Hocus Pocus Tours

This tour was a really fun, well-​priced way to spend my time in Salem. Susan is a natural storyteller, and her husband Rich follows the group to make sure any extra questions were answered. They’re both funny and friendly and engaged the crowd in a wonderful way. They clearly know their history and did a great job of weaving several stories together at multiple stops. I noticed that several other tours in town had much larger groups, but Hocus Pocus kept it at 20 people or so, which was much nicer because we had time to ask questions. She also wore a microphone which made it easy to hear. If you’re looking for a spooky, exaggerated, inaccurate tour designed to scare rather than inform, this is NOT the tour for you. But if you want real history from great storytellers who love what they do, you will not be disappointed.

Wonderful tour hosted by wonderful, knowledgeable people. Susan & Rich are the best. Highly recommend this tour!

Susan and Rich rock. I consistently never take time to write reviews for places I go, but for this tour, it’s worth the time. I can’t speak for any other tours in Salem — and there are many — but a lot seem like they might be somewhat gimmicky, or shorter. We went with the highest rated tour and it was well worth it. Susan and Rich know their stuff and are excellent story tellers and it shows; no outfits or theatrics needed beyond good old fashioned fireside-​style storytelling.
It will keep you interested until the very end and you’ll learn an incredible amount of detail about the town that you just won’t get from reading pamphlets and taking a self guided tour during the day. We had walked around the town all day before this tour and enjoyed this more than anything else we had hit that day — and that’s saying a lot, because we walked by a lot of the sites we hit during the day — so it was interesting enough to make these sites new and exciting seeing them a second time.
Also, if it’s cold out, they give out hand warmers! Can’t beat the consideration.

What a great informative tour! We were aiming for more of a history tour rather than the ghost tours. Sue and Rich’s tour did NOT disappoint. They were friendly, personable, and never boring! Our family takes a tour in every new place we travel to, and we all agreed this was our favorite! Highly recommend! Thanks again!

We had a fabulous time on our tour. Susan was a wonderful guide with a high level of enthusiasm and in depth knowledge of Salem. We learned so many interesting facts and enjoyed seeing the many sights. I would highly recommend this tour– especially great for families with kids!!!

I wish I could give Hocus Pocus Tours 10 stars!
My fiancé and I signed up for a tour on what seemed like the coldest day ever. Our tour guides, Susan and Rich, came prepared and provided us with hand and feet warmers (no charge — so thoughtful).
We learned quite a bit about the history of Salem. Susan and Rich were extremely knowledgeable and willing to answer any and all of our questions. Their enthusiasm to teach us about Salem was quite evident and made the tour so much more enjoyable (versus a lecture).
If you are looking for a fun yet informative tour of Salem, Hocus Pocus Tours is the place to go!

Very informative tour! The guide, Susan, gave all the details of all the old houses and buildings in Salem. She also gave a lot of info on the history of the witch trials and the memorial. We did the 5pm tour and it was dark out. I’m glad Susan gave us the tip to check out the cemetery and the memorial before the tour. I would advise everyone to do this because you can’t enter the cemetery after 6.
Although she does mention the movie Hocus Pocus during the tour, the only film location we passed on the tour was the town hall. She did tell me prior the addresses of Max and Dani’s house and Allison’s house and advised us to check it out before the tour.
I got much more historical info from this tour than if we just walked around ourselves, so I’m glad we did it. I just would advise everyone to get your pics of the cemetary prior to the tour and also warn Hocus Pocus fans that this is not a film location tour.

I highly recommend the Hocus Pocus Tour! Susan and Richard were so fun and interesting, and they gave a nice long walking tour through the town’s history. Susan was our main guide, and you could tell she was very passionate about the town. It was fascinating to learn more history about Salem that I had never known before, and to really see the areas of town that have existed through the trials and the town’s long standing history — there was a home where a murder had taken place, another that was now considered haunted, and the road which led to gallows hill was pointed out, very eerie! I wish that I had an extra day in Salem after taking this tour, as many interesting areas were pointed out on the tour that I would have loved to walk around afterward. Of course a few spots from the Hocus Pocus movie were pointed out as well, which was fun! I hope to do this tour again next year!

Susan and Richard were very inviting, knowledgable, passionate, and real. This is a wonderful tour if you are looking to learn about the history of Salem without all of the added cheesy «scary» stuff, there is still a «dark side» to the tour, it’s Salem, or course there is, but there is no build up of all the commercialized Party City Halloween goblins and ghouls.
Susan captures your attention and maintains it throughout, she would be a great history teacher because she makes it fun and intriguing.
Recommend to anyone!

