Our Tours
Tours will begin again in May 2023. Gifts cards available here.
TICKETS FOR THE 2023 SEASON ON SALE NOW!!
Tickets Now Available for a Special Collaboration! New Date Added! Saturday, June 17th- 5pm
A Walking Tour with Robert Brighton, Author- June 16th at 7pm
No Illusions Tours welcomes Buffalo-born author Robert Brighton as your special guest guide for a fascinating walk back in time to the unsolved 1903 murder of prosperous businessman Edwin L. Burdick.
Burdick, murdered by persons unknown in the private den of his luxurious home in Elmwood, was a prominent member of the fast living ‘Elmwood Set’, the up-and-coming young professionals of Buffalo’s Gilded Age.
Brighton’s award-winning novel, The Unsealing, was inspired by the case. And after four years of research (including locating images and documents never before revealed) – Brighton offers a solution … not only the ‘whodunit’, but the ‘whydunit’ … the motive behind the murder.
You’ll find Robert Brighton to be a knowledgeable, witty, and engaging guide to the darkness that fell over Elmwood in February 1903. And you’ll be among the first to retrace the very footsteps of the victim and the murderer, hear the entire story of the murder, the inquest, and hone your own detective skills to analyze inconvenient facts that were carefully silenced, until now.
The tour will also include details of the time period to help contextualize the crime and those who played a part, including the story of Buffalo’s World’s Fair, the Pan American Exposition and some of the stars of No Illusions’ Buffalo’s Favorite Daughters tours, with connections to the turn of the last century: Louise Blanchard Bethune, Mary Burnett Talbert, Marian de Forest, Alice Russel Gelnny and Evelyn Rumsey Cary.
Also for fans of Brighton, this tour offers a unique personal opportunity to meet the author and ask him anything about the Burdick case, the real people and places that inspired his fictional world of Ashwood, or about his new novel, a A Murder in Ashwood.
For those who have not yet read The Unsealing, Robert Brighton is making available to No Illusions Tours a limited number of books at a VIP discounted price not found anywhere else!
Buffalo's Favorite Daughters
This is a three part series of walking tours showcasing Buffalo's storythrough the remarkable women that have lived and worked here. You'll hear stories of early trailblazers in business, art, charity and more. Our tour stars (or Badass Buffalo Babes as we like to call them) include a pioneer of the NAACP, America's 1st professional female architect, the "First Lady of American Theater", Buffalo's 1st WOC business owner, the creator of America's first childcare center, our youngest American First Lady, the author of the First American Best seller, and many more.
There is a 2 1/2 hour full length tour, and two shorter tours at 1 hour (Downtown) and 1 1/2 hour (Allentown).
Buffalo Lit
This walking tour tells Buffalo's story through the lives of five authors who lived here; how the city helped to shape them and their writing and how they in turn helped to shape the city.
Our stops will tell the story of William Wells Brown's introduction to the Abolition movement and his first forays in writing and lecturing in his nine years in the city and Mark Twain's time with a Buffalo newspaper where he ultimately decided novel-writing was his next step. You'll also hear about Marian deForest's career as one of Buffalo's first female journalists and a popular playwright, Anna Katherine Green's life as America's first best selling author and Mother of the Detective novel and F. Scott Fitzgerald's influential Buffalo childhood. This tour is about 1 1/2 hours.
Buffalo Anomalies
This October only walking tour tells the story of Buffalo through its strange and unusual events. We'll tell you the tales of Buffalo's oldest cemetery and the state's only public hanging. You'll also hear about the assassination of one president and inauguration of another as well as the invention of the electric chair and the crime and trial of the first person to succumb to it. There are also two ghost stories and a couple of lighter stops. The tour lasts 2 hours.
