edinburgh dark tourism

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How to Be a Dark Tourist in Edinburgh, Scotland

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Climbed Arthur’s Seat? Explored local history at the National Museum of Scotland ? Ticked a Loch Ness day trip off your bucket list? Great – now you have time to indulge your morbid curiosity in Edinburgh , the most haunted city in the UK .

What to do:, 1. seal yourself in the haunted south bridge vaults.

Historical Landmark, Architectural Landmark

South Bridge has been cursed since day one. As it neared completion in 1788, the city prepared an opening ceremony where the eldest local resident would be the first to cross it. Then, days beforehand, she died. A deal’s a deal though; the first person to cross South Bridge did so in a coffin, and ghost stories have plagued the vaults beneath ever since. Venture below, and you’ll also visit a catacomb so haunted it scared off a local Wiccan coven; to this day, a stone circle is on the floor, said to have trapped pure spiritual malevolence. Step in it if you’re feeling brave.

2. Say hi to “Bloody” George Mackenzie in Greyfriars Kirkyard

3. Learn the tragic, morbid tale of David Rizzio

David Rizzio was an Italian courtier and, more importantly in local history, a close confidante of Mary, Queen of Scots. From 1565 to 1567, Mary was married to Lord Darnley – an arrogant, abusive heir. She found solace in Rizzio throughout the partnership, incurring her husband’s jealousy. Rizzio was murdered by Darnley’s friend, Patrick Ruthven, on March 9, 1566, with Mary watching. He was stabbed 57 times. You can visit Rizzio’s grave to the right of the entrance to Canongate Kirk, with a plaque highlighting what’s otherwise a sadly unremarkable tomb.

4. Examine diseased limbs at the Surgeons’ Hall Museums

5. Have a drink beside the old gallows

Pub, Pub Grub, British

In the shadow of Edinburgh Castle is Grassmarket, which, until 1784, was the site of the city gallows. More than 100 Covenanters were hanged there, but the most notorious “execution” was that of Maggie Dickson. She was hanged for murder in 1724 yet somehow survived, soon being found alive in her own coffin. Because she’d technically served her sentence, she was let go and lived another 40 years. Today, numerous bars overlook the old gallows. Maggie Dickson’s Pub is named after the “half-hanged” woman, but best for you dark tourists is the Last Drop. Here, the lights dangle from nooses – plus, the building’s supposedly haunted by a poltergeist.

Where to Stay in Edinburgh:

6. the witchery by the castle.

Hotel, Luxury

This nine-suite gothic boutique is less than a minute’s walk from Edinburgh Castle. It’s adjacent to the Esplanade, where hundreds of women were burned at the stake for practising witchcraft in the 16th and 17th centuries. If you’re not put off by that macabre backstory, both the rooms and the restaurant below epitomise classical luxury. Andrew Lloyd Webber once asked regarding the Witchery, “Is this the prettiest restaurant ever?”

7. The Scotsman Hotel

There’s no spooky backstory or freaky apparition associated with this restaurant with rooms. However, 21212 blends historical design with opulence to create something that feels like it’s straight from The Shining . The building is a renovated Georgian townhouse with a hyper-stylish and Michelin-starred restaurant on the ground floor, lauded for creative recipes and a quirky, glass-fronted kitchen. Above, four bright ensuite rooms overlook the Firth of Forth. Each one juxtaposes lavish and vintage fabrics with a sleek, modern design.

9. Borthwick Castle

About 30 minutes south of central Edinburgh is Borthwick, the best-preserved Medieval castle in all of Scotland. It was built in 1430 to be an imposing fortress but, today, functions as a joint events venue and hotel. The 12 rooms here are all unique, each dedicated to a historical figure with a connection to the castle, from Oliver Cromwell to Sir Walter Scott. What they share, though, is historical decor guaranteed to make you feel like a noble. From the exposed brick to the looming oil paintings, the 15th century will never feel more alive.

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Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.

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Edinburgh’s dark corners: a walking tour of the city’s hidden stories

Invisible Cities’ tours take visitors to the Scottish capital’s juiciest and least-known stories – and with guides who have known homelessness, they are rooted in real experience

Edinburgh is a city that wears “dreich” weather well. The gloomy, overcast greys and short, damp days of winter suit the brooding architecture, and the Scottish capital’s often murky, deviant past.

These are the streets that were bombarded during the wars of Scottish independence, giving Edinburgh’s centrepiece the claim of being Europe’s most-besieged castle. It’s where cages once had to be introduced over graves to stop bodies being dug up and sold to the medical school, and where, round the corner, tightly packed tenements hosted peasants and poets, philosophers and kings. The city is, as the poet Hugh MacDiarmid wrote, “a mad God’s dream”.

I’ve lived in Edinburgh for over two decades now, but the centuries of stories hidden in the city’s stones continue to surprise me. They reveal themselves only to those who know where to look.

Angus Stirling is one of those who knows: he’s an expert on the architecture and the layers of stones that make up Edinburgh’s old town. He knows who put what where in the medieval era, and which Victorian personage paved over it in the 1800s in an attempt to modernise. Angus is a tour guide with Invisible Cities , a social enterprise that trains people who have experienced homelessness to lead walking tours. Started by Zakia Moulaoui Guery in Edinburgh in 2016, the company now runs four tours in Edinburgh, and also operates in Glasgow, Manchester and York. Norwich, Liverpool and Cardiff will be added later this year.

I’ve signed up for the Royal Mile: Huts to High-Rises tour (£12), which takes in the city’s most famous street and the old town around it on a 90-minute stroll. “Continually altered, adapted and restored, the Royal Mile is a living witness to Scottish history since the middle ages,” Angus says. “Stones and cement. You don’t get much more historic than that.” But it’s not the fascination with building materials that sets Angus’s tour apart; it’s that Invisible Cities tours also touch on the social landscape – teaching tourists about local social enterprises as they go.

Our visit starts in the heart of the old town, in the Grassmarket, a market since the 14th century and today best known for its wide choice of pubs. “Edinburgh is an old town, and it has a dark history,” Angus says. He tells us how “ Half-hangit Maggie ” was hanged here in 1724 for concealing a pregnancy and then abandoning the body of her newborn baby – only to wake up a few hours later and climb out of her coffin. Maggie Dickson’s pub (at no 92) is named after her. In 1736 one Captain John Porteous was lynched here by a mob after allegedly firing into a crowd during a riot.

Climbing up the colourful Victoria Street, we next stop at St Columba’s, an easily missed church just off the Royal Mile. Angus tells us about Sparkle Sisters , a charity based here that runs events offering wellbeing services to vulnerable and homeless women. All profits from Invisible Cities go to community projects like this; other examples are street barber services and free tours for Ukrainian refugees. “We start from the Ukrainian Association, walk across Waverley Bridge and up to the castle, and I tell them about places they can take their kids or get cheap clothes,” Angus says.

Angus became homeless after a downward spiral sparked by university debt and a broken relationship – and was offered the chance to train as a guide while working for the Big Issue .

“I thought it was a good opportunity for me to plug people full of Scottish history and language activism,” he says. He speaks seven languages, and has a degree in language and history acquired after four years studying between Aberdeen, Edinburgh and the Swedish city of Linköping. Indeed, on his tour he laments the impact John Knox and the Reformation had on the Scots language.

“The Reformation brought with it the only English-language Bible which was acceptable at that time,” Angus tells us. “In the 1500s, everybody had to go to church, so that meant they would have to listen to the language of the Bible for hours on end.” Scots began to decline as a result, he says, and today its status is quite low: “This is one of the few countries where you’re often thought to be more ignorant if you speak two languages rather than just one.”

This is a tour free from the tartan-tinted viewpoint of many guides. Another tour Angus runs, Languages of Scotland (£12), looks in more detail at how Gaelic and Scots were suppressed in the country. That tour runs further down the Royal Mile to John Knox House, then the statue of poet Robert Fergusson – a leading light of the Scots vernacular revival – outside Canongate Kirk, and finishes at the Scottish parliament. “I bring in the changes that have happened since it reopened,” he says. “In legislation, theoretically we now have full status for Gaelic and Scots. There’s not any money behind it, but the law is behind it.”

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Our tour continues to St Giles’ Cathedral, where the Heart of Midlothian mosaic on the street marks the entrance to the Old Tolbooth prison, now long gone. Via tales of economist Adam Smith, we finish at the Tron Kirk, a 17th-century church that features one of Scotland’s few surviving hammerbeam roofs. Deconsecrated since 1952, it’s now a craft market.

Angus’s tours are very much geared towards the fine details: the age of the bricks and the authenticity of the facades. Other Invisible Cities tours focus more on the guide’s personal experiences with homelessness: Sonny Murray’s Crime and Punishment tour (£15) fits this bill. It focuses on Edinburgh’s villains, from Burke and Hare to Deacon Brodie, the respected cabinet-maker who turned thief at night, inspiring Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde .

Like Angus’s tour, it also starts in the Grassmarket, but from there, it turns away from the Royal Mile and heads up to Greyfriars Kirkyard , best known for the story of the dog Greyfriars Bobby who guarded his former owner’s grave for 14 years. It’s also where Sonny used to sleep when he was homeless 17 years ago. “I’d carry my tent and my sleeping bag with me everywhere I went in case either got nicked,” he says. “Then I’d climb the fence here at night.”

As we walk, Sonny breaks up the history by pointing out social enterprises – the Grassmarket Community Project , which feeds homeless people and offers furniture-making classes, and Streetwork , which supports people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness across the city.

Sonny reminisces about meeting George Clooney while working at Social Bite , another social enterprise. “He was a gentleman,” Sonny says, adding that he gave Clooney a recipe for his homemade stew. He also met Prince Harry and Meghan Markle while on a tour, and took Meghan’s coffee cup back to his daughter, “so she could be a princess too: she was happy about that”.

There are no restrictions on who can attend Invisible Cities’ training programmes, which run in blocks of six to eight weeks and take an average of six months to complete. “It’s open to everybody,” says founder Zakia. “People could be in active addiction, be sleeping rough or have huge criminal records. If they have conditions that mean they can’t work as a guide – their addiction isn’t under control or they can’t work with kids, for example – we’ll try to find them other opportunities.”

