Amazing downtown Phoenix experience with so much history that isn't talked about enough in this…read morecity! Great tour even better people working it!

This was a very fun interactive tour with equipment we got to use. Our tour guide David was…read moreAmazing. He was very knowledgeable and fun! We had a great time! Thank you David for making our experience a spooky delight!

The tour was worth the five year wait/lottery! We had a wonderful docent and received a fantastic…read moretour of Tovrea Castle which was superb in every way possible. I have lived in Arizona, specifically the Phoenix area, for most of my life and have driven by Tovrea Castle thousands of times. It was so cool to be able to walk the grounds and get a peek inside. I would highly suggest entering the lottery, it's free and some people have better luck than I did and can get in sooner than 5 years. This was an insightful tour mixed with great storytelling and history. The basement with all the artifacts of the family and learning more about the area makes me proud to be a part of Arizona! Worth the visit!

If you live in the Valley it's highly likely that you have driven by this place. From the 202 fwy…read moreyou can easily see it. I often wondered what is that building? Finally after passing it so many times I was curious enough to look it up. I googled "cake shaped building PHX" and it was the first result. "Tovrea (said tov-ree) Castle aka A jewel in the Sonoran desert" Since 2010 the City of Phoenix purchased, renovated, and opened it for tours. The very abbreviated story with this place is that some homesteaders from the early 1900s owned the land, sold 277 acres to a wealthy Italian man. Alessio Carraro had built a fortune in the sheet metal business in the 1920s from San Fran. He planned to build a hotel resort surrounded by a housing subdivision on 277 acres, Carraro Heights. The castle was built near the timing of when the Great Depression set in. Carraro wanted out, he sold the castle and some amount of acreage (for a fraction of his investment) to Della Tovrea, wife of cattle baron E.A. Tovrea. She lived there until her tragic death in 1969. Nearby is the Stockyard Restaurant, built by E.A.'s son so cattlemen had somewhere to eat near the stockyards. That restaurant still exists today. I plan to check it out. If you want more details and full story, go take the tour :) however tickets are not easy to come by. Tours sell out many months in advance and they started using a lottery system. I bought my tickets months ago. However worth a try to go. I wouldn't say its the most amazing thing I've ever seen and the use of the word "castle" is a stretch. I've been inside some real castles in US and Europe, however it's interesting and a fun thing to do and it satisfied my curiosity! :) Per their website- The Ticket Lottery for Fall 2022 Tickets has ended and all tickets have been distributed - look for last minute cancellation tickets. Ticket Lottery for Spring 2023 Regular Tours closed on October 15, 2022 and Winners will be notified via email starting November 1, 2022. https://tovreacastletours.com

It was an excellent tour with great information. Lots of information about the history of the town…read moreand the ghosts included.

My friends and I have always wanted to do a "Haunting Tour" and we finally got to experience this…read morewith the amazing Darlene! We reserved our time with her in advance and she was very nice and easy to work with. I called her a few times because I had to adjust our party size and she was very accommodating. Our tour started at the Vendome Hotel where we received brief history, several stories about encounters and watched a few videos where possible encounters were captured. That ended up being the rhythm of the tour, walk + history + story + picture/video and some exploring. We walked though two different hotels, around the whiskey row square, a dark alley and ended the night at the saloon. The tour is a great mixture of history and ghost stories, your also encouraged to take photos to try and capture an encounter. I started the tour skeptical of actually seeing anything but at the end of the night my friend and I definitely saw something shoot past my camera phone in the saloon! Overall we had the best time with Darlene and I would definitely recommend doing this!

I'm forgetting our tour guide's name but he was so awesome! We were the first people to tour the…read morecottonwood cemetery, and the experience was great! He didn't hover over us, just let us do our thing and that was the best. He goes into some detail regarding the history of Jerome/Cottonwood which was interesting. We had so much fun that the 2 hours we were out there felt like 15 minutes. He even let us take the spirit box and EVP with us for the night! Super cool experience and would highly recommend it to anyone that likes to ghost hunt!

What a joke! $45 walk a short distance over a long period of time, with only a few stories and…read morelittle to see. But, we did get to carry a phony electronic ghost buster device. I least expected a decent tour of town and some history. Standing around listening to walkie talkie static pretending to be a ghost?????

Fun short stair hike about 20 flights of stairs up ! It wraps around to a picnic area with lookouts…read moresuch a great place to have lunch, or a fun snack. We brought hot tea during the winter and it was absolutely absolutely wonderful.

This is a wonderful place to visit! Not a lot of parking but few visitors (should be many more)…read more The hill site is surrounded by a gated community but is publicly accessible - the locals love it when people come to visit and are very welcoming! Park in one of the recessed spaces (there are 4) next to the community management/sales office outside the gate. The pathway is to the left of the gate, going into the trees to the left of the clearing (it was a clearing when I went but could be under development). The path was marked on the map on the running/hiking app I use. Follow the path up until you reach the grand staircase up to the top of the hill. The site is relatively small compared to others in the area like Goat Camp and Shoofly, but is really unique in it's positioning at the top of a very high hill and the structures appear to be from the era of pit-house architecture. I hear there are plans to turn the site into a self-guided tour-able location with informational signs about history &c., and it will be amazing. I will definitely have to come back!

Mike got me through it!!! This is not for the faint of heart when it's this hot out but it's SO…read moreworth it!! I don't have the pics he took yet so here's just a few of the ones I took. Breathtaking views!! Mike is an outstanding guide!

Had a great hike with our guide John who has lived in town for over 10 years. He knows his way up…read moreCamelback Mountain since he climbs it regularly. My sister and I took the Cholla route with him, which was only difficult at the last 30%. What I liked about walking with John was that he is knowledgeable and friendly, it was like hiking with a friend. He was encouraging and had us stop many times to get hydrated and have a snack. At the summit, he even had a banner for us to hold to get our pics! A great hike with spectacular views.

While in town for a meeting our host arranged a food tour and lucky for us, Chris was our guide…read more Chris' energy, enthusiasm and shared knowledge of, for, and about Tucson, the city, the restaurant scene, and the history heightens the experience. We visited 4 local places that Chris curated the selection to deliver a real cross section of flavors and styles, all with refreshing cocktails, which can be N/A if desired. I encourage you to try a tour if you are visiting!

Outstanding tour with exceptionally knowledgeable guide. Karen pointed out numerous historical…read morebuildings and gave their unique history along with her personal recommendations and experience. the food selection was diverse and it was like eating around the world different cuisine. I would highly recommend this tour to all my friends and family coming to the are. we were so impressed that it would be fun to take it again.