Sloan’s Key West Ghost Tours

Sloan’s Key West Ghost Tours has run as a Sloan family business since 1996, founded by author and local historian David L. Sloan, whose research into Key West’s paranormal history underpins much of the company’s programming. Rather than building a single generic ghost walk, the business has developed a set of distinct, named experiences, each built around a specific piece of local lore or history.

The flagship offering is Robert the Doll After Dark, a roughly sixty minute tour that culminates in an encounter with Robert the Doll, one of the most widely known haunted objects associated with Key West, along with the stories and reported incidents tied to it over the decades. Beyond that signature tour, the company runs VIP paranormal investigations for guests who want a more in-depth, equipment-based experience, tours of what it calls America’s Most Haunted Firehouse, and even a Key West UFO tour, extending the paranormal theme beyond ghosts into other unexplained phenomena associated with the area.

Private paranormal experiences are also available for groups who want a customized version of one of these tours away from a scheduled public group. Across all of its offerings, the company emphasizes original research and authentic locations, explicitly contrasting itself with what it describes as manufactured scares or staged attractions, positioning its programming closer to historical and paranormal research presented as entertainment than a haunted house style jump-scare experience.

Three decades of family ownership under the same founder gives this business a depth of accumulated research and storytelling that is difficult for a newer or franchised competitor to replicate quickly. David Sloan’s standing as a published local historian adds a layer of credibility to the historical claims underpinning each tour, an important distinction in a ghost tour market where the quality and accuracy of the underlying history can vary considerably between operators. For visitors drawn specifically to the Robert the Doll story, this remains one of the more established ways to experience that particular piece of Key West legend directly.

Because the Robert the Doll experience culminates at a specific and closely guarded location, the exact meeting point and route for that tour are typically shared directly with guests upon booking rather than published as a fixed public address. VIP paranormal investigations generally run longer than the standard public tours and are typically booked as a smaller, more dedicated group experience for guests specifically interested in the equipment-based side of the company’s offerings. Given David Sloan’s standing as a published local historian, guides on these tours are generally trained to answer more detailed historical questions than a standard scripted ghost tour guide might be prepared for.