Ghost walks (or ghost tours) are guided tours where guests are shown the haunted history of an area or a location. Ghost tours cater to tourists and are not meant to be as frightening or taken as seriously as an actual ghost hunting would be.

If you want the reality of a ghost hunt you will need to talk to the ghost hunting or paranormal research group and ask to be included next time they go out on something other than a tour. However, you would have to be someone with more knowledge and commitment to investigating the paranormal than at the tourist level.

Finding a Ghost Walking Tour

If you are already online the easiest way to find a local ghost hunting tour group is to try an online search. Open your search site of choice: Yahoo, Google, DuckDuckGo (a new search which I've been trying and liking), etc. Type in the search terms - "ghost tour", "haunted walk", "haunted tour", "ghost exploring", and then your local area which could be the town or city or the county you live in. Don't restrict your search to a small area, unless you live in a very large city and want to find something right in your neighbourhood.

Don't forget to check social sites like Flickr, YouTube and Pinterest for people who are giving ghost tours or have been on a ghost tour and given a review of their experience.

Also, search for paranormal seekers and ghost hunters in the larger area around you. Often they will have links to smaller groups in the area on their websites or blogs. This is a great help, of course, for people looking for local ghost tours.

You can also contact the larger groups and ask for information, links or phone numbers to contact any local ghost hunters who would give tours if asked or may already run scheduled tours.

Another way to find your local ghost hunters is to watch where local groups list their upcoming events. I found my local group listed in the local newspaper and a website giving free space to local groups to list their upcoming events. The ghost tours are a tourist service, a small business, so they won't be trying to be too secretive, they want customers to find them. Ask around town, talk to other local business people and see what they know.

Historical Walking Tours

Here in my area, Barrie, Ontario, Canada, we have Doors Open, which is a tour of historical homes and places. The doors to private homes and businesses open once a year for people to have a look.

Look for tours of historical places in your area and ask the people who give the tour if any of the places are known or suspected to be haunted.

Talk to people in your local historical society too. Anyone with an interest in history of the local area is likely to know other people who share the same interests.

Urban Explorers Like Old Places and History

Try to find a group or individual who explores old places, not for ghost hunting, necessarily. Urban explorers like old places. They don't focus on finding ghosts or any thing paranormal but they are usually interested and have stories of their own to share.

Local Pagans Will Know Where the Ghost Tours Are

Is there a local group of Pagans, Wiccans or Witches? These are another group of people who tend to be involved in the local paranormal community. Chances are great someone in the Pagan community will also know about the paranormal researchers in your area. (Actually, they are very likely to be part of both groups).

If your town or local area has a Pagan supplies store, ask there about ghost tours. They will likely have a business card, brochure or something they can hand out to tourists looking for a local ghost walk.

Find Out What the Ghost Tour Includes

Don't forget a ghost tour is a business, like any other kind of tourism service. Don't pay for the tour without checking to make sure you are getting what you want. Just what does the tour include? Will you need your own transportation between locations, if there are more than one included in the tour? Does the tour guide have a plan for handling things if someone gets too spooked out and needs a break? Will you get to see data taken from the tour and discuss it afterwards, like a paranormal investigator rather than being just a tourist sent on your way right afterwards?

Also, find out what you need to bring. Should you dress warmly, bring your own water or coffee? Find out what you are allowed to bring as well. Can you bring your own ghost hunting gear, if you have any?

Need More Ghosts?

• How to Catch Ghosts at Home
• Finding and Exploring Canadian Cemeteries
• Finding and Exploring Canadian Ghost Towns
• Ghosts, Spirits, Phantoms and Spooks in ASCII Text Art
• Ghost Signs: Faded, Painted Signs on the Sides of Buildings

Barrie Paranormal Links: My Own Local Ghost Hunters

• Jeff Ostrander.com - Jeff's Paranormal Investigations
• The Haunted Barrie Meetup Group
• Ghost Girls Of Simcoe County - Rogers TV

I'm a Canadian urban explorer, based in Ontario. I love the old places, history and thoughts of how our own future might turn out. Every explorer has their own reasons for what we do.

When i lived in Toronto, I explored downtown. My favourite places were the old buildings along Yonge, Queen and Spadina streets. Any time I caught the bus somewhere in Toronto I would find a new location to come back to with my camera. I love the old buildings with old stone work and weathered wood, glass and iron.

Urban exploration is about more than old buildings or abandoned buildings. Some urban explorers prefer drains and tunnels. Some go higher, much higher and take photographs from the rooftops of tall buildings and other tall structures like bridges. Some explorers stay on ground level (like myself). There is a lot to see right in front of you.

Do You Think About a Life After People?

I like watching Life After People and Aftermath (created by History Television in Canada). I also like books about the end of the world and how people and civilization/ society rebuild or recreate themselves. I can look at artistic creations with predictions of utopias and our possible futures for ages. I love to see how things might turn out, how we (as a society) weather the storms of our own existence. I also like to see how the buildings and other man-made creations and structures erode and weather through time. These buildings, our creations, are like our presence into the future. At some point they could be all we have left to show who we are.

