To book a tour, email me at sterling@rootsandvistas.com.

I am continuously adding new opportunities to my list of current tours, so please check back often to see what you’d like to learn about next.

Shadows of Main St. – a Ghost Tour of Charlottesville

When twilight fades and the streetlights flicker, downtown Cville reveals its darker side. Join us for an early evening walking tour along the shadowed streets where echoes of the past linger. Discover the stories of restless spirits, unexplained encounters, forgotten tragedies, and the local legends that bring this city’s past back to life after death. Think you know Charlottesville? Dare to walk with us and find out.

This is a 60-90 minute walking tour appropriate for all ages.

This tour will be offered on the following dates at 6:30pm.

Oct. 15, 19, 22, 29

Nov. 3, 6, 10

To join, email Sterling@rootsandvistas.com or call/text 434-218-0518.

UVA – Thomas Jefferson’s Model for America’s Future

Discover Thomas Jefferson’s final grand project, the University of Virginia. This walking tour of the “Academical Village” and central Grounds, explores Jefferson’s impassioned belief in the power of knowledge, what puts UVA’s architecture on the world map, and reveals the long obscured lives of the enslaved laborers who laid the red bricks and raised the white columns.

This is a 60 minute walking tour available by reservation.

Why Cville?

Why is Charlottesville located where it is? Why is it named Charlottesville? Why is it the location of two presidential homes and the University of Virginia? Why did Charlottesville escape the Civil War without a major battle and why did it attract violence during the summer of 2017?

Join this informative journey through 260 plus years of local history, and discover the answers to these and many other questions.

This walking tour is customizable for 60 or 90 minute experiences available by reservation.

Hidden Charlottesville

Take a meandering stroll down back alleys, up side streets, and through time. Learn about the hidden history hiding in plain sight in and around Charlottesville’s quaint Downtown Mall.

This is a 60 minute walking tour available by reservation.

Curious Cases of Color

Take a walk through Charlottesville’s complex past and consider the stories of the enslaved people on auction in Court Square, free Blacks owning businesses on Main Street, and the lingering effects of Jim Crow Segregation. This tour explores how race, racism, and resistance shaped Charlottesville and its culture.

This walking tour is customizable for 60 or 90 minute experiences available by reservation.

Tales from the Departed: Maplewood Cemetery

Meet some of Charlottesville’s most interesting former residents at their final resting place. In this tour of the oldest municipal cemetery in the city, we will explore what we can learn from the ways distinct lives are remembered through burial markings and practices; and what tales the dead have to tell.

This is a 60 minute walking tour over uneven ground available by reservation.

The Long Revolution – the Changes that Define Cville

The quaint downtown pedestrian mall might seem like an unchanging artifact from simpler times. But the one constant in history is change. Charlottesville is a living thing that has always and will always be in the process of becoming. This tour utilizes the built landscape of Downtown Charlottesville, the many changes (cultural, economic, and technological) that shape it, and the memories of things long gone connected by stories passed down generation to generation to explore the 260 plus-year history of this community from where its been to the uncertain future.

This is a 60-90 minute walking tour available by reservation.

For tour availability, pricing or any other information, email sterling@rootsandvistas.com or call 434-218-0518.