Williamsburg Ghost Stories on Your Phone, Governor's Palace to the Capitol
A self-guided audio walk with no live guide: 60 to 90 minutes outdoors in Colonial Williamsburg, starting whenever you choose.
No one meets you for this walk. The booking buys a code for the WalknTours app, and the app does the telling: stand outside the Governor's Palace, press play, and the stories come up as GPS brings you to each stop in Colonial Williamsburg. The listing puts it at 60 to 90 minutes, all outdoors, at any hour you choose. The operator's own tour page says 1 hour and 15 minutes.
The last story plays at the Capitol. In between, the listing names the George Tucker House, an old lodge, a historic hotel, a windmill and an old tavern, and holds back the name of one famous ghost.
As of October 26, 2026, the listing below charges USD 9.75 for each adult 18 and over and USD 7 for each child aged 7 to 17. Every booking needs at least one adult, and one booking covers up to 15 people.
Cancel at least 24 hours before the date and time on your booking for a full refund.
Williamsburg's Famous Ghosts Self Guided Audio Walking TourSelf-guided app audio · 60 to 90 minutes · Starts outside the Governor's Palace · Ends at the Capitolwww.viator.comIt Starts Outside the Palace Where Thomas Jefferson Lived
The confirmation sends you to the outside of the Governor's Palace at 300 Palace Green Street. The first story, the listing says, covers who once lived there, Thomas Jefferson among them, the building's time as a hospital, and the spirits it says lurk there now. Every story is told from outside; the listing says no admission is included because it is all outside.
Colonial Williamsburg's history of the Palace says it was home to seven royal governors, then to Patrick Henry and Jefferson, and that in the fall of 1781 it served as a hospital for American soldiers wounded at Yorktown before it burned on December 22 that year. The building you stand outside is Colonial Williamsburg's reconstruction, opened in 1934.
Another stop, outside the George Tucker House, covers the house's link to the Christmas tree. Colonial Williamsburg's history of the St. George Tucker House says a William & Mary professor, Charles Minnigerode, put up Williamsburg's first recorded Christmas tree in its parlor in 1842, for the children of Tucker's son. One more is pinned at the Peyton Randolph House, and here the listing keeps the secret: "Wow wow, one famous ghost lives here. Who is it? Find out on the tour."
A Tavern, a Lodge, an Inn and a Windmill
The listing promises "the spirits that lurk, and some crawl" at one stop and pins it at the Market Square Tavern rooms. Another is "one of the oldest lodges with some famous members," pinned at Williamsburg Masonic Lodge No. 6. A third is "the historic hotel," pinned at the Williamsburg Inn. At the hotel the itinerary sets a five-minute stop, and like every stop it is outside.
Colonial Williamsburg's library dates Market Square Tavern to about 1749 and says visitors could rent rooms there after its restoration in the early 1930s. The lodge's own history names Peyton Randolph and James Monroe among its 18th-century members and says the Grand Lodge of Virginia was founded in its hall in 1778; that hall was torn down around 1910, and the brick temple there now was built in 1931. Virginia's Department of Historic Resources says the Williamsburg Inn was built in 1936 and 1937 under John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s patronage.
The listing adds a windmill, pinned at Robertson's Windmill, and says even the windmills here are haunted; Colonial Williamsburg says the mill was reconstructed on its original site. It also pins an old tavern at Wetherburn's Tavern: "The old tavern, local lore says, had a strange tradition." Colonial Williamsburg lists the tavern as an original building; Henry Wetherburn opened it in his own house in 1742.
It Ends at the Capitol, Away From Where You Began
The last stop is the Capitol of Colonial Williamsburg, where, in the listing's words, "you'll hear the story of the building and you might just spot a spirit." This building is a reconstruction too: Colonial Williamsburg rebuilt it between 1931 and 1934 on the old foundations, to the design of the first Capitol, which stood from 1705 until it burned in 1747. The walk does not return to the Governor's Palace. If you parked near the start, plan the walk back to your car. The City of Williamsburg's Prince George Parking Garage, at 230 N. Henry St., gives the first 30 minutes free, then charges USD 1 an hour up to USD 12 a day, and takes cards only. Colonial Williamsburg lists accessible restrooms on the Palace grounds and between the Capitol and Waller Street, without giving their hours.
A traveler who did the walk on Christmas Day in 2025 wrote that the app made it "easy to figure out how to get from one place to the other." The same traveler, who does not "subscribe to haunted places," still called it a fun thing to do and singled out the narrator: "the guy's voice on the recording was spectacular."
Download It Before You Go, One Account per Person
The confirmation lays out the steps: get the WalknTours app, register or log in, choose Colonial Williamsburg and this tour, and enter the experience code it gives you. It warns against buying the tour again inside the app. If you bought more than one ticket, each person registers a separate account with a different email, and everyone uses the same code.
The operator's FAQ says a tour can be downloaded in full before you start, after which the GPS map and audio work offline. It says tours do not expire, that you can pause any time, and that an arrow on screen points to the next stop if you drift off the route. The FAQ notes that many travelers bring headphones. The listing and the operator's tour page both list the tour as wheelchair and stroller accessible.
Colonial Williamsburg's visitor guide says wheelchair users will find the Historic Area's streets, most gardens and outdoor activities accessible, and its page for visiting groups warns that the surfaces are uneven, with dirt, brick, wood, shells and asphalt underfoot. Leashed pets are allowed in parts of the Historic Area, including Duke of Gloucester Street, but not inside historic buildings or any site that needs an admission ticket.
📍 Start outside the Governor's Palace at 300 Palace Green Street, tour downloaded, headphones in. The pin on this page marks the Capitol, where the walk ends, so point your map at the Palace for the start. Go after dinner and the last story plays at the Capitol in the dark.