The training is designed to provide transferable skills. “So it’s customer service, public speaking, confidence building, conflict resolution and first aid,” Zakia adds. “Guiding requires you to have a lot of confidence. You’re the centre of attention and everybody is looking at you, so it’s the complete opposite of what often happens to people living on the streets.”

For visitors, these tours provide a chance to learn about the real Edinburgh, from the grit and glamour of the past to the wonders and warts of the modern city. And in a city where tourists crowd the streets every day, Invisible Cities is a pioneering example of regenerative, urban tourism, directly benefiting local people. In turn, the tourist gets an unusually intimate insight into the city.

“They say everybody deserves a second chance, but most people we work with haven’t had a first chance,” Zakia tells me. “Our role is about storytelling, opportunities and education.”

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Beaches? Cruises? ‘Dark’ Tourists Prefer the Gloomy and Macabre

Travelers who use their off time to visit places like the Chernobyl nuclear plant or current conflict zones say they no longer want a sanitized version of a troubled world.

By Maria Cramer

North Korea. East Timor. Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave that for decades has been a tinderbox for ethnic conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

They’re not your typical top tourist destinations.

But don’t tell that to Erik Faarlund, the editor of a photography website from Norway, who has visited all three. His next “dream” trip is to tour San Fernando in the Philippines around Easter , when people volunteer to be nailed to a cross to commemorate the suffering of Jesus Christ, a practice discouraged by the Catholic Church.

Mr. Faarlund, whose wife prefers sunning on Mediterranean beaches, said he often travels alone.

“She wonders why on earth I want to go to these places, and I wonder why on earth she goes to the places she goes to,” he said.

Mr. Faarlund, 52, has visited places that fall under a category of travel known as dark tourism , an all-encompassing term that boils down to visiting places associated with death, tragedy and the macabre.

As travel opens up, most people are using their vacation time for the typical goals: to escape reality, relax and recharge. Not so dark tourists, who use their vacation time to plunge deeper into the bleak, even violent corners of the world.

They say going to abandoned nuclear plants or countries where genocides took place is a way to understand the harsh realities of current political turmoil, climate calamities, war and the growing threat of authoritarianism.

“When the whole world is on fire and flooded and no one can afford their energy bills, lying on a beach at a five-star resort feels embarrassing,” said Jodie Joyce, who handles contracts for a genome sequencing company in England and has visited Chernobyl and North Korea .

Mr. Faarlund, who does not see his travels as dark tourism, said he wants to visit places “that function totally differently from the way things are run at home.”

Whatever their motivations, Mr. Faarlund and Ms. Joyce are hardly alone.

Eighty-two percent of American travelers said they have visited at least one dark tourism destination in their lifetime, according to a study published in September by Passport-photo.online, which surveyed more than 900 people. More than half of those surveyed said they preferred visiting “active” or former war zones. About 30 percent said that once the war in Ukraine ends, they wanted to visit the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian soldiers resisted Russian forces for months .

The growing popularity of dark tourism suggests more and more people are resisting vacations that promise escapism, choosing instead to witness firsthand the sites of suffering they have only read about, said Gareth Johnson, a founder of Young Pioneer Tours , which organized trips for Ms. Joyce and Mr. Faarlund.

Tourists, he said, are tired of “getting a sanitized version of the world.”

A pastime that goes back to Gladiator Days

The term “dark tourism” was coined in 1996, by two academics from Scotland, J. John Lennon and Malcolm Foley, who wrote “Dark Tourism: The Attraction to Death and Disaster.”

But people have used their leisure time to witness horror for hundreds of years, said Craig Wight, associate professor of tourism management at Edinburgh Napier University.

“It goes back to the gladiator battles” of ancient Rome, he said. “People coming to watch public hangings. You had tourists sitting comfortably in carriages watching the Battle of Waterloo.”

Professor Wight said the modern dark tourist usually goes to a site defined by tragedy to make a connection to the place, a feeling that is difficult to achieve by just reading about it.

By that definition, anyone can be a dark tourist. A tourist who takes a weekend trip to New York City may visit Ground Zero. Visitors to Boston may drive north to Salem to learn more about the persecution of people accused of witchcraft in the 17th century. Travelers to Germany or Poland might visit a concentration camp. They might have any number of motivations, from honoring victims of genocide to getting a better understanding of history. But in general, a dark tourist is someone who makes a habit of seeking out places that are either tragic, morbid or even dangerous, whether the destinations are local or as far away as Chernobyl.

In recent years, as tour operators have sprung up worldwide promising deep dives into places known for recent tragedy, media attention has followed and so have questions about the intentions of visitors, said Dorina-Maria Buda, a professor of tourism studies at Nottingham Trent University .

Stories of people gawking at neighborhoods in New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina or posing for selfies at Dachau led to disgust and outrage .

Were people driven to visit these sites out of a “sense of voyeurism or is it a sense of sharing in the pain and showing support?” Professor Buda said.

Most dark tourists are not voyeurs who pose for photos at Auschwitz, said Sian Staudinger, who runs the Austria-based Dark Tourist Trips , which organizes itineraries in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe and instructs travelers to follow rules like “NO SELFIES!”

“Dark tourists in general ask meaningful questions,” Ms. Staudinger said. “They don’t talk too loud. They don’t laugh. They’re not taking photos at a concentration camp.”

‘Ethically murky territory’

David Farrier , a journalist from New Zealand, spent a year documenting travels to places like Aokigahara , the so-called suicide forest in Japan, the luxury prison Pablo Escobar built for himself in Colombia and McKamey Manor in Tennessee, a notorious haunted house tour where people sign up to be buried alive, submerged in cold water until they feel like they will drown and beaten.

The journey was turned into a show, “Dark Tourist,” that streamed on Netflix in 2018 and was derided by some critics as ghoulish and “sordid.”

Mr. Farrier, 39, said he often questioned the moral implications of his trips.

“It’s very ethically murky territory,” Mr. Farrier said.

But it felt worthwhile to “roll the cameras” on places and rituals that most people want to know about but will never experience, he said.

Visiting places where terrible events unfolded was humbling and helped him confront his fear of death.

He said he felt privileged to have visited most of the places he saw, except McKamey Manor.

“That was deranged,” Mr. Farrier said.

Professor Buda said dark tourists she has interviewed have described feelings of shock and fear at seeing armed soldiers on streets of countries where there is ongoing conflict or that are run by dictatorships.

“When you’re part of a society that is by and large stable and you’ve gotten into an established routine, travel to these places leads you to sort of feel alive,” she said.

But that travel can present real danger.

In 2015, Otto Warmbier , a 21-year-old student from Ohio who traveled with Young Pioneer Tours, was arrested in North Korea after he was accused of stealing a poster off a hotel wall. He was detained for 17 months and was comatose when he was released. He died in 2017, six days after he was brought back to the United States.

The North Korean government said Mr. Warmbier died of botulism but his family said his brain was damaged after he was tortured.

Americans can no longer travel to North Korea unless their passports are validated by the State Department.

A chance to reflect

Even ghost tours — the lighter side of dark tourism — can present dilemmas for tour operators, said Andrea Janes, the owner and founder of Boroughs of the Dead: Macabre New York City Walking Tours.

In 2021, she and her staff questioned whether to restart tours so soon after the pandemic in a city where refrigerated trucks serving as makeshift morgues sat in a marine terminal for months.

They reopened and were surprised when tours booked up fast. People were particularly eager to hear the ghost stories of Roosevelt Island, the site of a shuttered 19th-century hospital where smallpox patients were treated .

“We should have seen as historians that people would want to talk about death in a time of plague,” Ms. Janes said.

Kathy Biehl, who lives in Jefferson Township, N.J., and has gone on a dozen ghost tours with Ms. Janes’s company, recalled taking the tour “Ghosts of the Titanic” along the Hudson River. It was around 2017, when headlines were dominated by President Trump’s tough stance on refugees and immigrants coming into the United States.

Those stories seemed to dovetail with the 100-year-old tales of immigrants trying to make it to New York on a doomed ship, Ms. Biehl said.

It led to “a catharsis” for many on the tour, she said. “People were on the verge of tears over immigration.”

Part of the appeal of dark tourism is its ability to help people process what is happening “as the world gets darker and gloomier,” said Jeffrey S. Podoshen , a professor of marketing at Franklin and Marshall College, who specializes in dark tourism.

“People are trying to understand dark things, trying to understand things like the realities of death, dying and violence,” he said. “They look at this type of tourism as a way to prepare themselves.”

Mr. Faarlund, the photo editor, recalled one trip with his wife and twin sons: a private tour of Cambodia that included a visit to the Killing Fields , where between 1975 and 1979 more than 2 million Cambodians were killed or died of starvation and disease under the Khmer Rouge regime.

His boys, then 14, listened intently to unsparing and brutal stories of the torture center run by the Khmer Rouge. At one point, the boys had to go outside, where they sat quietly for a long time.

“They needed a break,” Mr. Faarlund said. “It was quite mature of them.”

Afterward, they met two of the survivors of the Khmer Rouge, fragile men in their 80s and 90s. The teenagers asked if they could hug them and the men obliged, Mr. Faarlund said.

It was a moving trip that also included visits to temples, among them Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, and meals of frog, oysters and squid at a roadside restaurant.

“They loved it,” Mr. Faarlund said of his family.

Still, he can’t see them coming with him to see people re-enact the crucifixion in the Philippines.

“I don’t think they want to go with me on that one,” Mr. Faarlund said.

52 Places for a Changed World

The 2022 list highlights places around the globe where travelers can be part of the solution.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places for a Changed World for 2022.

Maria Cramer is a reporter on the Travel desk. Please send her tips, questions and complaints about traveling, especially on cruises. More about Maria Cramer

Open Up Your World

Considering a trip, or just some armchair traveling here are some ideas..

52 Places:  Why do we travel? For food, culture, adventure, natural beauty? Our 2024 list has all those elements, and more .

Mumbai:  Spend 36 hours in this fast-changing Indian city  by exploring ancient caves, catching a concert in a former textile mill and feasting on mangoes.

