FAQs

There are stairs on the Soul of Slabtown tour, and both stairs and steep hills on the St. Johns tours. While there are no cobblestones, growing tree roots can occasionally make city sidewalks uneven. Your guide monitors these routes annually and makes quick adjustments to ensure we stay on the highest quality, best-repaired paths possible.

All of our public routes are loops that bring you right back to the beginning. Each of our tours has a unique starting point, and the individual tour descriptions detail specific transit and parking options.

We want everyone to experience Portland’s history. Of our weekly public outdoor routes, the Women of Nob Hill and A Night with Ghosts tours offer the best, smoothest rolling experience for wheelchairs or scooters without requiring any route modifications. The monthly Foster Tour has the best sidewalks.

For guests who love history but are physically unable to navigate the St. Johns walking routes, we also offer a unique digital PowerPoint “slide show” alternative for all of our tours. Please contact us directly ahead of time if you have additional questions so we can seamlessly accommodate your specific needs!

Public transit is the best way to get to our tours! The Portland Streetcar or TriMet bus lines are highly convenient; you can plan your route using the Trip Planner on the TriMet website. If you choose to drive, please note that parking meters are active in the NW Area tours until 7:00 PM. The City of Portland encourages drivers to download and use the Parking Kitty mobile app for easy street parking management.

It is a leisurely stroll/roll with lots of stopping to look at historic sites, photos, and landmarks.

Public transit is the best way to get to our tours! The Portland Streetcar or TriMet bus lines are highly convenient; you can plan your route using the Trip Planner on the TriMet website. If you choose to drive, please note that parking meters are active in the NW Area tours until 7:00 PM. The City of Portland encourages drivers to download and use the Parking Kitty mobile app for easy street parking management.

We generally run rain or shine (this is Portland, after all!). However, if the weather becomes genuinely dangerous or severe, we prioritize your safety:

• Heat: If the National Weather Service issues an official heat advisory, we will contact you to cancel and fully refund the tour. For booked Private Tours, we can alternatively move the tour to earlier in the morning or relocate it to a cooler forest route.
• Snow & Ice: Normally, we cancel and refund if conditions are icy or unsafe. However, we assess safety on a case-by-case basis. (For example, on Valentine’s Day 2025 it snowed; we offered refunds, but one couple asked to try anyway. We met, determined it was safe slush with no ice, and had a great tour!)
• Air Quality: If local schools and parks issue an advisory against outdoor activity due to wildfire smoke, we will officially cancel and refund. If you personally feel unsafe walking due to air quality before an official cancellation is issued, just contact us to reschedule.

While costumes are not typical, they are always highly appreciated by our guides—and by the local ghosts Feel free to dress up. We encourage all our guests to dress up for our Halloween Tour. Bonus admission is free at Peculiarium if you are in costume. To qualify for the freebie, your costume has to pass the cashier’s criteria. Think legitimate cosplay or a wild outfit you wouldn’t normally wear to work or out clubbing (not just a simple hat).

Photography is absolutely allowed and encouraged! We love it when guests capture the historic architecture and beautiful night backdrops. We just kindly ask that you do not record extended video or audio of the guide’s full historical narratives so that our researched material remains proprietary. Also no pictures of William Reid Jr.

Yes! If you are looking for dog-friendly things to do in Portland, you and your furry friend(s) are welcome here. Well-behaved, leashed dogs can join any of our standard outdoor walking tours. Because our regular tours are entirely outdoors and we do not enter any buildings, it is a great activity for you and your pup.

The content on our ghost tours is mature and not appropriate for children. Trigger warning: our narratives include historical accounts of rape, a child shot on a playground, and a cold-blooded plot by local 19th-century doctors to kidnap a child for vivisection.

Some material on our Slabtown: A Night With Ghosts Tour and St. Johns Murder, Mayhem & Oddities is not suitable for children 12 and younger. For our daytime history tours, you know your children best! These tours are akin to a walking college class or an in-depth extracurricular activity. Over the last 10 years, we find children are either bored by the heavy history or absolutely thrilled and pepper the guide with questions.

Note: We love teaching kids and happily design specialized, kid-friendly private ghost and crime tours for summer camps and school groups and maybe your child upon request!

Yes! While our public tours have a strict guest cap to keep them intimate, we love hosting private groups, milestone birthdays, and bachelor/bachelorette parties. A private historical or ghost tour is a fantastic, unique way to kick off an evening celebration. Contact us directly to custom-tailor a private route and time for your group.

No. Our standard public tours are 100% outdoor walking experiences, and we do not go underground or enter the Shanghai Tunnels. However, we do occasionally host special indoor events! Please like the Slabtown Tour LLC Facebook page or sign up for our monthly email newsletter to stay informed about exclusive opportunities to step inside Portland’s historic homes.

Because we operate on public city sidewalks and maintain a family-friendly educational environment on our daytime routes, open containers of alcohol and smoking (including e-cigarettes/vaping) are not permitted during the tour.

No, we do not offer pub crawls or food stops. If you are looking for an engaging, memorable night out in Portland that doesn’t revolve around bars or alcohol, our evening tours are the perfect alternative! We focus entirely on deep, immersive storytelling and authentic historical education. We have some food tour guide friends we are happy to recommend that a small like us.

If you are looking for fun things to do in Portland tonight—especially if you want an engaging, memorable night out that doesn’t involve bars or drinking—our evening tours are the perfect choice! We offer compelling nighttime experiences like our A Night with Ghosts Tour and the St. Johns Murder, Mayhem & Oddities Tour. They are fantastic ways to explore the city’s history under the cover of night, perfect for solo travelers, couples, or groups looking for unique Portland evening activities.

