Some couples go to New Orleans for the food. Some friends go for the bar on Frenchmen Street that does not close.
You want to sleep somewhere with a history, and maybe among a few ghosts.
New Orleans makes this easy. The city has burned twice, flooded repeatedly, and buried a great many people through the yellow fever epidemics without moving them very far. The French Quarter is three centuries of overlapping lives stacked on a few square blocks, and the haunted hotels are sitting on all of it.
Below you’ll find 8 haunted hotels in New Orleans, all in or beside the French Quarter, with what the building was before it was a hotel and what guests and staff report now.
- Most haunted hotel in New Orleans: Hotel Monteleone – staff have reported the same small boy on the fourteenth floor since the 1890s
- Best for the story: Hotel Provincial – Building 500 was a Confederate hospital, and guests report bloodstains on the bedding that are gone by morning
- Best for couples: Le Pavillon – 1907 grand hotel, Paris marble, free peanut butter sandwiches at 10pm
- Smallest and creepiest: Andrew Jackson Hotel – built where five boys died in a fire in 1794
- Best bar attached: Dauphine Orleans – the bar was a brothel and the licence is still on the wall
- Best value in the Quarter: Place D’Armes Hotel – built on the same school site as the Andrew Jackson, and guests report the same children
A note before you book: these are all working hotels you can book tonight. The hauntings are what guests and staff report, not claims we can verify, and we have said who is doing the reporting throughout.
Most Haunted Hotels in New Orleans
These three are the ones named in every ghost tour, every listicle and most hotel bar conversations after midnight.
01. Hotel Monteleone, French Quarter
In the French Quarter since 1886 and the name that comes up first in every conversation about haunted places to stay in New Orleans. The lift skips the thirteenth floor, so the fourteenth is really the thirteenth, which is the sort of decision that tells you what the owners believed.
The most repeated story is of a small boy who died at the hotel in the 1890s and is still reported on the upper floors. Downstairs the Carousel Bar genuinely rotates, one slow turn every fifteen minutes, so when a regular tells you they just watched someone walk past who should not have been there, you get to decide how many drinks in they were.
See dates & prices on Booking.com →
02. Bourbon Orleans Hotel, French Quarter
The ballroom dates to 1817. The site later held a convent and then an orphanage through the yellow fever epidemics, which is a great deal of grief for one address.
Staff have reported a child with a ball in the sixth-floor corridor and a dancer in the ballroom. You are also on Bourbon Street, so some of what wakes you at 3am will be very much alive.
See dates & prices on Booking.com →
03. Le Pavillon, Central Business District
A 1907 grand hotel with marble railings shipped from a Paris hotel and chandeliers that belong in an opera house. It is the most opulent building on this list by a distance.
The story goes that a young woman in period dress is seen near the lobby. The hotel also serves peanut butter sandwiches and hot chocolate at 10pm every night, which is either charming or a distraction technique.
See dates & prices on Booking.com →
Haunted Places to Stay in the French Quarter
Everything below is inside the Quarter, which means you can walk home from dinner and be mildly unnerved on arrival.
04. Andrew Jackson Hotel, French Quarter
A small courtyard hotel on Royal Street, built on the site of a boarding school where, the story goes, five boys died in a fire in 1794.
Guests report children laughing in the courtyard at night. It is one of the most consistently reported haunted hotels in New Orleans and one of the smallest, so it books out fast.
See dates & prices on Booking.com →
05. Dauphine Orleans Hotel, French Quarter
Parts of the building date to 1775. The bar was once a brothel run by May Baily, and the hotel has kept the licence framed on the wall rather than quietly losing it.
Staff have reported a former resident of the brothel in the bar, and a soldier in the courtyard. There is a pool, which helps.
See dates & prices on Booking.com →
06. Hotel Provincial, French Quarter
Five restored buildings around courtyards on Chartres Street. Building 500 served as a Confederate military hospital.
The reports here are unusually specific: guests describe blood on bedding that is gone by morning, and wounded soldiers in the corridor. Building 500 is the one people request, and the one people ask to move out of.
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07. Inn on Ursulines, French Quarter
A guest house on Ursulines Avenue, steps from the Old Ursuline Convent, which is the source of Louisiana’s most persistent vampire legend involving the sealed third-floor shutters.
The inn itself is quiet, courtyarded and reasonably priced. The neighbourhood does the heavy lifting.
See dates & prices on Booking.com →
08. Place D’Armes Hotel, French Quarter
Five townhouses around a courtyard and pool on St. Ann Street, a few steps from Jackson Square. It sits on the site of the same eighteenth-century boys’ school as the Andrew Jackson Hotel next door, which burned in 1794.
