I had a friend and her family visiting unexpectedly, and since they’re interested in ghosts and the occult I rushed and scheduled a tour very last minute (like, the evening before/morning of. Please don’t do this, we got lucky that there was a slot our group could snap up), so they could experience a ghost tour and hear some of the town’s history. I didn’t want to take them on anything hokey or with fake spooks. Our group was two parents in their forties, three twenty somethings, a middle schooler and a high schooler. So we were a little difficult to please when it came to content simply because of age range.
Aaron was our tour guide - we were running late to the start of the tour, but his last tour had run a little long and the timing worked out. He took us around the south end of town instead of toward the more common touristy areas like the jail and told us stories that were common to the town as well as stories that he’d heard from other guests, and stories about things he had experienced himself.
Some of the scariest stories weren’t about the town but things he’d heard on his tour from guests. I still think of some and shudder. I was happy to hear less depressing ghost stories about the town itself - I’ve grown up here and never heard them, since usually people linger on the grotesque and violent stories (hi Ripley’s murder). I was also interested in the pure history bits like the life of Henry Flagler, which Aaron told in an engaging way. He kept both the adults and the tweenager/teenager in our group engaged by varying the stories he told us based on live feedback - basically, he followed off of our questions and comments to segue into related tales. It doesn’t escape me how many stories and histories someone has to know to manage this with any sort of grace, as he did.
I really enjoyed the tour, which I wasn’t expecting. And the friend who was visiting and her family were all expressly happy with it (well, I asked, since I’d just dragged them around town within an hour or midnight). I’m planning on taking other friends that visit on the tour and was very satisfied with the experience.
Some notes for anyone who wants to go:
Schedule earlier than we did. If you’ve only got yourself or another person you can be grouped with others, but a big group like ours had to take up a tour slot for safety reasons. Don’t want to lose track of anyone. Also, they won’t always have slots open if you don’t book in advance.
We went on July 3rd, a miserably balmy night with frogs groaning - surprisingly appropriate for ghost stories. There’s a water fountain at the start of the tour - use it to refill a canteen or water bottle, especially if you’re going in the summer. You need water to walk around St Augustine at night, unless you’re wanting a tour of Flagler hospital for heat exhaustion. I can’t recommend that, so please bring water or a sport drink.
If you’re going in wintertime then bring a coat- our tour went by the marina, which does have seaspray, and St Augustine gets surprisingly chilly in wintertime.
Lastly, tip your tour guide! They’re performing a service, and if you feel they did an exemplary job a tip shows your appreciation for it.
10/10 would go again. Happy spook hunting!