No, we do not use EMF meters, dowsing rods, or other ghost-hunting gear. Our tours rely on the most powerful tool available: authentic history. Every haunting we discuss is rooted in actual archival discoveries, 19th-century journalism, and documented neighborhood journals.

My kids wish they were. Guides read aloud from primary source documents on the A Night Wit Ghost Tours.

Tipping is never required, but it is always deeply appreciated! Our guides put an immense amount of research, energy, and passion into creating a “drama in motion” for you. If you had a wonderful time and learned something new, tipping is a great way to say thanks. If your guide is Dr. March she will often direct you to write a review. Saying thanks for a good tour does not need to be expressed by a monetary payment – reviews help guest find us.

I get it—locals want deep-dive history and tourists want the highlights. The good thing is that after years of teaching, Dr. March has the unique ability to flex her storytelling to please both. Tourists love getting a genuine, unvarnished look at the city, while locals are routinely shocked by the hidden history they’ve walked past for years.

Unlike highly commercialized underground attractions or theatrical ghost walks, Slabtown Tours offers deeply researched, authentic history led by an expert historian (Tanya March, PhD). We don’t rely on cheap jump-scares or manufactured myths. Instead, we connect you to the real, gritty, and fascinating historical record of Portland’s neighborhoods. Our tours are immersive, educational, and grounded in actual archival discoveries, making them perfect for true history buffs and those looking for a genuine look at Portland’s past.

For too long, women and other historically excluded communities have been consistently overlooked, undervalued, or erased entirely from historic recognition and designation. We do our best to include missing history in all of our tours.

For landscape photos the St. Johns tours. For amazing architecture the Women of Nob Hill Tour. If you want to pair our tours with dinning, theater, museum exhibits, books, movies. Reach out to us and we can help you pair our tours to augment any excursion.

The short answer? Authenticity, deep credentials, and an unscripted, human experience. While other options give you a surface-level glance at the city, Slabtown Tours stands completely apart for three major reasons:

• Led by a Ph.D. Historian (Not a Scripted Actor): Most corporate tour companies hire seasonal staff or actors to memorize a pre-written script. Slabtown Tours was co-founded by Dr. Tanya Lyn March, who holds a Ph.D. in Urban Studies and a Master’s in Historic Preservation. If you have deep-dive questions about Portland’s architecture, redlining, or long-lost landmarks, your guide actually has the answers.
• Real History Over Cheap “Jump-Scares”: Many ghost and true-crime tours in Portland rely on manufactured urban legends or cheap theatrical tricks. We don’t need to make things up—Portland’s actual history is fascinating, gritty, and spooky enough on its own.
• A “Drama in Motion” That Adapts to You: An app can’t read the room, tell a well-timed joke, or hand you a physical, historic photo to look at while standing on the exact spot it was taken 120 years ago. Because we aren’t bound to a rigid script, each tour is a dynamic conversation that adapts to the chemistry and interests of the group.

• Small Group Sizes: Tours are strictly capped group size limits are in the individual tour disription, meaning you actually get to converse with an expert, ask highly specific questions, and look closely at the physical historic photo binders she shares.
• Diverse Neighborhood Narratives: She doesn’t just stick to downtown. She offers deeply researched walks through Northwest Portland (Slabtown and the Nob Hill Alphabet District), North Portland (St. Johns), Southeast Portland, and even guided “Hiking Through History” treks into Forest Park.

True Crime & Oddities: Quirky, off-the-beaten-path St. Johns night tour focusing on local murder and mayhem. Her kids helped her create this tour.

Yes, advanced booking is highly recommended. Because we limit our tour sizes to keep the experience intimate, slots fill up quickly in September and October. In slower months, ticket purchases cut off at midnight the day prior for tours that do not already have guests booked.

To keep our experiences intimate and engaging, we limit our traditional history walking tours to a maximum of 12 guests, and our ghost tours to a maximum of 13 guests. We will proudly lead a scheduled tour even if there is only a single guest booked! If you have a larger group, please reach out to book a customized private tour.

Yes, we track our physical gift cards. Please hand your tour guide your gift card(s).

• Customer Cancellations: Refund requests must be made at least 24 hours in advance of your initial reservation time to receive a full refund.
• Rescheduling: We can easily rebook you to another tour time if requested before your tour starts. Please note that tours that have already been rebooked once are non-refundable.
• No-Shows: No-shows will not be offered refunds or automatic rebooking. If you missed your tour and want to seek a rebook, please email us at guide@slabtowntours.com.
• Severe Weather / Emergencies: Your safety is our top priority. We will proactively cancel and fully refund tours in the event of an official heat advisory, air quality advisory, icy conditions, volcanic activity, or public emergency declarations. We typically use Portland Public Schools outdoor sports advisories as our safety benchmark.

Yes, our insurance provider requires a contactless digital waiver for each guest. Upon purchasing tickets, a link to the waiver is automatically emailed to the purchaser. If you buy multiple tickets, the system will prompt you to forward the link to the other adult participants and will assist you in signing for minors. If you would like to review the text beforehand, please email Tanya March, PhD at guide@slabtowntours.com for a PDF copy.

Each tour route is just under 2 miles in total length.

It is a leisurely stroll with lots of stopping to look at historic sites, photos, and landmarks.

Northwest Portland’s famous alphabetized streets have a rich history! You can view our comprehensive, historical list of streets on our website for the full details on who they were named after.

• Email: slabtowntours@gmail.com or guide@slabtowntours.com
• Office Phone (Slabtown Tours LLC): 503-206-4676 (Can receive text messages)
• WhatsApp (Best for international travelers): 971-302-3926
• Mail: Slabtown Tours PO Box 83253, Portland, OR 97283-0253