Ghost Stories Told Straight on a Walk From Boston Common
A 90-minute night walk from a Boston Common graveyard gate to the Omni Parker House, with guides who skip costumes and accents.
The walk leaves at 8:00 PM from the gate of the Central Burying Ground, on the Boylston Street side of Boston Common, and runs about 90 minutes on foot. Haunted Boston Ghost Tours says its owner, Hillary Kidd, started the company in 2005 as its only guide, and that it has since grown to more than eight guides.
The company's stated approach is old-fashioned storytelling about the darker side of Boston's history. Its owner says the guides do not wear costumes, use fake accents or rely on theatrics, and that the stories cover ghosts, haunted places, murder and the macabre, from colonial Boston to the present.
This card books the operator's public walk: one shared 8:00 PM departure a night, guided in English. Adult tickets are listed from USD 25, with lower senior and child prices, and the booking refunds in full when canceled at least 24 hours ahead. Gratuities, food and drink, and transportation are not included.
Haunted Boston Ghost ToursA 90-minute guided walk at 8:00 PM, from the Central Burying Ground gate on Boston Common to the Omni Parker House.www.viator.comStorytelling Without the Theatrics
Travelers' accounts match the operator's description. They describe a guide in dark clothes, sometimes carrying a battery lantern, talking the group through each stop, with no costumes and no jump scares. Several who came hoping to be frightened said afterward that the walk played more like a history tour than a scare. Others came for exactly that mix of history and grim stories.
On the Common, one stop is the site of the Great Elm, which travelers remember as the hanging-tree stop.
From the Burying Ground Gate to the Omni Parker
The walk opens outside the Central Burying Ground, and one traveler noted the cemetery was closed and the group stayed at its entrance. The booking page promises stories about what lies beneath Boston Common and inside the walls of the Boston Athenaeum, and travelers also mention a long segment on Edgar Allan Poe.
The route does not loop back: it ends at the Omni Parker House, about a mile from the start. A few travelers went inside afterward for Boston cream pie, and one found it easy to get a ride from there.
Stay Close to the Guide Near the End
The operator says it tries to keep each guide's group under 30 people. Even so, a traveler writing in July 2026 said the guide was nearly impossible to hear on the stretch along the road to the Omni Parker, with traffic close by. Walk near the guide on that last stretch. The whole tour is outdoors, with time standing at stops, and travelers recommend comfortable shoes.
Nightly Through November, Then a Winter Break
The operator lists its public walk nightly at 8:00 PM, March through November. As of October 21, 2026, the booking calendar showed it open every night through November 28 and then no dates until March 15, 2027. It runs rain or shine, and the operator says it cancels for lightning and thunder or for snow.
The operator says its stories suit ages 8 and up, and that 6-year-olds have come along without being fazed; the booking page sells a child ticket covering ages 0 to 17. The booking page and the operator's FAQ both call the route wheelchair and stroller accessible, with one slight incline. The operator's terms also mention uneven sidewalks and street crossings, and a traveler writing in July 2026 mentioned grassy stretches and stairs.
📍 Meet at the entrance to the Central Burying Ground on Boylston Street, inside Boston Common, across from Emerson College and the Colonial Theatre (106 Boylston St). From the Boylston stop on the Green Line, at Tremont and Boylston, the operator says to walk about half a block along Boylston, past the stone maintenance house, to the brick path that leads to the cemetery entrance. The map pin marks Boston Common as a whole. The operator stresses this is not the Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street, where Paul Revere and John Hancock are buried. It names a parking garage at Zero Charles Street, between the Common and the Public Garden.
Ninety minutes later, the walk lets out at the Omni Parker House.