Kyoto:  The Japanese city’s dry gardens offer spots for quiet contemplation  in an increasingly overtouristed destination.

Iceland:  The country markets itself as a destination to see the northern lights. But they can be elusive, as one writer recently found .

Texas:  Canoeing the Rio Grande near Big Bend National Park can be magical. But as the river dries, it’s getting harder to find where a boat will actually float .

The 13 Best Ghost Tours in Edinburgh (Updated 2024)

Is it a trip to Edinburgh if you don’t do something spooky? I recommend taking one of the best ghost tours in Edinburgh to complete your spooky Scottish itinerary.

The Scottish city of Edinburgh is known for its disturbing dark past, and ghosts linger in every corner of the city.

With nearly 900 years of history, Edinburgh survived plagues, witchcraft, grave robbers, and so much more dark history. Want to learn more and find out more about the ghosts that haunt Edinburgh? Check out one of the ghost tours down below.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Please see my  Privacy Policy  for more information.

The 13 Best Ghost Tours in Edinburgh, Scotland

1. auld reekie tours.

Head down to Edinburgh’s haunted vaults by taking the Edinburgh: Underground Vaults Tour . This is one of the best ghost tours in Edinburgh and offers a unique experience as you head into the vaults. 

The Edinburgh: Underground Vaults Tour begins with a walk around Edinburgh’s historic Old Town, where you will hear tales of the terrifying Tolbooth Prison that once sat outside St. Giles Cathedral.

Before heading down to the haunted vaults, you will pass through a small museum that features an array of medieval instruments once used on real people in the past. Finally, you can find out what a scold’s bridle was used for!

The tour takes you down to the South Bridge vaults, where you will see the infamous stone circle vault . The stone circle is said to hold an evil presence. If you step inside the circle, you may regret it! (I stepped inside, and I am fine if that makes you feel better, or am I?!)

And, to top it off, the vaults are home to a former witch’s coven, so if you are interested in witchcraft history in Scotland , this is the tour to take.

Book here: Edinburgh: Underground Vaults Tour

2. Mercat Tours

If you want to find things for adults to do in Edinburgh , check out the Edinburgh Underground Vaults Evening Ghost Tour with Whisky .

The tour takes you through Edinburgh’s historic Old Town, where you will hear all about the gruesome and ghastly tales that occurred on Edinburgh’s historic cobbled streets.

Once you are properly spooked by the terrifying tales that occurred above ground, you will be taken down to the atmospheric Blair Street Vaults.

The vaults are home to various ghosts, including the friendly cobbler and the very scary Mr. Boots! Be sure to take the tour to hear all about their history!

What makes this tour even better? While listening to more ghost stories, you will drink some delectable Scotch Whisky in a candlelit vault.

One thing that makes this one of the best ghost tours in Edinburgh is they provide headphones to listen to the tour guide so that you won’t miss out on any of the spooky stories.

Looking for spooky things to do in Edinburgh? Going on a ghost tour is the perfect way to spend Halloween in Edinburgh .

Book here: Edinburgh: Underground Vaults Evening Ghost Tour with Whisky

3. City of Edinburgh Tours

On The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour , follow an expert guide dressed in a period costume deep down into Edinburgh’s haunted vaults.

Fully immerse yourself in Edinburgh’s spooky past while walking through Greyfriars Kirkyard before heading deep into the underground vaults.

What helps make this one of Edinburgh’s best ghost tours? All of the guides are dressed up as real people from Edinburgh’s sinister past. Will you walk through Old Town Edinburgh with Dr. Robert Knox, Deacon Brodie or Maggie Dickson? (to name a few). 

This is a family-friendly tour, so feel free to bring the kids along to experience a fright!

Book here: The World Famous Underground Ghost Tour

4. Sandemans New Europe – Britain

Edinburgh’s Dark Side Walking Tour is one of the best ghost tours in Edinburgh, as it takes you to the site where witches were burned during the Great Scottish Witch Hunt on Calton Hill. 

If you want to learn more about Edinburgh’s historic graveyards and who is buried within them – the tour also stops at either the Old Calton Burial Ground or Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh’s most haunted graveyard .

This tour covers a lot of ground, so be prepared to do quite a bit of walking, including hills – but the views and stories along the way are worth it!

Book here: Edinburgh’s Dark Side Walking Tour

5. Auld Reekie

Head down to Edinburgh’s spooky Niddry Street vaults and visit Edinburgh’s most haunted graveyard with the Edinburgh: Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard Tour .

Follow an expert guide through Edinburgh’s dark streets as they regale you with tales of Edinburgh’s dark past. The tour takes you to places where criminals like Burke and Hare would roam the city streets.

Wander through the haunted Greyfriars Kirkyard, where you will hear the terrifying tales of the poltergeist who scratches people who visit the graveyard.

Finally, the tour ends in the haunted Niddry Street Vaults, home to a cursed stone circle and former witches coven.

Book here: Edinburgh: Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard Tour

6. The Ghost Bus Tours

If you love ghost stories but would instead enjoy them in a warm vehicle? Look no further than the Ghost Bus Tours ! Why walk around in the cold weather like a sucker when you can ride through town in a vintage black double-decker bus?

The ghost tour is full of theatrics and comedy over super scary stories. So, if you want an evening of fun rather than stories so frightening you won’t be able to sleep – you must take this tour.

One of the best things about this ghost tour is it allows you to cover so much more ground than a walking tour! You can see sights that most tours won’t visit in one night!

Book here: The Ghost Bus Tours

7. Mercat Tours

If you want to go on a ghost tour in Edinburgh but hate large crowds, I recommend going on Mercat Tours Small Group Ghostly Underground Vaults Tour .

The tour starts with listening to gruesome stories while wandering around Edinburgh’s Old Town before you descend into the dark and spooky Blair Street Vaults. Spend time listening to the horrifying tales of Edinburgh’s dark past, including stories of body snatching with flickering candles as the only light source.

The Blair Street Vaults are home to their own ghosts whose spirits linger in various spots within the vaults. Listen to the spooky tales of ghosts, including the cobbler and the terrifying Mr. Boots.

So, if you want to take one of the best ghost tours in Edinburgh but want to avoid the big groups, I highly recommend the Ghostly Underground Vaults Tour.

Book here: Small Group Ghostly Underground Vaults Tour in Edinburgh

8. Auld Reekie

Why not make a ghost tour even more terrifying by taking it late at night? They do say that ghosts become more active at night!

Auld Reekie’s Late-Night Underground Vaults Terror Tour takes you deep below Edinburgh South Bridge into the dark South Bridge Vaults, home to the super scary ghost known as The Watcher. 

If you feel a tingle on your neck or shivers run up your spine, the Watcher may be following you as you tour through the haunted vaults. You will hear stories about the former criminals who used to roam through the vaults, causing a reign of terror.

The tour also features a cursed stone circle vault and a museum of medieval devices that punish people who committed simple crimes. 

Book here: Edinburgh: Late-Night Underground Vaults Terror Tour

9. City of the Dead Tours

Visit the incredibly haunted Covenators Prison with the City of the Dead’s Double Dead Tour . This is the only tour that takes you to the locked-up area of Edinburgh’s Greyfriars Kirkyard. Why is the prison locked up? The ghosts that haunt the area are brutal, and tour guests often leave with scratches, bruises or feeling unwell.

Then, head down to the South Bridge Vaults, where you may meet the evil presence known as the South Bridge Entity. The vaults are terrifying and give off a creepy vibe. This gives the South Bridge Vaults the perfect spooky atmosphere for people who love to be scared.

Book here: City of the Dead’s Double Dead Tour

10. City of the Dead Tours

The Underground City of the Dead Vault Tour takes you to vaults known as Damnation Alley. The vaults were recently unsealed, and a dark poltergeist was discovered to haunt them. 

You will stand within the ominous vaults, and the City of the Dead tour guides will regale you with Edinburgh’s macabre history as you stand in dark, quiet vaults where this history once occurred.

I spent the night inside these terrifying vaults and experienced a lot of paranormal activity, including a dog barking through an EVP recorder. It was a cool experience, and I recommend taking the  Underground City of the Dead Tour if you enjoy being scared.

Book here: Underground City of the Dead Tour

11. The Cadies & Witchery Tours

Want a light-hearted tour filled with laughter but still want to be scared? Then, check out the Ghosts and Gore Walking Tour of Edinburgh .

Your guide for the evening is Alexander Clapperton, a deceased cemetery director who ruled over the cemeteries of Edinburgh in the 1840s.

You will learn all about the horrors of witchcraft history in Edinburgh and all of the dark histories that lurk within the shadows of the city’s ancient closes.

What makes this one of the best ghost tours in Edinburgh? The tour includes a free book, “Witchery Tales” by Adam Lyal. 

They also do a great tour for those who want to tour Greyfriars Kirkyard. Check out their Edinburgh: Greyfriars Kirkyard Tour if you are interested.

Book here: Ghost and Gore Walking Tour of Edinburgh

12. Historic Edinburgh Tours

If you want to tour the dark history of Edinburgh’s Greyfriars Kirkyard, you should take the Historic Edinburgh Tour of Greyfriars.

This private tour, called Greyfriars Kirkyard Tour in Edinburgh , takes you around the graveyard, telling you about the macabre history that sits right beneath your feet.

This tour is not paranormal, but it discusses the history of body snatchers, Covenanters Prison, and all of the gruesome histories in between.

Your tour guide, Robert, is an incredible storyteller. He will keep you captivated from start to finish!

Book here: Greyfriars Kirkyard Tour in Edinburgh – Private tour

13. Thistle Knights Tours

One thing Scotland has a lot of is Witch History. The Great Scottish Witch Hunt consumed Scotland, and much witch-related torture occurred between 1590 and 1690 in Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh: The Witches Tour takes you around Edinburgh and details why someone may have been accused of being a witch. Why witchcraft existed in Edinburgh and shows you actual human remains that were once used for witchcraft rituals.

What makes this one of the witch tours in Edinburgh? You get a chakra reading and balance work done on the tour. This is done for an extra cost if the Witches shop is open.

