Meet the Guides

After living in a deliciously haunted house in the Green Mountains of Vermont, it is wonderfully appropriate that Courtney would become a ghost tour owner! After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater from the University of Rhode Island, Courtney and her friend Mike (a.k.a Ghost Dad, who is no longer with the tour but will always be Ghost Dad) decided to create a business that would bring them joy and push their creativity.

Using her amazing experience as a tour guide for the Newport Ghost Walk and personal experiences with the paranormal, Courtney and Mike decided to try their hands at creating a tour. Courtney has been the lead guide and storyteller since the tour’s inception in 2006 and is now the sole (and soul) owner of Providence Ghost Tour. In her spare time, Courtney enjoys hiking with her husband and dog, Baxter (the Providence Ghost Pup), taking road trips, and cooking (which is as frequently unsuccessful as it is successful). Wanna know a secret about Courtney? She is a scary movie chicken and has to sleep with the lights on after watching anything that involves bumps in the night.

Kelly joined PGT in 2008 and has been grateful and excited to return each year since. She has long been interested in the paranormal, and exploring all possibilities in the world around us. She considers herself critically open-minded; she believes there are things we cannot understand and explain and is very open to the notion of spirits around us (especially as she has had experiences both on the tour and in her life outside of it that she cannot adequately explain otherwise), but will always look for a more “rational” or “mundane” explanation before accepting something as paranormal, as this gives greater weight (for her at least) to the things she cannot explain in other ways. She accepts that we may never know for sure, and that is part of the wonder of it all – possibility. In addition to having developed an affection for the people whose stories she has had the honor of telling over the years, Kelly enjoys that she gets to share both History and stories of paranormal experiences with her guests (and getting to dress up a little bit doesn’t hurt either). She especially loves more intimately sized tours (6-15) for the feeling of unifying shared experience, and ability to get to know her guests a bit.

When not leading groups through the East Side, Kelly can be found sharing the joy of theatre with youth, and enjoying bearing witness to her children’s discovery and exploration of the world around them (and wondering if her son sees someone she doesn’t when he says hi to the corner of the room).

Stephanie has been a Ghost Guide since 2015, and has been in love with ghost stories since childhood. Originally from South County, she is a graduate of URI Theater Department where she studied acting and costume design. By day she is a master seamstress, by night she tells ghost stories on the historic streets of Providence in a fancy dress. The best of both worlds.