New Orleans: French Quarter True Crime Walking Tour

4.92

(321 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

I’ll never forget how our guide, Marcus, just grinned at me when I asked if he’d ever felt spooked doing this walk alone. “You get used to the ghosts,” he said, but his eyes darted sideways at an old brick doorway like maybe he wasn’t totally kidding. We’d only just started winding through the French Quarter, and already the air felt thick — not just from the humidity, but from all those stories layered into these streets.

We stopped outside a faded townhouse where, apparently, something awful had happened in the '70s. Marcus didn’t sugarcoat it — he told us what was in the police reports, even the parts that made some people shift their feet or glance away. I remember catching a whiff of gardenias mixed with cigarette smoke as he described a case that never got solved. It’s weird how you can stand somewhere so lively by day and suddenly feel like you’re intruding on old secrets at night.

He pointed out spots that have ended up on TV shows, but also places most folks walk past without knowing anything happened there at all. There was one story about a missing person that actually made me shiver — not because it was gory (though some are), but because you could almost picture someone slipping away down these narrow alleys. I tried to say “Chartres” street right and Marcus laughed (“You sound like my cousin from Boston”). That broke the tension for a second.

This isn’t one of those tours where everything feels rehearsed or safe. Some stories are rough — honestly, I didn’t expect to feel so unsettled by things that happened decades ago. But there’s something about hearing them here, with someone who knows every twist in these streets and doesn’t gloss over the ugly parts. I still think about that last stop near Royal Street; it was quieter than I expected, almost like the city itself was listening in.