If you would like to learn more about witches in Scotland , check out the podcast episode on YouTube . 

Book here: Edinburgh: The Witches Tour

More Spooky and Haunted Things to Do in Edinburgh, Scotland

• Spooky Things to Do in Edinburgh
• Unusual Things to Do in Edinburgh
• Edinburgh Castle Ghosts – Is Edinburgh Castle Haunted?
• The 10 Best Cemetery Tours in Edinburgh
• Haunted Hotels in Scotland
• The Dark History of Half Hangit Maggie
• The 17 Best Edinburgh Vaults Tours

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6 Spooky Edinburgh Ghost Tours All Year Round

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Looking for the most frightful Edinburgh ghost tours available all year round? This guide details the best options on foot, visiting the most ghastly dark spots around the city and underground, if you dare! There’s even an option to learn about Edinburgh’s haunting characters by bus, a bus that carried dead bodies nonetheless. So let’s hop aboard the guide to ghost tours in Edinburgh and find out how to book.

Visiting for spooky season? Don’t miss our guide to Edinburgh in autumn , things to do for Hallowe’en and historic hotels .

Edinburgh’s Scariest Ghost Tours

1. the witchery tour.

One of Edinburgh’s most popular ghost tours is hosted by the award-winning The Cadies & Witchery Tour.

Your tour guide is the deceased Edinburgh Cemetery Director Alexander Clapperton from the 1840s. As you can probably tell, this ghost walk offers a lighthearted take on the tales of the city.

This Old Town Edinburgh tour covers the topics of torture, the plague, witchcraft and invasion.

It also introduces you to some of the best known Edinburgh legends whom we’ve documented here if you want to show off your knowledge!

The 80-minute tour starts at 7 pm and with prices from £15, you must book this online to avoid disappointment.

Included in the price is a copy of the bestselling ‘Witchery Tales’ book, some casual bedtime reading for Edinburgh dark tourism fans!

2. Ghost Walk in Edinburgh

Did you know that Edinburgh was famous for body snatching?

Two famous grave diggers feature heavily in Edinburgh’s dark past and they go by the names of Burke and Hare. The two Irish men were infamous for creeping into the dark of night and acquiring dead bodies for the likes of the popular Physician Dr Knox.

Some of the bodies were a little too fresh for onlookers liking and eventually the pair were caught out. You can learn more about Burke and Hare and many other stories during this tour which takes you into an Old Town cemetery!

Meeting point is in front of Frankie & Benny’s, 130 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1QS by Tron Kirk at 6:30pm but you must book ahead you can’t just turn up.

Look for the guides with red t-shirts and red umbrellas with the local tour operator’s logo. Children under 13 are accepted if accompanied by an adult at no cost.

This tour is not suitable for those with limited mobility or pushchairs.

3. Edinburgh Ghost Tours Underground

Since the original Edinburgh’s walled city was tiny, there was nowhere for the ever increasing population to spread out. The solution? Dig below.

Now only brave souls visit Edinburgh’s underground and they can only do so with a guided South Bridge vaults tour.

This underground tour takes you to Edinburgh’s Vaults at South Bridge.

The Vaults stink of damp and are crowded with stalactites formed by the city’s dregs so don’t open your mouth when you look up!

By candlelight, you’ll hear stories about the spirits that lurk down below so be careful because there are numerous cases of poltergeist activity reported.

We’ve done a few of the underground vaults tours as each tour operator owns their own area and this tour is by far the best one of balancing information, entertainment and scare tactics!

A unique thing about this tour compared to others is that within their vault there is a temple and rock circle created by The Source Coven Of The Blue Dragon.

Meeting point is at the phone box across from the Deacon Brodies pub. Remember your pre-booked eticket.

Booking online is a must from £18 per person.

For more details, check out our review of this underground vaults tour .

4. Free Ghost Tour in Edinburgh

If you are looking for a free ghost tour, then this one is on every night in Edinburgh and takes you through the dark and gruesome history of Edinburgh.

Meeting at 7pm at 153 High Street, this 1 and a half hour tour will chill you to your bones. You must book online .

Warning – free tours are never free. It is expected that you pay by tip at the end of the tour.

5. Edinburgh Night Ghost Tours

This is an adults only tour which says it all!

Funny yet frightening, a walk around the Old Town ends in a tour of the South Bridge Vaults and an Old Town cemetery.

Booking online is a must.

Book here from only £20 per person and remember – this is only for the bravest of you!

6. Edinburgh Ghost Bus Tour

This tour is honestly one of the funnest tours in Edinburgh. Customers alight the midnight black bus on the Royal Mile and take their seat where dead bodies were once stored. The guide, who has a touch of the theatrics, introduces you to your dubious bus driver who spins you around the city on six wheels.

Hold on to your hats though, funny going-ons are known to take place on this vintage Routemaster bus!

There’s a 10-minute stop at St Cuthbert’s Church with a walk through the city graveyard.

Highly recommended by Everything Edinburgh.

Other Edinburgh Dark Tourism Guides

• Spooky thing to do in Edinburgh
• Edinburgh’s Haunting Legends and Where to Find Them
• Edinburgh in Autumn: Things to Do, See and Eat
• Every Harry Potter location muggles can’t miss
• Bonfire Night in Edinburgh & Story of Guy Fawkes

Essential Edinburgh Information 

Food & drink in Edinburgh Best time to visit Edinburgh Things to do in Edinburgh How much does Edinburgh cost? Free 7-day Scotland itinerary

Plan Your Trip To Edinburgh 

Book accommodation at Booking.com Reserve a skip the line pass or guided tour at GetYourGuide Save money with this Edinburgh Pass

Owner of Everything Edinburgh, the friendly resource for visitors and locals. Gemma adores Edinburgh's cafes, pub crawls, live gigs, and city tours. She still mourns the death of Espionage nightclub.

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Halloween In Edinburgh: 10 Spooky Things To Do In The City Of Ghosts

Edinburgh may be famous for its striking architecture, but the charming Scottish capital has another side: it’s also known to be the city of ghosts.

Edinburgh has several attractions: its gothic architecture attracts visitors from all over the world, the Loch Lomond lake, surrounded by the Scottish highlands, has unbeatable views, and the city is home to hundreds of whiskey distilleries that offer tours to whiskey drinkers.

That’s not all that the Scottish capital is known for, however. With a rich history of ghosts, witchcraft, murders, and real-life grisly events, Edinburgh is widely regarded as the most haunted city in all of Europe. Every street corner in the city has its own legends and myths attached to it, and Edinburgh gladly plays into its dark tourism attractions. Visitors hoping to spend Halloween in Edinburgh (or traveling there during any time of the month, for that matter) can take part in several ghost tours, visit haunted cemeteries, or even drink a pint or two with a ghost.

Related: Dark Tourism: What It Is And How To Do It Respectfully

10 Look For The Missing Bagpiper At The Edinburgh Castle

A few hundred years ago, a network of tunnels leading to Holyrood Palace was found under Edinburgh Castle . Soon after, a young piper playing bagpipe was sent through the tunnels to map where they led. While the piper went missing halfway inside the tunnels with no traces to be found, it is believed that his bagpipe can still be heard under the castle. Besides the missing piper, several ghosts call Edinburgh Castle their home: a dungeon prisoner, a headless drummer, and even the ghost of a noblewoman who was executed on the charges of witchcraft.

9 …But Don’t Forget To Stop At The Witches’ Well

While you look for headless ghosts and missing pipers in Edinburgh Castle, don’t forget to stop at the Witches’ Well inside the grounds. It’s easy to miss the plaque that signals the Witches’ Well when you’re looking at the castle up ahead, but just outside its entrance is a small cast iron fountain. The fountain is located in an area where thousands of alleged witches were burned or drowned to death between the 15th and 18th centuries without a fair trial during a time when there was hysteria around witchcraft under King James VI’s reign.

8 Visit Mary King’s Close Beneath The City’s Busiest Street

Hidden beneath one of Edinburgh’s busiest streets — The Royal Mile — is a maze of closes called Mary King’s Close, whose inhabitants lived in tightly packed homes during the 16th and 17th centuries. Due to a lack of sewage system in Edinburgh during the time and the diseases that spread because of it, a plague wiped out the city, and most of the residents of Mary King’s Close were killed. Some believe that the close was sealed off by the government along with its residents during the plague, and they later perished locked inside. Much later, Mary King’s Close was officially closed off for a long time till it was rediscovered by construction workers.

Along with the rediscovered of Mary King’s Close, however, locals found several ghosts lurking around too. According to legend, a Japanese psychic visited Mary King’s Close in 1992 and felt sick, hungry, and cold in a room. She also felt someone tug at her leg, and that someone is believed to be the ghost of a certain girl named Annie, who was left by her family to die during the plague.

7 Tour The Underground Vaults

It’s hard to miss the fact that Edinburgh is built over a series of underground tunnels and vaults if you visit the city. And anything that involves dark tunnels a few levels below the streets is almost always associated with something haunted. Several agencies in Edinburgh operate ghost tours inside the underground vaults both during the day and at night. While the tours generally rely on costumed actors and theatrics for a scare, there are enough real-life stories behind the colorful legends to give tourists the chills. The vaults are associated with tales of torture, murder, witchcraft, and, more famously, are believed to be the place where Edinburgh’s notorious bodysnatchers Burke and Hare lurked.

6 Meet Edinburgh’s Legendary Body-Snatchers At The Surgeons' Hall Museum

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh houses The Surgeons’ Hall Museum inside its grounds — a place that is home to the largest pathology collection in the United Kingdom. Besides its medical displays, however, the museum also has a display dedicated to Edinburgh’s infamous bodysnatchers, Burke and Hare. Robert Knox, a conservator at the museum, required a constant supply of bodies for anatomy classes in the 19th century. Instead of digging up corpses as bodysnatchers usually do, Burke and Hare murdered people to manufacture their supply of bodies for Knox’s classes. While Hare was later caught and released, Burke was hung for his murders. The museum then made a death mask of Burke after his execution which is displayed at The Surgeons’ Hall Museum alongside a pocketbook that was made from Burke’s skin.

