Dearly Departed Tours

Had a great time learning about both the living and departed starts from Hollywood's present and past.

I took the Dearly Departed Tour with Scott Michaels on a Saturday afternoon, and it was wonderful. Professional, appropriate stops, illustrated booklets for everyone on board to reinforce the tour, and almost an extra hour in time. The detail was excellent, the van comfortable, and Scott was extremely personable and thoughtful. He engaged all of us and was very knowledgeable about not only the gruesome sights but LA and Hollywood history in general. I liked it so much I booked a private tour to Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which was the highlight of my trip. Absolutely wonderful.

If you like this kind of thing, this tour is one of the best. Easy going tour-relaxing and interesting at the same time. Highly recommend it!

I have taken the Helter Skelter tour before, and I had to take the Tragical History Tour. My mom was in town and I decided to treat her to the best tour in LA, and we had the most fun! Scott's knowledge is vast and his humor is fantastic. I've lived here for 7 years and I learned so much on the tour and will absolutely recommend this to everyone I know! I will definitely be back for another tour with my fiancee and also when my parents come back into town! Thank you so much Scott, it made for an incredible Memorial Day weekend! Cheers! ~Nikki :)

This is a good tour to show your friends and relatives the underbelly of Los Angeles. I would not recommend it for someone's first visit to LA, but if they have been here before it is interesting to see another side of the city. Scott is passionate about his work and welcomes questions.

scott michaels is a great tour guide, and we saw many, many culturally referenced things in our three plus hours of this tour. scott asked if we had any special requests before heading out. mine was to see where filmmaker kenneth anger lived. scott knew exactly where anger lived (in a transient hotel, down the block from a porn shop & jumbo's clown room, no less!) & was happy to oblige a drive-by. i would recommend this tour to anyone who wants to see the real, darker side of hollywood. forget those cheesy tours that leave every fifteen minutes on hollywood blvd.--this is the real deal!

This tour was an excellent tour of the darker side of Hollywood as well as sites of Hollywood attractions that you receive in other tours. The tour guide knows a lot about Hollywood's history even where historic buildings that have been torn down once stood. I highly recommend this tour. I went on another tour but can say that I enjoyed this tour a lot more. The tour was well organized and Scott knows his stuff and unlike other tours can answer questions you may have.

I have been on your tour two times now, and am amazingly supprised how awesome it was even the second time around...I am making plans to take another friend on the tour sometime soon!! Scott...you are awesome!!

The great reviews were the reason we booked this tour and they were correct. Tour guide was very knowledgeable and personable--an excellent guide. Seemed to have lots of first hand knowledge, not just a memorized script. Tour had not only lots of interesting facts and sites of "the dearly departed" but also lots of movie sites and current stars' homes also, which was fun. The connection between the Beach Boys and Charles Manson was something I'd never heard before and the use of audio clips made it even more fascinating. Too bad we won't be back to LA soon since he's adding a movie sites tour with video clips!

I booked the tour a while back and it was one of the main reasons that I wanted to visit the Los Angeles area. It was a very thorough tour and our tour guide was very knowledgable about the sites and attractions of Hollywood. Rick was a lot of fun. I called shotgun to be in the front seat and he let me ride up there. I had the best seat in the house. The only change that I would have made was that I wish that I would have purchased all of the tickets in the van so that I could have had my friends sit right behind me in the van in not in the way back and that we could have had Rick and his knowledge all to ourselves. I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat. I will take the other tours when I am in town again!!!!!

driver was extremely friendly and personable.showed us many interesting spots.stopped for restroom break,which i thought was a plus.also audio was very good,too.was definately worth the money and my time.will recommend to others.thank you dearly departed.took my mind off a bad situation for a few hours.very enjoyable.

This tour not only represented the dearly departed side of L.A. but also the memories of those who made it what it is. The beautiful architecture that we were shown in between points of interest was a really great addition and would make a great tour on it's own. Richard our tour guide was really informative and just a really nice person to hang out with. Even though we were on a tour with 10 other people he made it feel like it was a private tour for the both of us. He was Great! Richard was telling us that there was a music history tour in the works and this idea really interests me. I'd like to know more about the memories of people who really played a part in the LA music scene from Rodney Binginheim to Pamela Des Barr. As well as hair bands of the 80's and the big bands of the 40's. I'd make a special trip for that. Cheers - A.N.S.L.

The Dearly Departed tour was great. We had such fun and the added commentary/music/911 calls and picture books make it that much more interesting. Our tour guide was knowledgeable and friendly. We enjoyed and would highly recommend as a different way to see the area.

I loved it - always have had a fascination with the Manson Murders and have previously gone on Graveline Tours on 3 occasions. I am Australian and as there were other Aussies on the tour I went on - I obviously am not the only one who finds this interesting. This is an event which everyone of any age group recalls and to be able to see the places which I have read about and see the exact location and the remoteness - you can understand how they were able to get away. I recommend this tour to anyone with an interest in this part of history.

I highly recommend the Helter Skelter tour for anyone who's interested in history in general or the murders in particular. Scott knows so many details and locations, it was incredibly fascinating. Not a dull moment on the whole tour, and the integration of multimedia sources made it all the more interesting. Very well done!