SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, I am Joshua P. Warren, and this is Joshua P. Warren Daily. And I've just got a quick update for you. Well, the results are in on the best ghost tours in America, according to readers of USA Today. Of course, for a month, people all over the country were able to vote on this. It's called the Reader's Choice Award. And there were 20 different candidates all over the United States. And of course, I don't know how they picked the nominees. They went through their own process. And so we were one of the nominees, and people were voting their hearts out, and they just announced that we, out of all 20 of the nominees, the haunted Asheville Ghost Stores, which I created in Asheville, North Carolina, are number three. Number three. And you know what? That's actually pretty amazing. If you consider that the number one ghost tour is not really a tour, it's a tour company. Um the number one winner is called Nightly Spirits, and they have almost twenty different tours all over the United States. Uh, especially they do pub crawls. They have tours in, let's see here, uh, Alexandria, Austin, Boston, Charleston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Nashville, New Orleans, San Antonio, Savannah, Seattle, St. Augustine, Tampa, Temecula, Washington, D.C. So I'm not sure how it's exactly fair that all the rest of us pretty much I think all the rest of us just had a ghost tour. And so uh if you know, so my little ghost tour in Asheville, North Carolina was competing with a ghost tour company uh in all those cities. So I I hope in the future that somebody will uh recommend that maybe that should be a different category, like ghost tour company should be different than ghost tour. I'm not a sore loser, I'm just telling you. I mean, does that make sense to you? I'm sure they're they're great tours, uh, but I just don't think it was appropriate for this category to pick, you know, one tour up against a company that has 20 tours. And um, because you know, ultimately, at the end of the day, this really is more of a popularity contest than anything. I mean, anybody could go and vote every day whether or not you've even been on the tour. So they got number one. Number two was won by the Sisters Grimm in San Antonio, Texas. And um, you know what's funny is that you know, I have in-laws in San Antonio. My mother-in-law, who's passed away, she lived in San Antonio, and so I have spent months in San Antonio, and I've seen the advertisements for Sisters Grimm ghost tours, but um for whatever reason I just never had an opportunity to take the tour. So I guess the next time I'm in Texas and I know what to do, I'll take the tour. So they got number two, and then number three is the haunted Asheville Tours. One thing that I think is kind of remarkable is that again, let's just kind of ignore number one for a minute, because like I say, that's twenty plus tours. And then the number two category there, San Antonio, Texas. San Antonio, Texas has one point three million people just in that town, that one town. Asheville, which came in next, has eighty-three thousand people. Okay. Eighty-three thousand people. So the population of San Antonio is fifteen, over fifteen times the population of Asheville. Uh, and so that's pretty good, especially if you consider that the number four, the one that came in below us, is and I'm gonna read them all to you, but number four is Mysteries of Hawaii, which is an Oahu, Hawaii, and Oahu has almost a million people. So, isn't that something uh that uh the one uh you know again, Nightly Spirits is number one, number two San Antonio tour. San Antonio is a place with one point three million people. Number three, Asheville with eighty-three thousand people, and then number four is Hawaii, uh Oahu, there with uh a million people. So uh I mean I I I think that we can hold our heads pretty high here on this one. Uh we're very happy and very proud. Uh in fact, here's the rest of the list. Number five is Secrets of St. Augustine Ghost Tours in St. Augustine, Florida. Number six is Bar Harbor Ghost Tours in Bar Harbor, Maine, or as they call that, Bahaba. Number seven is Black Cat Tours in Salem, Massachusetts. Number eight is New Bronfels Ghost Tours in New Bronfels, Texas. Number nine is Burrows of the Dead in New York. And number ten is DC by foot ghosts of Georgetown. So that's there, of course, in Washington. So those are your top ten. And uh gosh, uh, if you want to go see that list for yourself and learn more about those other tours, if you go to votehauntedasheville.com, A-S-H-E-V-I-L-L-E, vote hauntedashville.com, it will take you to the voting page with the results now posted, and so you can learn about all these other tours. And so look, it's just it's really wonderful that they did this because it's giving all of us exposure. And uh, I'm especially proud that you know we were this is like a David and Goliath situation, and uh you you see how well that we did in this, and it's just because of you, and uh every single one of you who got out there every day and opened whatever browsers you had on whatever devices you had and clicked that vote button. And uh, you know, so thank you very much. I appreciate it. It's good karma, and this is wonderful for me to be able to say, hey, we are now uh one of the top three ghost tours uh in America according to readers of USA Today. And so they're gonna be distributing