5 Knock Back Drinks At Haunted Pubs

Underground tunnels and castles are one thing; Edinburgh is a city where even the pubs are haunted — they didn’t call it the most haunted city for no reason! And it’s not just one pub or two; there are several pubs around the city that have spirits for customers. Depending on how adventurous you’re in the mood to be, you can visit a pub like The Last Drop, which once served as a place for public executions; The Banshee Labyrinth which used to be a part of Edinburgh’s underground vaults; or a bar like The White Hart Inn that was once frequented by both poets and murderers like Burke and Hare.

Related: 10 Edinburgh Pubs That Will Have You Stepping Back In Time

4 Hear Terrifying Tales At Haunted Cemeteries And Graveyards

A city where even the pubs are frequented by a spirit or two is bound to have a handful of spooky cemeteries and graveyards too. The Greyfriars Kirkyard, for one, houses the Black Mausoleum, which is known to be the place where the Mackenzie Poltergeist resides. Hundreds have claimed to have been attacked by the poltergeist making it one of the most documented places of paranormal affairs. There’s also the Canongate Cemetery, where the bodies of several murderers and their victims both reside.

3 Experience Gags And Chills On Ghost Tours

While all of Edinburgh’s haunted attractions are open to the public to visit, the city is famous for serving spooks with a side of comedy and gags. Several agencies operate ghost tours in the city that are led by actors who dress up in cloaks and retell tales of horror with theatrical flair. Depending on where your threshold on the matter of haunted locations stands, you can choose hours long daytime tours, underground walking tours in musky tunnels, or even venture out at night with a guide to lead you through a cemetery.

2 Explore Edinburgh’s Paranormal Past At The Dungeon

Similar to the London Dungeon, The Edinburgh Dungeon too is an interactive tourist attraction that uses extravagant sets, live actors, and special effects for scares. But behind the theatrical haunts are stories that reenact Edinburgh’s dark past. Actors dress up as the criminal duo Burke and Hare, turn into witches, or reenact the life of a cannibal who was known to live in the city. Certain shows also reenact what the torture chambers meant for suspected witches used to be like, although that only ranks three out of five on the Edinburgh Dungeon’s spook scale!

1 Midnight Ghost Tours

A trip to a city as haunted as Edinburgh warrants a spooky tour in the dark. The Ghost Bus Tours operates several tours in Edinburgh where comedy meets horror on wheels. The hourlong tours begin at 6 pm, with the last tour scheduled to begin at 9.30 pm. The buses circle around Edinburgh into the freezing night and retell the tales of its most popular attractions, except this time, you’ll only learn about their ghostly associations. Sometimes, you may even find out that the bus you just heard spooky stories in for the past hour was once a funeral vehicle and that you were sharing seats with a ghost! How’s that for spooky?

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Edinburgh Dark Side Free Walking Tour

No ghost stories - Edinburgh's true history is scary enough!

ABOUT THE Edinburgh Dark Side Free Walking Tour

Edinburgh has a long and dark history that includes acts like grave robbing, body snatching, serial killers and witch burning. On this 2-hour Dark Side walking tour you will see Edinburgh's shady and wild side as you hear real-life tales of witches, body-snatchers and cannibals. Explore the spots where murders, monsters and mayhem have become things of legend, and visit Old Calton Burial Ground or Canongate Kirkyard, two of Edinburgh’s most chilling cemeteries. 

Your Edinburgh Dark History Tour meets on 130 High Street and finishes on the Royal Mile near the start point or at Canongate Kirkyard.  We never cancel; tours run rain, hail or shine.

Chilling murders

Living in Edinburgh over the past centuries meant looking out for death on every corner. You might be accused of being a witch and being burnt at the stake, or someone might kill you so that they get paid for donating your body to the medical school. There was even the threat of cannibals and vampires to look out for. From the serial killers Burke and Hare, to Calton Hill where the witch burnings took place (today offering some of the best views over Edinburgh), on this 2-hour walking tour, your expert local guide will tell you the grim, scary but most importantly, true stories of life after dark in old Edinburgh.

Even your body wasn’t safe

Your problems didn’t stop once you were dead though, because even your body wasn’t safe. Some Edinburghers took to having cages put over their final resting place, so that their graves weren’t robbed or their bodies weren’t snatched. For those who couldn’t afford this luxury, they would have to hope a family member loved them enough to stand watch over their grave, until their corpse was no longer useful to science. During this walking tour, you’ll visit the Calton Cemetery and the Canongate Kirkyard, and see the mausoleums and caged-in graves that still exist today.

Gratuity-based Free Tour concept

The gratuity-based model of the Free Tour allows guests to support and reward only the highest quality tours, and to ensure that the tour fits within their expectations, and within their budget.

The Edinburgh Dark Side Tour starts on 130 High Street (The Royal Mile), on the corner with Stevenlaw's Close

• Hear about Burke and Hare – the infamous West Port murderers
• Visit the site of the witch burnings, today offering great views over Edinburgh
• Learn about Edinburgh’s real-life cannibals and vampires
• Hear about the murder of Mary Queen of Scot’s husband
• See the efforts to stave off bodysnatchers at Canongate Kirkyard and Calton Cemetery
• Discover the mystery of the 17 doll coffins at Arthur’s Seat

TOUR SCHEDULES

This tour doesn‘t run today

Click on 'See more dates' to check availability

• Local English-speaking guide
• Gratuities for the guide (optional)
• Unfortunately, we do not advise guests in wheelchairs to join the Dark Side Tour due to the narrow stairways and steep hills. We apologise for any inconvenience caused
• All minors must be accompanied by an adult in order to join the tour
• Our business is connecting great guides and smart travelers, and we're proud that so many local guides employ us to welcome travelers like you on their journey through some of the world's best cities. No two tours are alike, and the sites, stories, and length of the tour will vary depending on what your freelance guide decides is best. That's why the tours we promote never get stale or feel scripted, and why both independent guides and savvy travelers prefer SANDEMANs

Customer reviews

Dark Side Tour

The dark side your was a fun way to learn some pretty interesting facts about Edinburgh. Australian David was an awesome guide. He told the stories in funny and engaging ways. You can tell he is very knowledgeable about the area because when someone would ask a question he would answer it and have another fun story to go along with it. We went on three tours through this company on this trip and Australian Dave was our favorite guide by far. His email with recommendations for other things to do on the trip was also incredibly useful. We went to a restaurant he suggested for dinner after the tour and it was the best meal we ate the whole time we were in Scotland.

Dark Side with Sarah

I did the Dark Side tour with Sarah as my tour guide and she was absolutely wonderful! She got so into the stories using different voices for characters and acting them out with her hands. She made an attempt to get to know everyone she was with and gave me some great suggestions of where to go next. She was so enthusiastic and fun!

Dark Side tour with Adam

The Dark Side tour was well worth the money, and we were able to cover a large area in a short amount of time. Adam was our tour guide, and he was without a doubt, the best tour guide I’ve ever had. He’s amazing at engaging the group with captivating storytelling, and was very animated throughout the tour.

Visit the Dark Side with Greg!!

This walking tour was really great and made even better by our guide, Greg! He was the most entertaining guide I've even had, and I've done my share of walking and bike tour in several cities. My friend and I only had one day in Edinburgh and decided to do pretty much all of Sandemans walking tour, the Dark Side one being the last of the day. Needless to say we were exhausted by the time it started. And yet, we had the best time thanks to Greg! Highly recommend!

Fun dark side tour

We booked our tickets for the Dark Side tour in advance and didn't realize how windy and rainy it would be that evening. Our tour guide, Australian David, did a fantastic job leading us through Edinburgh's spooky history. He was a great storyteller and was very engaging. I know that I personally ended up forgetting about the unfortunate weather conditions because the tour was so entertaining. This was a great experience to kick off my first few months in Edinburgh as an exchange student.

What is a gratuity-based Free Tour?

The gratuity-based Free Tour is the best introduction to Edinburgh! A general overview tour including many of the highlights of the city, the Free Tour usually lasts around 2.5 hours and is provided by a local freelance guide in partnership with SANDEMANs NEW Europe, so tour content can vary depending on your guide’s particular area of interest and expertise.

The gratuity-based Free Tour is a walking tour with no need for public transport and is designed for independent travellers, not groups. You can book your spot in advance online or simply show up at the start point on the day. There is no payment necessary at the start of the tour but you are welcome to tip your guide at the end!

We believe in supporting local communities and are committed to giving a voice to some of Edinburgh's best local freelance tour guides, who passionately share the city's history and culture with their own unique and always-entertaining style. They'll never pressure you to tip; we believe that, if money is given, it should be voluntary and in direct proportion to the quality of the tour and the budget of the traveller.

Why join the SANDEMANs FREE Tour?

• Expert local guides
• Theme specific tours
• The Free Tour is guaranteed to fit within your budget
• The guides performing tips-based Free Tours are incentivized to perform every time

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Travel back in time and discover the history and the people of Edinburgh's New Town

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Enjoy a great night out in Edinburgh with the SANDEMANs Pub Crawl!

Tell us the landmarks, stories or parts of the city you want to see, how long you have to see them and when you want to go, and we’ll build an itinerary that suits you.

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Edinburgh – dark history.

Indulge in the dark stories of The Jekyll & Hyde City

Ah, Edinburgh! They don’t call it “The Jekyll & Hyde City” for nothing. During the day, a respectable figure, with its astonishing architecture and wondrous history. But when the sun sets, it tells an entirely different story…

Hear all about the darker history of Edinburgh: murderers, thieves, cannibals, hangings and decapitations, witches, the Plague and streams of human waste. Learn about the most notorious citizens of Edinburgh and how ghost stories are born.

This is not a ghost tour: we don’t need costumes or people jumping from behind the corners, Edinburgh’s Dark History itself is enough to make your skin crawl. And oh, how we love to share it with our visitors…

Runs: daily, 3pm and 6pm

Please, arrive 10 minutes before departure for check in, so we can start on time.

What to bring

Bring appropriate clothing and shoes, as this is Scotland and it may rain.

Attractions

Meeting point.