This is what I feel when I look at abandoned, derelict and ruined places. There's a sense of loss, mystery and a feeling of endurance and strength.

The Red Dot

Did you ever see a sign up with nothing but one large red dot? Would you know that was a "no trespassing" sign? It is.

I think you would have to be an explorer (or at least a road tripper of some kind) to know that. Most people would see that red dot and maybe wonder about it, maybe not really notice it. An urban explorer will be curious, or already know what the red dot means.

In the city there are not many signs spray painted with red dots. City sites have nice professional signs that let you know where you shouldn't be.

However, you can't explore without crossing onto private property or going through the 'staff only' areas. Explorers have always had to take a few risks, have some adventures, in order to make their discoveries.

Find Places to Explore

• Vanishing Point
• UrbEx Barrie
• Under Montreal
• Sean Galbraith Photography
• Pipe Cleaner
• Ontario Abandoned Places
• NTROPY
• ExBORation
• Angels of the Underground
• Wraiths | Urban exploration in Vancouver.
• Urban Exploration Alberta
• urbexObsession
• Atlantic Canada Urban Exploration - Facebook
• Abandoned Nova Scotia
• Halifax UrbEx
• abandonment issues
• UER.ca - Urban Exploration Resource
• Doors Open Canada | The Heritage Canada Foundation
• Open Directory -Urban Exploration: North America: Canada
• Ghost towns in Canada
• GhostTownsCanada.ca
• Flickr: Abandoned Canada
• Flickr: Canadian Rural Ruins
• Canadas Historic Places.ca

Handy Links for Canadian Travellers and Explorers

• CAA - The Canadian Automobile Association
• Canadian Geographic

Currently Metropolitan Toronto includes a lot of other small cities and towns. Metropolitan Toronto now reaches out to areas beyond the original borders and far beyond it's own city limits. This large mass of area has become known as The Greater Toronto Area - the GTA for short.

I grew up in a small town which was on the edge of the big city of Toronto. When I was still a kid the town was called Port Union. By the time I was in high school our town of Port Union had become part of Scarborough, absorbed into the suburbs of the city of Toronto. Scarborough is the eastern suburbs of Toronto. People sometimes refer to it as Scarberia because it is over an hour's drive from downtown Toronto to the edges of Scarborough.

I never quite liked the loss of identity from our smaller town, forgotten in history. Port Union lost it's place on the map and become a non-town. If you drive out there you can still find one long street named Port Union Road, but that's all you will find remaining from the early days of the area being independent from the suburbs of Toronto.

However, that's how big cities grow. Toronto has grown a lot from the days of being known as York (Muddy York) over 100 years ago.

The GTA combines the regions of the City of Toronto, York, Durham, Peel and Halton.

I don't live in the GTA now. I moved farther north and I live in Simcoe region, just outside the reaches of the northern part of the GTA. Someday this may become absorbed too, but I'm pretty sure that will be far into the future. Not everyone is eager to move farther north after all. Most of the population density seems to be heading east and west of the Toronto area.

The History of the GTA - The MegaCity of Toronto

In 1998 the sprawling suburbs of Toronto: York, North York, East York, Scarborough and Etobicoke became part of the municipality of the city of Toronto. The megacity, The Greater Toronto Area came into being. Toronto became the largest city in Canada and the fifth largest in North America.

The addition of Halton, Peel, York and Durham is unofficial, as far as I can tell. Sometime after the forming of the megacity people began referring to locations by how far they were from Toronto. For instance, if you were thinking to drive out to Richmond Hill from Toronto you decide it's not too far because it's still in the GTA. But, if someone is thinking to drive out to Barrie, they might rethink it. Barrie is outside the GTA, at least another half hour drive.

The whole GTA thing is usually a way of measuring the distance of any place from Toronto. "How far is it, is it still in the GTA?" When you meet people online and think about getting together there is an imaginary line around the GTA and few people want to cross it. If you are in the GTA you think anything outside of the area is too far. If you are outside of the GTA you think about driving through the GTA traffic and usually look elsewhere to meet people.

5100 - An urban explorer's magazine. Anyone who has explored in the provinces of BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba is welcome to write about their experiences and submit it to the zine for publishing.

Blogs.ca : Canadian Blogging Community

"Are you a writer? Do you currently have a successful blog? We are looking for writers for a series of information blogs on a wide range of Canadian topics (music, movies, politics, etc). If you are interested and/or have an idea for an info blog, let us know!"

How great is that! I would love to write a Canadian blog. What topic? There are so many things I'm interested in and know something about. Maybe something kind of flexible like a topic geared to women. I could blog about all kinds of stuff that way: arts, crafts, issues, home business, family, relationships, careers, etc endlessly. Maybe that would be best for me.

A blog about writing and writers would be marvelous too. I've written about all kinds of topics. Once I wrote a weekly newsletter about ASCII art, if I could do that for almost a year I can come up with something to say about anything!