Bottom line: I would recommend the Wandering Witch tour.
A friend and I visiting Salem for three days booked the ātriple threatā tour which took us on the Wandering Witch tour first, Steps Through 1692 tour second, and Spooky Spectres tour last.
Our tour guide for the first two tours, Tom, was fantastic! He offered up history, jokes, and stories while also clarifying and debunking stereotypes and old wives tales. We enjoyed the easy walk through downtown Salem seeing many sights we had read about online as well as some new landmarks. We were disappointed that many of the same landmarks were included in the second tour as well as the third. Tom knew we had booked the triple threat and did say he would save some stories for when we returned during the second tour which seemed a little odd. We would have preferred to take a longer tour and hear all the stories at once for each landmark rather than take three separate tours with a 45 minute break in between just to return to the same spots to hear a little more about them.
That brings us to the third tour. Our tour guide Carrie was quite nervous which was understandable because as she mentioned it was her first time guiding a tour on her own. She gave us very few actual ghost stories, the rest of the āstoriesā were just reports of sightings but no explanation as to the history of the spot and why a ghost would be there. Many roads were blocked off for the Haunted Happenings Grand Parade that was actually going on during the tour. Carrie told us we would be doing the tour backwards to get around the parade, but after walking us in a circle around the block (āI took you in a circle, I promise Iāll make up for itā she exclaimed) we ended up having to literally cut through the parade itself which I felt was rude to those watching the parade as well as the participants. It seemed like poor planning on behalf of Tours for Touring Tourists to have a first time guide take us out on a complicated night during a parade.