this all over the country, and so uh I think it's great for USA Today and Gannett and everything there, all their subsidiaries and whatnot to be a part of promoting this because uh obviously right now people are looking for things that are reasonable to do in terms of price and things that are safe to do, and that's one of the great things about a ghost tour, is that you're usually outdoors. For example, on the Haunted Asheville tour is 100% outdoors, and so uh you have safe social distancing there, and um, you know, it's just a it's a great easy thing to do if you go to a city uh to just get a different perspective, a different point of view on the history there. And you know, if you get a bad tour somewhere, it it's really awful, it's really cheesy. But if you get a good tour, you I'm telling you, it'll be uh like theater of the mind, and you will never see that city the same way again. It's almost like a big overlay comes down, and every time you look at a street or a building or or a monument, you suddenly you will you'll start imagining all of these uh you know, uh it's like augmented reality that uh that starts uh uh seeping into the scene and and popping all over the place if you have a little imagination. So that's the great thing about a good ghost tour. And the Haunted Asheville Ghost Stores, as you know, have been around for uh oh gosh, you know, damn near 25 years. And so I'm very, very happy that we came in number three, but you know what really means the most to me is looking at the reviews that we get from customers, people who take the tour and then get online and leave a review. And because you know how ruthless people can be. Oh my god, you know, there's some people that I think their favorite thing is just get to get online and just tear people a new asshole, you know. And so I'm very delighted to say, for example, if you look at our TripAdvisor uh rating, we have let's see, right now we have 918 reviews on TripAdvisor, and we have like four and a half out of five stars. You know how hard that is to and uh to get it there and to keep it at that level so that every year we win a certificate of excellence. They they just switch it up this year, and TripAdvisor now calls it um the Traveler's Choice Award. And so uh we just got the 2020 Traveler's Choice Award. So they say to get that you're like in the top 10% of all tours or whatever, or or I guess anything on TripAdvisor. Uh so and then you know, you hear I love this quote we have here at hauntedashville.com from National Geographic Best Outdoor Adventures. Uh some Nat Geo writers were in Asheville, they met with me and then they took the tour and they wrote a nice article, and here's a quote. It says, The Haunted Asheville Tour makes for a mesmerizing trip and explains why this city is magic. Isn't that great? So I want to you know stress to you, hey, it's that time of year. It's September, it's October soon, it's Halloween time. You're gonna start seeing all the festive things popping up, you'll start feeling that chill in the air. Maybe you're in an area where the leaves are beginning to change soon. All that will start happening, and you're gonna be ready to get out and do something fun. So, what can I tell you? Go enjoy the number three best ghost tour in America. But hey, you and I both know it should be number one, right? Yeah, it's really the number one tour as far as I'm concerned, especially if you scale everything properly. But hauntedashville.com, hauntedashville.com. So I'm very happy, very proud of my guides. I mean, we're talking about people like Tad McDivitt and Brian Bloxham, Christian McLeod, Shelly Wright, Missy Hill. I mean, these are people who get out there and just perform and do the best they can and uh are very knowledgeable and they're very skilled, and uh, you know, they're pros, and that's why the tours are so good and people love them, and we get repeat customers. We see all often the same people every year. Like they come to Asheville every year and they do the ghost store every year, and they love it more and more. I just got a group contact me today, and uh the group said, Hey, we're coming back for like our third time to take the tour, blah, blah, blah. So that said, there's your update. HauntedAsheville.com, hauntedashville.com. So I have to run here. Got some appointments today, but uh just wanted to get that news to you, ASAP, since that I know all of you have been uh waiting with bated breath to see what the outcome would be. So it's a great day for celebration and it's a great weekend. Uh, I hope you're gonna enjoy a nice vacation weekend if uh that applies to you, depending on where you are listening here in the U.S. It's Labor Day weekend. So uh maybe crack open some champagne and uh think of us and what we did here when you when you make a toast. All right. So that's it for now. I have much more to share with you soon in my next podcast. So that's it. Uh of course my website is joshua p.com. Go there, click the link to this podcast called Joshua P. Warren Daily. It's always short, always free, commercial free, uncensored, independent. You can subscribe through various means, or just follow me on Twitter at Joshua P. Warren, at Joshua P. Warren, and I will usually tweet when a new one is available. So that is it for now. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your interest and support. Thank you for staying curious, and I will talk to you again soon.