New Yorkers will stand in line for anything — cronuts, cold plunges, chaos — so naturally, the city’s walking tours have officially gone off the rails in the best possible way.
Forget the basic Statue of Liberty selfie circuit. Across the five boroughs, tourists and locals alike are shelling out to stalk celebrity hotspots, descend into candlelit catacombs, chase Broadway ghosts and even learn the intimate sex lives of rats.
From mobsters and Marvel heroes to bodega cats and glazed doughnuts, these bizarre Big Apple excursions are turning NYC itself into the main character.
Here are eight of the weirdest — and most wonderfully New York — walking tours prowling the city right now.
Purr-fectly unhinged history lessons
Cat lovers are clawing their way through the city, thanks to “Cats About Town,” NYC’s first-ever feline-focused historical walking tours created by writer and guide Peggy Gavan.
Each two-hour tour costs $45 and dives deep into Gotham’s surprisingly cat-filled past.
The “Brooklyn Heights Cat Tour” explores America’s first suburb through legendary local felines — including the Brooklyn Bridge’s own cat supervisor and celebrity cats beloved by literary elites.
Meanwhile, the Financial District tour digs into the city’s gritty waterfront history, where ship cats once prowled New York Harbor, and one heroic Wall Street kitty reportedly saved priceless documents during the Great Fire of 1835.
Over on the Lower East Side tour, guests learn how immigrant families lived alongside cats in cramped tenements — and how today’s iconic bodega cat tradition was born.
For animal lovers with champagne taste, the “Dogs & Cats on Fifth Avenue Tour” strolls from Madison Square Park to the Plaza Hotel while unpacking pet gossip from the Gilded Age elite.
Taylor-made for Swifties
Swifties are apparently willing to turn Manhattan into one giant Easter egg hunt.
For $40, fans can spend two hours retracing Taylor Swift’s NYC era on a walking tour that hits some of the singer-songwriter’s most famous downtown stomping grounds.
“Taylor Swift’s New York: A Walking Tour” kicks off at Cornelia Street in the West Village — yes, that Cornelia Street — before winding through Tribeca and SoHo with stops tied to the Grammy winner’s New York life, lyrics and lore.
Fans will also swing by Electric Lady Studios and browse through spots like Housing Works Bookstore, where the multi-hyphenate filmed “All Too Well: The Short Film.”
It’s basically a real-life “Welcome to New York” montage.
Trash talk has never been this popular
Turns out one man’s garbage is another tourist attraction.
Curious visitors are paying $45 to roam FiDi’s filthiest corners on the wildly popular “Garbage and Rats in NYC” guided jaunt, led by self-described “rat whisperer” Suzanne Reisman.
The two-and-a-half-hour trek dives into the city’s dirty underbelly — literally — covering everything from rat mating habits and sanitation strikes to corruption scandals, public health crises and the endless war between New Yorkers and overflowing trash bags.
Less “Sex and the City” — more pests and the city.
Fuhgeddaboudit — there’s pasta involved
True crime junkies are eating this one up — quite literally.
This mob-themed East Village and Little Italy walking tour, led by retired NYPD detectives, mixes Mafia lore with old-school Italian comfort food for a $79 ticket price.
Guests hear real stories about the Gambino crime family and notorious mob boss John Gotti while wandering Mulberry Street and other former Mafia strongholds.
Stops include the Liz Christy Bowery Houston Community Garden, where guides unpack ties to La Cosa Nostra, plus a cannoli pit stop at La Bella Ferrara.
Nothing says organized crime like dessert.
Marvel at the madness
Superhero fans are assembling across Manhattan for this comic-book-fueled deep dive into the city that inspired everyone from Spider-Man to Superman.
For $39, guests spend two hours visiting iconic filming locations and comic-book landmarks that helped shape the superhero universe as part of the “Superheroes in New York Walking Tour.“
Stops include the famed Daily News Building in Midtown East — recognizable to DC fans as the Daily Planet from Superman films — along with the Chrysler Building, which has appeared in countless Marvel adaptations, including Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Avengers films.
Basically Comic-Con, but cardio.
NYC’s creepiest basement tour
If candlelit crypts and centuries-old graves sound like a relaxing evening, NYC has you covered.
The “Catacombs by Candlelight” tour at Nolita’s Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral gives brave guests exclusive access to off-limits catacombs, cemeteries and hidden passageways beneath one of the city’s oldest Catholic landmarks.
The eerie, 80-minute experience starts at $36 and explores the church’s sprawling underground resting places, where some of New York’s most prominent families have been buried for more than 200 years.
Part history lesson, part horror movie set.
Glazed and confused
Forget fine dining — tourists are now carb-loading their way across Manhattan one doughnut at a time.
The wildly indulgent “Underground Donut Tour“ takes guests on sugary strolls through some of NYC’s best pastry spots, with tickets starting at $60.
The company offers five different themed tours, including routes through Downtown Brooklyn and Williamsburg, the East Village, Union Square and Times Square.
There’s even a seasonal Midtown Holiday Donut Tour operating during November, December and January for anyone looking to combine festive cheer with a medically concerning amount of fried dough.
Breakfast of champions!
Broadway’s ghosts are still waiting in the wings
The theater district apparently isn’t just packed with understudies — it’s packed with ghosts, too.
The “Haunted Broadway Ghostlight Tour” explores Times Square’s spookiest stage legends, cursed theaters and paranormal backstage lore during a 1-hour, 45-minute nighttime walk through the Theater District.
Inspired by the long-running Broadway superstition of leaving a single “ghostlight” glowing onstage overnight, guides from Green Team Tours share chilling tales of phantom actors, dead playwrights, haunted dressing rooms, and eerie sightings still whispered about backstage today.
Using iPads loaded with rare photos, videos and old newspaper clippings, the guides bring Broadway’s haunted history back to life — or perhaps afterlife.
Ultimately, in New York, even a casual stroll now comes with ghosts, gangsters, glazed doughnuts or at least a 50% chance of hearing disturbing facts about rats.