Tour Information

You might also like:, edinburgh castle tour - skip the line tickets included, edinburgh night photo tour, edinburgh street photo tour, 2h private tour: the edinburgh of sherlock holmes & puzzles | english.

Embracing ‘virtual dark tourism’ could help heritage sites at risk of degradation – expert explains

Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities, Trinity College Dublin

Disclosure statement

Nicole Basaraba does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Trinity College Dublin provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Do you believe in ghosts? If so, there is a whole genre of digital storytelling to explore on YouTube. My recent research (which identified more than 60 dedicated channels) has shown that there is a fast-growing audience on YouTube for paranormal investigations that are filmed like a virtual tour of a range of “dark” heritage sites – places with rumoured hauntings or a tragic history.

Dark tourism allows people to understand tragic events, and potentially experience a catharsis of emotions related to the deaths at a site or even help people respond to collective trauma. For example, memorials dedicated to COVID deaths have become a place for people to reflect.

The COVID lockdowns brought travel to a standstill. During this period, many museums around the world took the opportunity to create virtual tours, and many would-be tourists explored 360-degree street views that served as silent “virtual tours” .

Outside of museums, visitors also have an interest in learning about the history and stories at heritage sites which are places that contain cultural, historical or even natural significance. Commonly known heritage sites include the Unesco world heritage sites – and many nations have their own lists of heritage sites such as archaeological ruins, cathedrals or monasteries and national parks.

Dark tourism is considered a subset of heritage tourism, because many dark tourism sites are also heritage sites. For example, Leap Castle in Ireland is a heritage site with history dating back to the 1500s while also being renowned as one of the most haunted castles in Europe.

Many heritage sites are also currently at risk for a variety of reasons, including climate change, a lack of funding to maintain their infrastructural integrity, vandalism, or the impacts of mass tourism.

My paper argues that using the interest in virtual dark tourism could be one way for these heritage sites to mitigate some of these challenges.

Some people view this interest in dark sites as a kind of voyeurism and the ethics of monetising entry or tours at sites of death and tragedy have been questioned. Despite the controversies, dark tourism has a long history of attracting public interest and there are other benefits, too.

My primary case study, the YouTube channel Sam and Colby , has amassed more than 10 million subscribers and over 1 billion views.

These two US-based content creators have published hundreds of YouTube videos exploring haunted places, including infamous private homes. This includes locations such as The Conjuring House in the US which dates to circa 1736 (famous for its paranormal activity), multiple castles associated with dark stories like Bran Castle in Romania (the home of Dracula in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel) and many hotels including the Grade II listed building, The Ancient Ram Inn in England, known as the most haunted building in England.

This style of digital storytelling combines typical YouTube content creation techniques, such as breaking the fourth wall (talking directly to the camera), handheld-style filming and comedic interludes to break the tension with conventions seen more in documentary films, such as b-roll (supplemental or alternative footage intercut with the main action) animations, dark lighting and music and a tour-guide style narrative arc .

Why take virtual dark tours?

Not all tourists interested in dark sites are willing to take the associated risks to their health and safety associated with exploring old buildings or to experience the potentially high levels of fear of physically visiting these haunted locations. Therein lies the appeal of a virtual dark tourism experience on YouTube.

For example, while the Museum of Partisan Glory in Odesa – an underground museum in Ukraine – is safe for visitors, paranormal YouTubers ventured deep into the former mining tunnels in 2021 escorted by a local guide despite the risks involved. The catacombs are largely unmapped and could result in explorers getting lost and there are precarious underground conditions.

Similarly, the Saratoga County Homestead (a former hospital opened in 1913 as a tuberculosis sanitarium that is now privately owned and attracts those who believe its haunted), was abandoned during the YouTubers’ 2021 paranormal investigation of the property. It was in a state of disrepair and could pose physical risks to visitor safety as well as charges of antisocial behaviour or illegal trespassing.

Most paranormal investigation teams on YouTube gain access to private properties with permission from the owners. Some explore abandoned buildings after dark without conducting paranormal investigations (this sub-genre of urban exploration is called urbex). Some paranormal investigation YouTube channels even have disclaimer statements noting that they do not illegally trespass and they advise viewers not to visit some of the more dangerous locations.

YouTubers are continuing to conduct paranormal investigations to challenge their own belief systems and fears, to better understand the history and happenings at dark sites (including heritage-listed places) and to share this with others through digital storytelling.

This genre has expanded to a network of at five to six paranormal investigation teams who are collaborating and producing similar virtual dark tours at a variety of locations across the globe. As the audience for this virtual dark tourism content continues to grow, heritage sites at risk may benefit from developing narrative-focused virtual tours or by partnering with influential YouTubers.

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Edinburgh - Dark History

• In-Person guide
• Parliament Square, Edinburgh EH1, UK Find us across the square in Front of St. Giles Cathedral. Search for the white umbrella with the logo of All-Star Guides.
• Canongate Kirk, 153 Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8BN, UK
• Wheelchair accessible
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• St Giles' Cathedral
• John Knox House Museum
• Canongate Kirk
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• You'll start at Parliament Square Parliament Square, Edinburgh EH1, UK Find us across the square in Front of St. Giles Cathedral. Search for the white umbrella with the logo of All-Star Guides. See address & details
• Pass by Old Town
• 1 Heart of Midlothian Stop: 10 minutes See details
• 2 St Giles' Cathedral Stop: 10 minutes See details
• 3 Mercat Cross Stop: 10 minutes See details
• 4 Royal Mile Stop: 40 minutes See details
• 5 John Knox House Museum Stop: 5 minutes See details
• 6 Canongate Kirk Stop: 40 minutes See details
• You'll end at Canongate Kirk 153 Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8BN, UK See address & details

• Karen C 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles A must visit while in Edinburgh Our guide David was extremely knowledgeable about the history of Scotland and the Castle and answered all our questions. David was at the meeting point at the allotted time, was very friendly and approachable. We all enjoyed the guide which included the 1pm gun. This tour did not disappoint. Read more Written 11 April 2024
• Vacation56152887757 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Edinburgh Castle Tour! This tour is a must while you are in Edinburgh. James was a great guide and we learned a ton! Be prepared to walk, and the weather can shift rapidly. Read more Written 3 April 2024
• kasturig22 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Great Edinburgh Castle tour David was an Excellent tour guide, he was both informative and had a great sense of humor.. He not only told different stories connected to each of the stops but also have info on what to do where exactly.. Enjoyed the tour a lot .. even the kids had fun listening to him Read more Written 31 March 2024
• francescocP3347EC 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Great fun tour with Lidia We went on the tour with Lidia. She is an amazing tour guide: extremely knowledgeable, very witty, funny. She gave us a lot of background historical information but kept it light with jokes and funny ghost stories throughout the tour. A very enjoyable experience. My family and I had a lot of fun. I would definitely recommend. Read more Written 30 March 2024
• Trevor S 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Walking tour of Edinburgh Castle This was an excellent and very informative tour. Kieran, our guide, made the tour interesting and funny, even in the typically Scottish weather. Even when the tour was over, there was so much more to see. There was an awful lot to learn, and lots to see. Would be well worth going again. Read more Written 29 March 2024
• DibyenduD80 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Edinburgh castle guided tour It was perfect unless rain played some spoil sports. The guide kyrian was very good at it and very funny. It was excellent to learn about the history of Scotland around Castles. Read more Written 27 March 2024
• juliev2014 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Amazing experience Calum was a lovely guide. He took his time to answer questions and tells his stories really beautifully. Thanks for the lovely views of the castle and your insights Read more Written 26 March 2024
• Joel J 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Fantastic Tour David is a fantastic tour guide! Very informative. We really enjoyed the tour! Certainly the best way to experience Edinburgh Castle. Read more Written 19 March 2024
• A2641RYanthonyf 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Highly recommended The tour was excellent. The tour guide Lydia was very knowledgeable and informed. She gave an in depth history of events associated with the castle Read more Written 17 March 2024
• karminag2024 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles 10/10 Great tour guide with David Thank you David for a fun tour of the castle. I loved all the stories he had to share! David was so knowledgeable and gave great suggestions within the castle as well as outside the castle. David went above and beyond in sharing Edinburgh with me husband and I... I definitely recommend! He has a great sense of humor Read more Written 15 March 2024
• robertbS2396SE 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles David was awesome! The tour was brilliant. We had David as our guide. He was very knowledgeable and passionate. We asked some obscure questions and he knew everything. I cannot recommend the Guided Castle Tour enough. Especially if you're lucky enough to get David. Read more Written 17 February 2024
• Dream64008382512 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Castle tour Our guide Kerr was knowledgable and amusing enjoyed tour was well organised and free samples in whiskey shop helped.After tour had free time to wander round at leisure would go earlier than the 3.30 tour I booked as castle closes at 5 Read more Written 17 February 2024
• marionsB6358MA 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles The perfect tour and guide for learning more about the history of Edinburgh and Scotland Our guide, David was superb and really great company. He had such a in-depth knowledge of the history of all the places we visited and was able to answer all of our questions. We very much enjoyed our guided walk and would like to thank David for being our guide. Read more Written 13 January 2024
• 926clareq 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Amazing part of Edinburgh History The Castle is absolutely beautiful and so well worth a visit, use one of guided tours as they are full of information you might have missed going it solo. Allow plenty of time as the views are stunning and so much to see. Read more Written 30 October 2023
• erika bianca R 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Amazing David is amazing!!!! He got so many trivias and he knows the castle very well. The tour is a must see when you visit Scotland. Read more Written 30 October 2023

More to explore in Edinburgh

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

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This Itinerary will allow you to become a Dark Tourist for the Day in Edinburgh. Lots of exciting and dark activities to start your Dark Tourist Trip!

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Welcome to the Halloween capital of the world, learn all about the witch trials and be a Dark Tourist for the day.

Explore the darker side of Boston with this Dark Tourist Trips day itinerary.

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Haunted Edinburgh: Spooky + Spine-Chilling Attractions

Do you like to visit haunted attractions when you travel?

Edinburgh is a city that’s no stranger to dark and ghostly tourism, and a fascination with its ghoulish side is apparent in many attractions across the city.

