 90 minutes. If your Edinburgh nights are Sunday through Monday or Wednesday and Friday, it is not running, and no amount of planning fixes that. It is also strictly no under-12s and no hen or stag parties, and numbers are capped per tour, so booking is genuinely advisable rather than upsell.
The bus: a show, not a site visit
The Ghost Bus is the option people most often misread, because it ranks for the same searches while being a fundamentally different purchase. You board a vintage 1960s Routemaster outside the Central Library at 7 to 9 George IV Bridge, and a costumed conductor performs a comedy horror show for 75 minutes while the bus drives past the Lawnmarket, Edinburgh Castle, St Cuthbert's graveyard, the Grassmarket, Greyfriars Kirk and Holyroodhouse. It passes the Covenanters' Prison and tells you about the Mackenzie Poltergeist. It does not stop and go in.
That is not a criticism. £19 for 75 minutes of scripted theatre with special effects, seated and out of the Edinburgh weather, is a perfectly good evening, and the operator bills it explicitly as a "comedy horror show" rather than a scare. It is a strong pick if you have limited mobility for a walking tour, if the weather has turned, or if you want the stories without standing in a cold vault. It is the wrong pick if you booked it expecting to go underground. Two practical limits: the 1960s bus is not wheelchair accessible, and the performance is English only with no audio guides.
Above ground: the long street walks
The last category is the plain ghost walk, no underground, no locked gates, just the closes and graveyards of the Old Town on foot. It is the cheapest way to get the stories and, per hour, the best value of anything paid on this page. The best-evidenced option runs two full hours, which is longer than any vaults tour and nearly double the bus.
Edinburgh Darkside Ghost Tour: Mysteries, Murder and Legends
Two full hours above ground for £24.52, which works out at £12.26 an hour, cheaper per hour than every underground tour here.
Extreme Paranormal Underground Ghost Tour
Eighty minutes pitched squarely at people who want the paranormal framing rather than the social history. Lowest rating of the well-reviewed set here.
There is also a genuinely free option: City Explorers runs a tip-based ghost tour nightly at 7pm, about 90 minutes, above ground. What a tip-based tour really costs once you factor the expected tip is worked through in our free walking tours guide.
What the review numbers actually tell you
What the data supports: this category is unusually well evidenced. The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour carries 10,582 reviews at 4.65, the largest sample of any single product anywhere on this site. The Underground Vaults tour has 9,361 at 4.70, and the Darkside walk 3,922 at 4.77. Those are big, stable numbers, and the spread between them is small enough that none of these is a risky booking on quality.
What the data does not support: ranking them against each other by rating. The gap between 4.62 and 4.77 across products with different formats, group sizes and price points is not a meaningful quality ordering, and the ratings cannot tell you the thing that actually matters here, which is access. A 4.77 street walk and a 4.70 vaults tour are not competing on the same axis at all. Note too that the Ghost Bus figure of 4.5 across 1,893 reviews comes from the operator's own website rather than an independent platform, so it is not directly comparable with the Viator numbers beside it.
Booking around October
Ghost tours are the one part of visiting Edinburgh with a genuine seasonal spike, and it is not the summer one. Interest in these tours roughly doubles into late October compared with the winter baseline, which means the last two weeks of the month are the hardest slots to get and the fullest groups you will experience. If you are visiting specifically for Halloween, book weeks ahead rather than days, and check operator schedules directly: City of the Dead switches its start time from 9.00pm to 8.30pm at Halloween and runs a separate Halloween programme.
The flip side is worth knowing. A ghost tour in February is the same vault, the same history and the same guide, in a smaller group, more easily booked, and arguably more atmospheric given it is dark by five in the afternoon. Nothing about these tours is better in October except the company you keep.
Before you book
Before you book
- Check what it actually enters. The single most common disappointment is booking something that drives or walks past the underground rather than into it. "Haunted" in a title means nothing; "vaults" or "underground" with entry included means something.
- Check the days, not just the times. City of the Dead runs Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday only. Several visitors plan around a start time and miss that the tour does not run at all on their night.