WAY better than the silly people who dress up like witches and such. These guys don’t mess around. My cousin (age 10) loved the historic and slightly scary tour. Very respectful of the Salem history. I especially appreciated that. Historically accurate and interesting. I would book ahead since they fill up quick!

Did their tour last night with my wife. Very easy going and very informative. It was a nice night for this type of walking tour. They even talked about a few ghosts!

Very enjoyable walking tour. The couple who run it are super personable & clearly work well together & take pride in their tour, which is nice to see. There’s nothing over the top, theatrical, or cheesy about this tour & that’s quite refreshing.
At first I was a little worried about it being 90 minutes of walking because my feet were killing me from walking around all day, but this was an easygoing pace, no problems there.
The stories were told well & with a lot of respect for the history. We even got to see some alleged ghost photographs taken in the area, which was awesome to see & something most tours totally neglect. It was great & couldn’t have had better weather.

This tour was awesome! Susan and Richard were excellent guides. Had a great time and would highly recommend this tour.

This was such a great tour! Susan was a fantastic tour guide and gave us all the great information and stories we needed. She kept our attention the whole time and even memorized our names! I agree with the other Unilocalers — I saw other tours walk by and was proud that we chose Hocus Pocus. You can tell Susan has a very special spot for the town of Salem. What a fun experience!

Susan is the best tour guide I’ve ever had in my life! She is so sweet and charming and brimming with knowledge. After wondering around Salem for a day, I was really hoping for a tour that would explain everything I saw. She really dove in and covered anything I could have asked for in 90 minutes. Our tour group size was on the smaller size, but she made it so personalized and memorized most names. After watching other groups pass by, I would say we had the most professional and beat tour of them all!

So entertaining and educational! Susan and Rich are very enthusiastic about all things Salem. Unlike most tour guides, they go out of their way to talk to you, rather than yell at you. I felt like I was learning from a favorite teacher in school.
My friends and I are all in our twenties and we enjoyed it immensely — however I would recommend this tour to all ages and definitely families with children old enough to appreciate a good ghost story /​Hocus Pocus movie location /​history lesson! Such variety and fun, I will return!
PS. We got a glimpse at the other walking tours as we went through ours — this is absolutely the one you want!

The tour was different from what I expected. Susan told very specific stories and spoke about architecture a little too much for me but she was so enthusiastic that it made up for any lulls. She provided us with pictures, spooky tales and even gave us some helpful tips on where to eat. It was a long tour for the cold weather, and we chose the pm tour so it probably just felt a little too long because it was late and I was cold. But other than that very entertaining and informative.

We went on Susan’s tour our second day in Salem. I was a little worried that we would just see things that we had already seen on our own and we kind of did but we got more details. For example the memorial… Susan dove into the details of the memorial. There is so much symbolism in the memorial from the trees to the stones to the way the walls are placed. I would have never figured that out on my own!
I also liked the smaller group size and I enjoyed that we saw some sites I would not have found on my own.
I will say that this is not a haunted tour or a history tour or a hocus pocus tour. Instead you will get just a sample of all three. For me that was kind of fun.

I absolutely loved this tour! Not only was it fun, Susan and her husband were so amazing to just be around. They take you threw salem, they take you to some pretty awesome graves. Give you a little history as you walk threw salem and they take you to where they have the memorial by the graveside.
we got to walk threw salem at night, and while you cant go inside the cemetery after dark where they have the memorial you can walk along the wall and it takes you into the middle without being inside it.
it was a hour and a half tour, we got to see the bewitched statue. Only thing was with it being the hocus pocus tour i kinda anticipated it being more about the movie.
BUT i loved it and def will be coming back to this when i come back.

This is more of a 3.5 star experience.
I definitely liked the tour. Susan was extremely upbeat and entertaining. I thought, however, that it was going to be a bit more spooky, but I guess that was my misunderstanding. I did learn a lot of interesting facts and tidbits of information. I sort of wish I had had a similar tour earlier, because I was introduced to many places that I would have liked to have visited in the daytime. Unfortunately, we were leaving directly after the tour, so this was impossible.
My mom and aunt were cold and tired, and I dragged them on this tour. Although it wouldn’t have been an «end-​all» if we had decided to skip it, I’m glad that I got to experience what I did. Again, this would have been much more worthwhile if I had been given the ability to revisit some of the sites later on, but that’s a scheduling issue.