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One of my favorite memories in St. Augustine, Florida, is taking the Ghosts and Gravestones St. Augustine ghost tour. My family discovered our love of taking ghost tours when we did our first one in St. Augustine. We booked the trolley tour on a whim, and we had a blast. Now we search them out whenever we travel. It’s our favorite way to learn some of the history and folklore of a city. We also discovered that if you often travel in the summer (because that’s when you have the time), an evening tour is much more bearable temperature-wise, especially in Florida.
The Tour Begins
So, on a family trip to Disney followed by relaxation in St. Augustine in 2014, three years before I started travel blogging, we found ourselves boarding the “Trolley of the Doomed” at dusk; we didn’t know what to expect. The fact that the tour is done by trolley is a plus; our youngest wouldn’t get tired of walking, and the breeze was nice. Plus, you can explore more of a city by trolley than you can by foot.
The tour began with stories as the trolley left the station. If I recall, we stopped at a cemetery first. We were encouraged to take pictures to see if we could catch anything paranormal. I believe we got off the trolley and walked around a bit as we heard more stories.
We drove through town some more, and we stopped at another cemetery, this one with a small park nearby. I know we walked around here and took pictures. Please forgive these shots. I was not blogging yet!
The final stop was at the Old Jail in St. Augustine. You can tour the jail during the day if you wish, but at night, it’s part of the Ghosts and Gravestones tour or a jail-specific paranormal investigation you can book.
I don’t mean to spoil anything for anyone, but there is a live actor in the jail during this part. Some kids may find that alarming, but mine were fine. You’ll be aware that the person is in there because they will tell stories inside the jail. It’s not really a jump-scare kind of thing, though the initial meeting of this person in the jail can be startling. The jail is pretty creepy though.
After you tour the inside of the Old Jail, you’ll head outside to the gallows for some final stories before boarding the trolley one last time. For our tour, the person in the jail led us outside for the final stories. I believe he said that he was a teacher during the school year. What a fun side gig!
Wrapping it Up
Thank you for taking this little walk down memory lane with me. I told Jeff that I’d like to do this tour again–1. Because it’s super cool and fun, 2. I’d love to take more pictures, and hopefully, they’d be an improvement! For now, I’ll enjoy looking back at the tour that started it all for us. If you’re wondering if you should do a ghost tour, I’d say to go for it! We’ve done tours with the company two other times now, and we hope to do the Boston one next summer!
Click below to read our other Ghost and Gravestones adventures:
Ghosts and Gravestones–Savanah
Ghosts and Gravestones–San Diego
We’ve also done several independent ghost tours across the country. In fact, we completed our 10th in Nashville last week. Stay tuned! Click below to read about some of our other tours:
Lincoln’s Ghost Walk–Springfield, Illinois
The Crescent Hotel–Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Pythian Castle–Springfield, Missouri