Guests report the same things they report next door: children heard in the courtyard, and a man in a hat seen in the corridors. It is the better choice of the two if you want a pool and a slightly larger room.
See dates & prices on Booking.com →
Where to Stay in New Orleans for Halloween
New Orleans at Halloween is busier than most people expect, and it is not only Halloween: the last weekend of October collides with the Voodoo Music + Arts Experience and the city fills. If you want a haunted hotel in the French Quarter for late October, book by August. The small ones, the Andrew Jackson and Inn on Ursulines, go first because they have the fewest rooms.
If you miss the window, the Central Business District is a ten-minute walk from the Quarter and holds availability far longer. Le Pavillon sits there and is the grandest building on this list.
Haunted Places to Visit in New Orleans
Nobody comes to New Orleans only to sleep. The French Quarter is thirteen blocks by six, so everything below is walkable from any hotel on this page.
St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is the one to see first. The city’s dead are buried above ground because the water table would not have them, and the result is street after street of stone tombs. It is also where Marie Laveau, the nineteenth-century Voodoo queen, is said to be interred. Access is restricted, so you go in with a licensed guide.
The LaLaurie Mansion on Royal Street is a private house and can only be seen from the pavement, which is close enough given what was found in its attic in 1834. Jackson Square and the cathedral behind it sit on ground used for public executions. For the wider history, Jean Lafitte National Historical Park runs free talks in the Quarter.
And you should do a ghost tour in New Orleans. They leave from Jackson Square most evenings and range from cemetery walks to the theatrical Bourbon Street sort. Voodoo tours in New Orleans are the other option and a genuinely different experience: less jump-scare, more religious history, and the good guides treat the subject as a living practice rather than a costume.
Haunted Places to Stay in New Orleans: Your Questions Answered
What is the most haunted hotel in New Orleans?
Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter, open since 1886. It is the most frequently named in both ghost tours and paranormal investigations. The hotel’s lift skips the thirteenth floor, and the most repeated story concerns a small boy who died at the hotel in the 1890s.
Which hotel in New Orleans was a hospital?
Hotel Provincial on Chartres Street. Building 500 served as a Confederate military hospital during the Civil War, and guests staying in that building report seeing wounded soldiers in the corridors and blood on bedding that is gone by morning.
Are there haunted hotels on Bourbon Street in New Orleans?
The Bourbon Orleans Hotel is on Bourbon Street itself. Its ballroom dates to 1817 and the site later held a convent and an orphanage during the yellow fever epidemics. Staff have reported a child with a ball on the sixth floor.
Can you stay in a haunted hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans?
Yes. The Hotel Monteleone, Bourbon Orleans, Andrew Jackson Hotel, Dauphine Orleans, Hotel Provincial, Inn on Ursulines and Hotel St. Marie are all inside the French Quarter and you can book any of them tonight.
When should you book a haunted hotel in New Orleans?
For late October, book by August. Halloween weekend overlaps with the Voodoo Festival and the French Quarter sells out. The smallest properties, such as the Andrew Jackson Hotel and Inn on Ursulines, fill first because they have the fewest rooms.
Is New Orleans the most haunted city in the U.S.?
New Orleans and Savannah are the two most commonly named. New Orleans has the stronger claim on history: the city burned in 1788 and 1794, flooded repeatedly, and lost tens of thousands to yellow fever in the nineteenth century, much of it concentrated in the few blocks of the French Quarter.
The hauntings here are what guests and staff report. The history is a matter of record: the French Quarter covers the fires, the floods and the yellow fever years that most of these stories grew out of.
So, Which Haunted Hotel in New Orleans Are You Booking?
Pick the one that made you stop scrolling, then book it before August if you are going anywhere near Halloween.
Want the rest of the country? We have rounded up the 27 most haunted hotels in the USA, and if you would rather have a whole house to yourselves, 24 haunted places to stay including haunted Airbnbs.
More Haunted Hotels and Haunted Places to Stay in the U.S.
If this city is booked out, or you just want to compare the options before you commit, here is the rest of the collection:
- Haunted places to stay in Savannah – small, walkable and built on top of its own burial grounds.
- Haunted hotels in San Antonio – the easiest one to book late, and the Alamo is across the street.
- Haunted hotels in Salem MA – the October capital, and the one you have to book by June.
- Haunted hotels in New York – Manhattan rock-star ghosts, or a colonial inn open since 1766.
- Haunted hotels in Gettysburg – buildings that were field hospitals, with the bullet holes still in them.
- The most haunted hotels in the USA – the full list, city by city.
- Haunted places to stay: 24 rentals and haunted Airbnbs – whole houses, so the ghost is all yours.