Learning about the spookier side of Edinburgh can give you a larger picture of the history of the city and help you to understand how far Edinburgh has stepped from the shadow of the past.

As well as send you away with a few shivers running down your spine…

What is dark tourism?

It’s probably fitting that the term “dark tourism” was coined in Scotland in the 1990s by Glasgow Caledonian University professor John Lennon, given how many pages of Scotland’s history are marred by bloodstains and spine-chilling tales and mysterious and scary mythical legends (think Kelpies, ghostly horses who lead people to a watery grave).

Dark tourism covers the concept of travelling to places that are historically associated with death or tragedy.

Overt examples would include visiting concentration camps across Europe, the Catacombs of Paris , Chernobyl, or Ground Zero in New York City .

There is an element of controversy about tourism in places like these because of the commercialisation of tragedy.

However, there are also less obvious examples of dark tourism in most places we visit, like ghost tours or museums displaying gruesome torture instruments and telling stories from the more distant past.

So what are some of these “lighter” dark tourism or paranormal attractions in Edinburgh that might draw you in for a spooky visit?

Here’s my guide to the dark side of the city…

Touring Edinburgh’s Vaults

The Edinburgh vaults are a series of underground chambers in the space beneath South Bridge in the city centre. They are sometimes confused for underground streets, but they are actually just a series of rooms.

The South Bridge vaults have been used in the past as drinking dens, a space for illicit trade, and as shelter by the poorest of Edinburgh’s society, who may have been targeted by murderers and body snatchers in times past (more on that later!).

The Edinburgh vaults are said to be haunted, and you can take a ghost tour through the chambers to see what you think for yourself. Be prepared; they turn the lights out…

Check Edinburgh Vaults tours here

The unexplainable Gilmerton Cove

Note: Gilmerton Cove is currently closed! We’ll update when we know more.

Gilmerton Cove is one of Edinburgh’s lesser known gems . It’s a series of hand-carved caves found beneath an innocuous neighbourhood to the south of the city centre.

No one really knows what Gilmerton Cove is, which adds to its allure and cements its place on the list of Edinburgh’s darker attractions.

Could it have been a den of iniquity or something more innocent like an escape tunnel or secret passageway from nearby Craigmillar Castle?

Haunted Edinburgh Castle

Of course, there is an abundance of spooky tales and ghost stories associated with Edinburgh Castle, and it’s rumoured that several parts of it are haunted. The Castle has seen its fair share of battles, torture, and executions, after all.

One story involves a young bagpiper who was sent down a tunnel playing the bagpipes so they could see where it went, but he then disappeared, never to be seen again.

Edinburgh Castle’s vaults have been no stranger to prisoners throughout history and have, at times, held pirates, witches, and Jacobites.

In the prisoner of war exhibition at Edinburgh Castle, you can find one of the doors to the vaults that housed French, American, and Spanish prisoners during the American War of Independence (1775-1783).

It’s heavily scarred with graffiti, including a carving of the American flag that’s thought to be one of its earliest representations.

Incidentally, this is number 94 on the Edinburgh 101 list of the city’s most treasured objects, which includes an On the Dark Side Trail that outlines some of Edinburgh’s more dark and twisted objects.

Skip the line and book Edinburgh Castle here

Edinburgh Ghost Tours

There are all sorts of ghost tours in Edinburgh, from a spooky ghost tour bus ride to walking through graveyards or underground chambers.

There are plenty of Edinburgh ghost stories to be told, and the guides on such a tour will be more than happy to have you shaking in your boots.

You can choose from a free ghost tour starting on the Royal Mile every day or more elaborate night tours through possibly haunted graveyards and the vaults.

Many people have claimed to see ghosts around Edinburgh, and TV shows have even tried filming in the vaults and cemeteries. Who knows, could the next ghost sighting be by you…?

Check Edinburgh Ghost tours here

Check Edinburgh Ghost Bus tour here

The story of Burke & Hare

Edinburgh has always been known for its work to advance medical science, and that was also true in the 17th century.

However, bodies that could be used for medical research were few and far between, which led to an underground trade of corpses and a culture of body snatching and grave robbing.

Grieving relatives would construct iron cages over the graves of loved ones and keep watch for 24 hours a day until the body would be decomposed enough to be of no use to “resurrectionists”, as they became known.

The most famous body snatchers in Edinburgh became acquainted when William Burke moved into William Hare’s lodging house.

They claim they sold a deceased resident to the Edinburgh Medical College to recoup money owed, but when they realised how lucrative the body snatching trade could be, they ceased waiting for their victims to die and instead began suffocating them instead.

They were eventually caught, and Hare was granted immunity for testifying against Burke, who was subsequently hanged and publicly dissected at the Edinburgh Medical College.

You can still view his skeleton at the museum today, and more morbidly, a book that was made from his skin (which is also Object 98 on the Edinburgh 101 trail ).

The truth about Edinburgh’s Witches

In the 16th century, on a spot on Castlehill, more witch burnings were carried out than anywhere else in Scotland.

James VI, King of Scotland at the time, was afraid of witches and even wrote a book about them.

His paranoia spread and a huge number of innocent women were persecuted, and many were burned at the stake on Castlehill. It could be for a reason as simple as having a mole, red hair, or being accused by a vengeful neighbour.

In 1912 a memorial called the Witches Well was erected at that spot where over 300 women were killed. So many people walk past it on their way up to the Castle without even knowing it’s there.

Robert Louis Stevenson and the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson lived in Edinburgh and owned a cabinet made by William Brodie, a cabinet-maker, the deacon of a trades guild, and Edinburgh city councillor.

However, it transpired that Deacon Brodie was living a double life in which he copied the keys of the grand houses he was allowed access to and burgled them in the night.

He used the proceeds to fund his gambling and mistresses and illegitimate children until he was caught one night when he fell asleep on guard.

Brodie managed to escape to Amsterdam but was caught when he boarded a boat bound for America and was subsequently brought back to Edinburgh and hung at the Tolbooth Gallows.

William Brodie then became the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson to write The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. You can view the actual cabinet made by William Brodie in the Writers Museum.

The dark past of the Grassmarket

The Grassmarket is located just below Edinburgh Castle, and it was one of the main entrance points to the city.

From 1477 it was one of Edinburgh’s main marketplaces, housing places of trade, livestock pens, taverns and temporary lodgings. And it was also where public executions took place before they were moved to the Old Tollbooth jail.

One of the most well-known stories of the Grassmarket is that of Maggie Dickson, a fishwife who was hung in 1724 for killing her recently born illegitimate baby, or at the very least, disposing of it after a stillbirth.

After she was hung, her body was in the middle of being taken back to Musselburgh on a cart when she woke up, and because her sentence had been carried out, she was allowed to live.

There’s now a pub in the Grassmarket named after her, with a plaque telling her story outside, as well as another pub called The Last Drop.

Terror at Edinburgh Dungeon

Like many other Dungeon attractions in other cities, Edinburgh Dungeon tells ghost stories through a range of characters who aim to scare but with a dose of fun interaction.

The Dungeon sees a distinct increase in visitors during Halloween in Edinburgh when apparently many more people are willing to subject themselves to being spooked and learning about stories like the (possibly true) cannibal family led by Sawney Bean.

Book Edinburgh Dungeon here

The Real Mary Kings Close

It’s not technically an Edinburgh ghost tour, but some of it might as well be.

Touring the Real Mary Kings Close teaches you about the history of Edinburgh but also brings in aspects of murder and the ghost of Little Annie, said to be constantly looking for her family after they abandoned her to the plague.

The Old Town of Edinburgh was a dark and dingy place of multi-story buildings with tiny lanes between them.

Little light infiltrated into these alleyways that were also used to dispose of the city’s waste which ran down into the Noor Loch, which is now Princes Street Gardens.

But I’ll let you discover more on the tour itself…

Book the Real Mary Kings Close here

Murder at Holyrood Palace

Thousands flock to Holyrood Palace every year and visit the rooms that were once the home of Mary Queen of Scots.

However, they were not a happy place for her, as in 1566, when she was heavily pregnant, her husband Lord Darnley and his men burst into her private room where she was with her secretary David Rizzio, and stabbed him 56 times in front of Mary, before putting his body in the next room.

It signalled the beginning of the end for Mary, who was later executed on the orders of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

Now in the rooms at Holyrood, you can see a commemorative plaque for David Rizzio, another Edinburgh 101 object.

The floorboards below the plaque are said to be stained with blood, despite being replaced at least twice. Even royalty couldn’t escape Edinburgh’s chilling and violent past!

Book Holyrood Palace here

Ghostly sightings at Greyfriars Kirkyard

Greyfriars Kirkyard has long been the focus of supposed hauntings and, therefore, Edinburgh ghost tours. 

It’s said that George Mackenzie, a former jailer, wanders the graveyard at night, tortured by his own ill-treatment of prisoners nearby.

It has always been well-known for being the burial ground of Greyfriars Bobby, a loyal dog who stayed with his master after his death, and it’s more recently renowned as a Harry Potter location in Edinburgh , where JK Rowling used the names on headstones as inspirations for her characters.

Mystery on Arthur’s Seat

You might wonder how Arthur’s Seat, the highest hill in Edinburgh, could feature on a list of spooky or haunted Edinburgh attractions.

In 1836 a group of schoolboys playing on Arthur’s Seat found a collection of 17 tiny wooden coffins with carved dolls inside each one.

No one quite knows what they were for, although they’re said to be made of materials used in shoemaking and, therefore, could relate to the victims of Burke (who was a cobbler) and Hare from less than a decade earlier.

Other theories say they are the land burials of those lost at sea or that they’re part of some sort of voodoo spell.

You can view them at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and make up your own mind!

These are just a few of the dark and haunted attractions and stories of Edinburgh!

Let’s just say if you had Halloween in Edinburgh, you wouldn’t be disappointed…

Do you visit paranormal or dark attractions when you travel? Book Edinburgh’s haunted attractions here!