- Check the age rules. No under-12s on the Covenanters' Prison tour. The Ghost Bus is unsuitable for ages 1 to 5. Mercat runs a dedicated kids' tour if you need one.
- Dress for a cold stone room, not for a night out. The vaults sit at a constant low temperature year-round and the floors are uneven. The graveyard tour asks for sensible footwear explicitly.
- Take the distress warnings at face value. City of the Dead states the tour can cause physical and mental distress and is unsuitable for pregnant women, people with heart conditions and anyone with walking difficulties.
Once you have picked your evening, the daytime version of the same history is covered in things to do in Edinburgh, Greyfriars Kirkyard included, and if you are still working out how many evenings you have to spend, our how many days in Edinburgh guide budgets the time properly.
Quick answers
Which Edinburgh ghost tour is the best one to book?
There isn't one best, because they are not the same product. Decide by what you want to get inside. For the underground vaults under South Bridge, book Mercat or Auld Reekie. For the Covenanters' Prison in Greyfriars Kirkyard, City of the Dead is the operator that runs it, and it states it holds sole access. For a theatrical show rather than a site visit, the Ghost Bus. For a long street-level walk covering the most ground, the Darkside tour at two hours. The Ghost Bus and the street walks do not enter any of the sites.
Do Edinburgh ghost tours actually go underground?
Some do and some do not, and the listings rarely make it obvious. The vaults tours genuinely take you into the chambers under South Bridge. The Ghost Bus is a 75-minute bus ride that passes haunted landmarks without stopping inside any of them. Street-level ghost walks stay above ground in the closes and graveyards. If going underground is the point of the trip for you, check the word "vaults" or "underground" in the product title and confirm it includes entry.
How much does an Edinburgh ghost tour cost?
Roughly £19 to £33 for adults in 2026. The Ghost Bus is £19, City of the Dead is £19 (£17 concession), the underground vaults tours run from about £19 to £26, and a small-group vaults and graveyard tour is around £33. Divide by the length and the picture changes: the short 60-minute vaults tours are the most expensive per hour, at £21 to £24, while the two-hour Darkside walk is the cheapest paid option per hour at about £12.
Can you visit the Covenanters' Prison in Greyfriars Kirkyard on your own?
No. The section of Greyfriars Kirkyard known as the Covenanters' Prison is behind a wall with a locked gate, so you cannot simply walk in. City of the Dead Tours states on its own booking page that it has sole access to the Covenanters' Prison and the Black Mausoleum, and its Haunted Graveyard Tour is the way visitors get in. We have not independently verified that the access is exclusive, only that it is what the operator states.
Are Edinburgh ghost tours suitable for children?
It depends heavily on the tour, and this is where people get caught out. City of the Dead's Haunted Graveyard Tour has a hard no-under-12s rule. The Ghost Bus says it is generally unsuitable for children aged 1 to 5 and requires under-15s to be with a paying adult. Mercat runs a dedicated kids' tour, Gory Stories, for ages 5 and up. Check the age policy before booking, because several of these are not family products despite being marketed as fun.
When do Edinburgh ghost tours run, and do the times change?
Most run in the evening, and at least one changes its clock at Halloween. City of the Dead's Haunted Graveyard Tour runs Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday only, at 9.00pm from Easter to Halloween and 8.30pm from Halloween to Easter. That three-nights-a-week schedule catches people out more than the time does: if you are in Edinburgh on a Sunday, Monday, Wednesday or Friday, that tour simply is not running.
Is there a free ghost tour in Edinburgh?
Yes. City Explorers runs a free, tip-based ghost tour nightly at 7pm, about 90 minutes. It walks Old Town streets above ground and tells the stories, but it does not go into the vaults, Mary King's Close or the Covenanters' Prison, because those are ticketed sites controlled by operators. It is a good introduction and a poor substitute if the underground is what you came for.
About this guide
Written by Diego Fresno, Independent travel writer and researcher. Guides are based on first-hand research in Edinburgh and verified against operator and official sources for the 2026 season. Verified: August 2026. About the author →