OLD TOWN SAN DIEGO

If you’ll bear with me on this, I’m using this space to dump some San Diego photos I took a few years back but also? I’m using this space to brain dump the most fever dream ghost tour I’ve ever been on.

Old Town San Diego is, at its core, a high tourist zone. Lots of families wrestling their unruly children while in line at the Mexican restaurants, lots of retirees out for a stroll, but through it all Old Town still maintains its charm.

Coolest part about Old Town? Suuuuuper super haunted. While selecting a ghost tour over one Thanksgiving weekend, my sister and I didn’t wanna get involved on a walking tour with families so we instead found a smaller tour that would grant after hours access to the haunted Cosmopolitan Hotel.

And we’re off to the races for one bizarre night in Old Town. And I’m not trying to be rude, I truthfully wouldn’t change a chaotic second of it.

But enough set-up. We landed on a tour company run by just some guy, because of the promise of use of equipment and actual ghost hunting opportunities. And how do you set up a tour like this? Easy, you just straight up text the guy. Next, you show up, he rolls up in his custom painted van, and you just roam about for two hours. What’s possibly weird about this??

After killing time drinking wine under a heat lamp at the haunted Cosmopolitan Hotel, we met up with our guide at the fountain as instructed via text. Then we were immediately met with the reality we were the only two people on this 10pm tour. Yikes.

It started off as most tours do: a walk through the town and some brief historical facts followed by some recent hauntings and a collection of strange photos taken either by previous tour members or the guide himself. Unfortunately for us, the guide came out guns blazing on our case over how serious we even were about the paranormal. He did a quick interrogation over whether or not either of us had ever felt or seen a ghost. While mid-sentence explaining that no, I had not ever seen a full apparation he cut me off with an “You will tonight!!!!” Not a hint of chill in his delivery. My dude meant it, he made an outright guarantee we wouldn’t leave without seeing a ghost.

Your ghost tours could never.

Next up, we walked all the way down to the old cemetery, which is honestly super f*cking cool. And side note creepy fact about Old Town? There are bodies everywhere. And to take it a step further, Old Town has the grave sites mapped out throughout the streets. Now they’re marked with tiny metal markers that call it what it is, a grave site.

So, going back to the tour. The guide set us loose in the graveyard and told us to see what we could find, before literally disappearing into the shadows. He re-appeared after a few minutes of us fumbling around the cemetery in the dark and calmly said, “Well, since I saw neither of you made it over to the info kiosk I guess I’ll just tell you”. I honestly forgot what the fun fact even was since my inner monologue was so deafening.

After the outdoor portion wrapped, we were finally allowed inside the Cosmopolitan Hotel bar for the ghost hunting portion of the evening.

The bar itself is really cool, and I’ve added this to the list of dream hotels I need to spend the night in. Everything in it looks aesthetically vintage and the floors have that historic squeaky that I love. There’s a couple of connected rooms in this portion of the hotel, so he had us walk around with some EMF meters to see what we felt. 

I will also take this moment to reiterate that I firmly do believe this place is haunted however I was skeptical about seeing a full apparition on demand.

The guide would point to corners and have us stand there and shout what we felt. Typically wherever he sent me I didn’t feel anything, but I was also sidetracked by making escape plans in case of a surprise murder. Once we reconvened in the dining room, MAJOR bombshell was dropped.

“Um so I’m actually a psychic medium” our guide stated without any warning, “and there are…” he trailed off and started silently pointing towards the ceiling. “Eleven. There are eleven spirits in here with us right now.”

Then came the surprise seance. I should have probably guessed this, all signs were leading straight to this ridiculous conclusion from the moment he rolled up in his custom painted van.

My favorite one of the little exercises he had us do was when I was sent to a corner chair while a ghost cat hopped up on my lap. He told me when the cat was there and then to start petting. Which I don't know if I've ever felt more stupid than I did in that moment. My hand hovering over nothing, telling myself this would all be over soon. And the thing about this is, again, I really do believe in ghosts. But if you’re a skeptic and you want to see proof, petting a ghost cat on your lap is guaranteed not the way to go.

Eventually my hand got tired of just stroking thin air and I asked why I didn’t feel the cat anymore, to which he replied “well, he jumped off”. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct answer I guess?

At the end, he had us stare through the doorway down towards the entry way while he instructed a ghost to step in and out of our view. I couldn’t see it, and I think this was supposed to be the moment where promises were fulfilled and we'd see a ghost. At the slightest hint of hesitancy of whether or not we were seeing the figure he was describing, he would double down and just tell us to look harder and not blink. Of course by doing that my contacts became so dry they nearly fell onto the floor, and I had to lie and say I did see something move just to make the suffering come to an end.

So to wrap this expanded Yelp review up…I don’t believe I saw any ghosts that night BUT I’m not saying there weren’t any around. It wasn’t all bullshit, but I can see it being easy to make a skeptic roll their eyes even harder. I will never not laugh about this. And you know what? I hope this tour never, ever changes. 

Anyway, enjoy the cactuscore and gravecore woven throughout.