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Sonja - Migrating Miss

Sonja is from New Zealand but now lives in Scotland with her husband and two little boys, after having lived in 5 other countries along the way including the USA, Australia, Canada, and Spain. Travelling has always been her passion and she has now made it her full-time job and worked in the industry for the last 8 years. She shares her living abroad experiences and best tips to make your travel experiences the best they can be!

21 thoughts on “ Haunted Edinburgh: Spooky + Spine-Chilling Attractions ”

Wow this is a great read! I didn’t realise Edinburgh had such a dark and interesting past ? Makes me want to go and find all these things and places now!

Thanks! I never really thought about it either until I started listing them all out!

I have learned so much by reading this post. For starters I was never really aware of the term ‘dark tourism’ where places of tragedy are essentially ‘commercialized’. I suppose we all have a bit of fascination when it comes to the macabre. The history does interest me a lot and I never was aware of the sheer extent of so many things of this nature that occurred in Edinburgh. You have really put together such a comprehensive and interesting list here which no doubt many (myself included) would love to go and check out in person.

Thanks so much! The concept of dark tourism is pretty interesting, and something I wasn’t aware of until recently either!

I never knew there was so much dark tourism in Edinburgh! I’ve done the underground vaults before, but not the Gilmerton Caves. It’s actually the first time I’ve heard about it, so thanks for this! You can’t beat the dungeon, especially during Halloween!

Gilmerton Cove was so interesting! It’s amazing to see how the caves were actually carved by hand. It must have taken ages!

Wow! This is my first time reading a full post about Dark tourism. The history of Edinburgh is so interesting, and Edinburgh Ghost Tours totally catch my attention! I hope to visit Edinburgh and try those tours in the future!

There’s so much more I probably haven’t included as well! I realised I’ve actually visited quite a lot of dark tourism sort of places around the world without even thinking about it.

Some of your photos are really beautiful, especially the first one and that of the bus. I’m personally a scardy-cat so not really sure how brave I would be to take a trip like this, but it does sound interesting and ghost tours are over time becoming quite popular across the world. Thanks for the list of places so I now know what to avoid at night when i’n in Edinburgh…Lol

Thanks! The bus one is actually a stock photo though :D. Hahaha that’s one way to look at it!!

Your photos really make me scare and so realistic. I was not knowing about Haunted tours and though it sounds scary but must be interesting to visit all dark places with goose-pimples over skin. I loved the Ghost Bus tours. This whole place is so filmy. Thanks for introducing some new concept.

It’s definitely an experience! Especially if you do get goose-pimples haha. You’re welcome!

Wow your pictures are beautiful! I had no idea Edinburgh has such a dark past! I’ve been wanting to go but I gotta make sure I visit when the day is long so there’s plenty of sunlight. I’m a scaredy cat so I’ll have to pass on the ghostly tours haha

Thanks so much! Hahaha summer it is then :D. I’d still recommend the museums, the Castle, and Mary King’s Close which is more of a historical tour than a ghost tour :).

Holy wow I had no idea such thing as Dark Tourism existed…and no idea that Dark Tourism exists in Edinburg! What an interesting concept…although I totally get spooked so easily so I am not sure how I would handle some of these places. Greyfriars Kirkyard sounds freaky as! Not sure if I could handle the ghost tour here….especially at night!

Haha it’s actually a very peaceful and popular place to walk around in the day (especially because of the Harry Potter connection) but I’m not sure I would walk through it at night either!

I didn’t know that there is a term for this. The term ‘Dark Tourism’ does indicate that its about tragic past of a place. I have mostly traveled to happy places. Maybe I should try this for a change.

Until I stopped to think about it I didn’t really realise how many dark places I had been to. Even some museums!

I have never heard the term ‘dark tourism’ – very intriguing. I have pinned this for a future trip. And wow, your photos are amazing!

Thanks so much! It was interesting for me to learn more about it too 🙂

The story of Deacon Brodie’s double life as a burglar and the inspiration he became for Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” is truly intriguing. I can only imagine the ghostly atmosphere at the Grassmarket, especially with the tale of Maggie Dickson’s miraculous survival after being hanged. These dark and haunted attractions make me want to explore the eerie side of Edinburgh, especially Arthur’s Seat and the mysterious wooden coffins. It’s like stepping into a real-life ghost story!

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How the Pendle Witches are bringing 'dark tourists' to Lancashire

• Tuesday 23 April 2024 at 4:13pm

Reporter, ITV Granada Reports

Report by Paul Crone

We love to visit places with a spooky past, or where a medieval murder took place.

So no wonder Lancashire is benefitting from what's known as Dark Tourism.

And look no further for information, than Lancaster University academic Sophie James who has spent the last year researching the famous Pendle Witches, and has just had a paper published on the matter.

The trials of the Pendle witches at Lancaster Castle in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history. In total 10 people were hung after being imprisoned in the Castle. The evidence used to find them guilty was mostly based on gossip and hearsay.

The Castle is among a host of locations across Lancashire which have become a bustling industry where you can buy anything from a Pendle Witches tea towel, or a take part in ghost walks.

Sophie spent time talking to historians and people interested in witchcraft in order to write her paper for Lancaster University.

She said,"There's walking trails, guided tours, heritage centres, museums, independent retail outlets, all of this which offers visitors a unique opportunity to explore this rich fabric and spookyness."

Forty miles from Lancaster Castle lies a perfect example of Dark Tourism.

In the village of Roughlee in the shadow of Pendle Hill lies a stunning sculpture of one of the Pendle Witches, Alice Nutter.

The site is a popular photo location for those keen to follow the story of the Pendle Witches. And wherever people stop en route, chances are they'll want a brew and a cake. Vital monies coming into the local economy.

Alice Nutter's sculpture can be found by the main road through the village of Roughlee near Nelson.

Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know…

Tourism and growth are double-edged swords for Utah’s dark sky-certified places

Even in a state like Utah which prides itself on its starry night skies, becoming a certified dark sky community is a tall task.

Springdale, near Zion National Park, has had rules on the books to limit light pollution since 2009. So when it applied for a designation from Dark Sky International a few years ago, it expected to be a shoo-in.

“We were thinking: We've been a leader in preserving dark skies for a long time. We've done a great job. … Folks are going to say, ‘This is the best application ever. Of course, you're going to be certified,’” Director of Community Development Tom Dansie said.

“So we were a little bit humbled when the Dark Sky folks came back with: ‘That's a good first try.’”

The town made changes and applied again the following year. When it finally got approved in 2023 , it was the culmination of nearly 15 years of work.

It didn’t come cheap, either.

The town spent roughly $1 million to replace its street lights with models that shield the light downward, Dansie said. After installing them, the town realized the new lights weren’t dark enough, so they spent even more time and money developing a way to retrofit them. Now, Springdale has until 2028 to update the street lights with adaptive controls that automatically dim as the sky gets darker, which Dansie estimates could cost another $200,000.

That’s a lot of money for a small town, and it doesn’t include the updates required to lighting on private property — something residents have long raised concerns about. But in a community that values its celestial sights, he said it’s money well spent.

“When you look at the investment in the street lights in terms of protecting the night sky resource, it makes a whole lot more sense … rather than looking at it as, ‘Oh, we had to spend a million and a half dollars just to get this certification.’”

Dark skies can also have other benefits, he said, for human health and wildlife .

Springdale is one of four Utah towns that have earned the designation, joined by Helper, Torrey and Castle Valley, which became the state’s newest addition in January. Moab has submitted its application to join the club, something the town has been working toward since enacting its outdoor lighting ordinance in 2019.

As Utah’s population and popularity grow, keeping skies dark is likely to get even harder.

In their annual reports to Dark Sky International, parks across the state list increasing light pollution from development and tourism as the main threat to maintaining their certification. And those sites — from Capitol Reef and Canyonlands national parks to Antelope Island and Jordanelle state parks — say those threats are increasing.

For places like Springdale, it’s a delicate balance. The community relies on tourism. Without it, it would be tough for a town of fewer than 600 people to afford a million-dollar lighting project, among other things. But visitation to Zion National Park has nearly doubled in the 15 years the town’s been working to limit outdoor lighting, and that brings the risk of more light.

“Every new development, every new hotel that's built, every new single-family residence that is built has an impact on the night sky,” Dansie said. “So it's increasingly important for us as a community to be careful.”

With more and more places worldwide losing their view of the night sky, however, that makes the places in Utah that have held onto their darkness all the more special. It can have big economic impacts.

Gov. Spencer Cox declared April as Utah’s dark sky month again in 2024, saying astrotourism is expected to generate $6 billion in the American Southwest over the next decade. Utah has more than 20 certified dark sky places, a total the state touts as the highest concentration in the world.

Joshua Rowley has seen the economic benefits of dark sky tourism near Capitol Reef National Park, where he co-owns the Skyview Hotel . It’s located in Torrey, a town of 219 people in Wayne County that became Utah’s first dark sky community in 2018.

The hotel leans into the dark sky as one of its amenities, with dim lighting and a rooftop stargazing deck. Rowley said the night view is a big reason their customers spend their time and money there.

“More people are coming to see it. People are staying longer to see it. It gives them more to do in their trip… which is obviously going to impact the economy of the whole area.”

The hotel opened in 2023 and meeting the town’s strict lighting requirements presented some challenges. For example, he said the typical way engineers light up parking lots might be two or three times brighter than what they could do in a dark sky town. And since having lights in key places is a safety issue, it meant dimming or even tweaking the color temperature of its illumination to meet code.

“You have to get kind of creative. … Over time, people will have to get less creative because there's more of a system in place.”

Growing that system could be a big part of sustaining dark sky towns’ futures.

In Springdale, Dancie said they’ve started having conversations with other southwest Utah communities, and he’s hopeful they can work together to protect the region’s night skies. That matters, he said, because no town is an island.

Driving west from Springdale into the more populated parts of Washington County at night, it’s already easy to see the dome of light pollution in the distance. If the St. George metro area grows the way it’s projected to — and doesn’t safeguard the night sky as it does — Springdale could see its dark skies slip away.

“At some point, no matter what an awesome job we do, our dark sky resource will be threatened because of the impact of light in other areas of the region. … Those light domes will gradually get larger and larger and larger until they encompass Springdale.”