Affiliate Disclosure
The short version: book a tour through a link on this site and a small commission comes back to it, while your price stays exactly the same. Ranking on these pages is not for sale, and no operator can pay for a higher spot. Walking Old Town's haunted lanes on your own costs nothing and pays nothing.
A Comparison Site, Not An Operator
This site compares ghost walks, trolleys, fort hunts and haunted pub crawls, and that is all it does. No lantern is carried, no story told in person, no pint poured. The companies behind the twelve cards, among them Historic Tours of America, Ghost City Tours of Key West, Sloan's Key West Ghost Tours, US Ghost Adventures and Up The Keys Tours, are separate businesses. Reservations and payments are handled entirely on each operator's live booking page.
Where The Money Comes From
Every book button on a tour card leads to a live listing that carries this site's partner code. The 12 tours compared here, from the Ghosts and Gravestones trolley to the East Martello ghost hunts and the pub crawls along Duval Street, are all booked through Viator and GetYourGuide. When a reader reserves a seat through a tagged link, that platform shares a slice of its own cut with this site. What you pay does not move: the checkout total is the same figure you would find by searching for the tour yourself. There are no display ads, hotel links or other income streams running behind these pages.
Commission on bookings is the only money this site takes in. A tagged link that turns into a reservation earns a small percentage from the network, and the tour price you see never changes because of it. No sponsored write-ups, banner ads or paid placements appear anywhere here. Viator and GetYourGuide are the two networks currently in use, and if a third one is added, it gets named in this paragraph before any of its links go live.
Key West Haunts That Cost Nothing
Much of Key West's haunted scenery costs nothing to see. The Key West Cemetery, the lamp-lit lanes of Old Town and the stretch of Duval Street where most walks begin are all free to wander, and the tours largely show these same exteriors from the sidewalk. Where a stop charges admission, that purchase is between you and the attraction alone. Tours without a live listing to check against never earn a card here, and when a free option genuinely beats a paid one, the free option gets the mention.
What No Payment Buys Here
- Inclusion. A tour earns a card only if it is bookable through a live listing, run by a company that actually operates in Key West, and shown with the same rating and review count its own listing publishes.
- Ordering. Position is not for sale. Cards sit in their categories by review count, which is why the Key West Ghost and Mysteries walk, with 1,130 reviews, ranks high among the walking tours. No operator can pay to move a card up the page.
- What we say about them. The Ghosts and Gravestones trolley carries 1,392 reviews and the private haunted history walk carries 10, and both figures appear exactly as the live listings publish them. Where a listing does not name an operator, the card says so instead of guessing.
- What gets cut. Duplicate listings under different names, tours too new to judge by, and anything rated too poorly to recommend with a straight face. What remains is a deliberate shortlist of twelve.
Where The Figures Come From
Every rating, review count and duration shown on a tour card matches what its live listing displays. Nothing gets rounded, weighted or quietly adjusted to make a favorite look stronger. Prices move with dates and ticket types, so the live booking page is where to confirm the current figure before reserving a spot.
Booking Direct, With No Link Clicked
Each operator's name sits on its card, from Sloan's Key West Ghost Tours to Ghost City Tours, so any experience can be tracked down and reserved directly. The FAQ and the guides hold the same value whether a link is used or not.
Spotted a mistake or want to argue a pick: email us. How the shortlist is built is on the about page.