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Most people who get into ghost hunting spend their first hundred pounds badly. They buy a kit, take it somewhere dark, get a reading they cannot interpret, and either give up or start believing things the equipment never told them.
This guide is the order of operations that avoids that: what to do before you buy anything, what is genuinely worth owning first, and how to run a first session you can actually learn from.
Before you buy anything
Do three sessions with nothing but a notebook, a phone and a torch. Write down the time, the room, the temperature, the noise, and anything that happened. You are learning the baseline: what normal looks like in that building.
This matters because every instrument you will later buy measures a physical quantity that varies constantly. Without a baseline you have no way to tell a significant reading from an ordinary one.
What to buy first (and in what order)
If you are going to spend money, spend it in this order. Each step is useful on its own, so you are never stuck with kit you cannot use.
1. An EMF meter
The most useful first instrument, because it teaches you the central lesson of the hobby immediately: that readings go up and down constantly for reasons that have nothing to do with ghosts. Mains wiring, fridges, phone chargers and cheap LED bulbs all move the needle.
2. A decent audio recorder
Recording audio is the cheapest way to collect something you can review later. A standalone recorder beats a phone because you can leave it running without notifications or calls interrupting it.
3. A torch you can hold comfortably
Unglamorous, and the piece of kit you will use most. Red light preserves night vision and is less disruptive to wildlife and neighbours.
What to postpone
Spirit boxes, thermal cameras and full kits are the expensive items. They are also the hardest to interpret. Buying them before you understand your EMF meter means you will collect data you cannot evaluate.
How to run your first proper session
- Go with at least one other person. Two people can cross-check what they saw and heard, and it is safer.
- Walk the space in the light first. Note radiators, sockets, fuse boxes, windows, pipes. You will be ruling these in or out later.
- Record baselines. Take a reading in the middle of the room, at the doorway, and near any suspect wiring. Write them down.
- Work in short blocks. Ten to fifteen minutes of quiet observation, then a break. Fatigue produces mistakes.
- Log everything with timestamps. A reading without a time is nearly useless when you review it.
- Review within 48 hours. Memory fades fast, and you will forget what the room felt like if you leave it a week.
First purchases, in order
Total under $30 for the first two. Neither will let you down, and both will teach you something.
The mistakes that waste the most money
- Buying a kit before a single instrument. Kits bundle the cheap items with the expensive ones you are not ready for.
- Chasing “the best” before the basics. A better meter does not solve an interpretation problem.
- Paying for access to famous locations. A night in a well-known building costs a lot and teaches you very little. Your first year should be free places you can visit repeatedly.
- Buying apps that promise detection. Most phone “ghost detectors” randomise output. We cover this separately in our ghost hunting apps guide.
The single most valuable habit in this hobby is asking “what else could cause this?” before anything else. Investigators who do that get better over time. Investigators who do not get more confident without getting more accurate.
Safety, briefly but seriously
- Never enter a derelict or unsafe building. Floors fail and asbestos is common.
- Do not trespass. Access permission is the difference between a hobby and a caution.
- Tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back.
- Do not investigate alone at night.
- Watch your caffeine and adrenaline: both make people see and hear things that are not there.
Where to go next
- Ghost hunting gear guides: what each instrument does and does not measure
- All ghost hunting articles
- What is dowsing?, the older tradition that sits behind a lot of modern kit