Texas Ghost Tours: 7 Best Haunted Tours Worth Booking
Here’s the honest truth about ghost tours: the great ones aren’t really about ghosts. They’re history tours with the lights turned down. And Texas, a state with more violent, dramatic, and well-documented death than almost anywhere in the country, happens to throw a very good one.
The Alamo. The 1900 hurricane that drowned a city. Gunfighters dying in the street over card games. Cattle barons, brothel madams, brides who never made it to the wedding. You don’t have to believe a word of the spectral stuff to find that fascinating after dark. And if you do believe — well, Texas guides are happy to hand you the legends, the cold spots, and the room numbers, then let you decide.
I’ve sorted the best of them below, by city, so you can find one near wherever you’re standing.
San Antonio: Sisters Grimm and the Menger Hotel
If you only take one ghost tour in Texas, take this one. Sisters Grimm Ghost Tours has been running since 2011, USA Today readers voted it the #1 ghost tour in Texas (and #2 in the country), and the owners literally wrote the book — The Haunted History of Old San Antonio — on the subject.
The marquee experience is the Ghost Bus, a roughly two-and-a-half-hour ride that includes after-hours access to the Menger Hotel, widely called the most haunted hotel in Texas. The Menger opened in 1859 next to the Alamo, Teddy Roosevelt recruited Rough Riders at its bar, and staff and guests have traded stories for over a century about a chambermaid named Sallie White who was killed there in 1876 and reportedly still tidies rooms. If a bus isn’t your speed, the Haunted History Walk covers downtown’s haunted corners on foot, and the 21-and-up Haunted Pub Crawl trades some of the history for haunted bars and a drink in your hand.
The company even runs the Sisters Grimm Oddities Parlor inside the Menger itself — part gift shop, part curiosity cabinet — so you can browse before or after. Tickets and times are on sistersgrimmghosttour.com, or you can call (210) 638-1338.
Galveston: the island the 1900 storm never quite let go
No Texas ghost story needs less embellishment than Galveston’s. On September 8, 1900, a Category 4 hurricane came ashore with no real warning and killed an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 people in a single night — still the deadliest natural disaster in United States history. Bodies were stacked in the streets. Survivors sheltered in the few brick buildings that held.
One of those was the Tremont House, which became Clara Barton’s Red Cross headquarters during the relief effort. It’s now the centerpiece of Galveston’s haunted reputation, with guests reporting wet footprints in dry halls and the smell of seawater in interior rooms. Several companies build tours around all of this: Ghost City Tours runs a well-reviewed walking tour with family-friendly and adults-only versions; Spooky Galveston offers a dedicated 1900 Storm tour alongside its ghost and vampire walks; and the “1900 Storm on the Strand” tour winds through the historic Strand district where the damage was worst. These lean heavily on real, researched history, which is exactly why they land.
Jefferson: the most haunted small town in Texas
Tucked into the piney woods of East Texas, Jefferson was a booming riverport in the 1800s before the railroads passed it by and froze it in time. That preserved-in-amber quality is part of why it’s earned the nickname “the most haunted small town in Texas.”
The Historic Jefferson Ghost Walk has guided visitors through its brick streets for years, and two addresses do most of the haunting. The Grove, a private home built in 1861, has been investigated so many times it’s become a minor pilgrimage site for paranormal enthusiasts. And the Jefferson Hotel, dating to the 1850s, is famous for Room 19 and its resident “bride.” Stay overnight and the hotel will hand you a guest journal full of accounts from people who swear something visited them. Whether that’s a ghost or the power of suggestion in a creaky 170-year-old building is the fun part.
Fort Worth Stockyards: gunfighters, madams, and a glass of wine
The Stockyards tour trades Victorian gloom for Old West grit. It’s a walking tour of about 90 minutes through the historic cattle district, and the stops read like a Western: Miss Molly’s Bed & Breakfast, a former bordello that’s been featured on the Discovery Channel; the Stockyards Hotel; and the streets where real gunfights happened. The most famous is the 1887 killing of gambler-gunman “Longhair Jim” Courtright by Luke Short outside the White Elephant Saloon — a genuine piece of frontier history, not invented atmosphere.
A nice touch: several Stockyards tours, including the Cowtown Winery version, include a glass of local wine. Tours generally run Thursday and Saturday evenings, and age policies vary — some are 21-plus, others welcome families — so check before you book if you’re bringing kids.
Austin: the Driskill’s grand staircase
Austin’s haunted reputation more or less lives at one address. The Driskill Hotel, built in 1886 by cattle baron Jesse Driskill, is the city’s most storied haunted building, and in 2022 Yelp users ranked it Austin’s most haunted hotel outright. The stories cluster around a few specifics: the smell of Colonel Driskill’s cigar smoke in the lobby of a now-smoke-free hotel; Room 525, tied to two separate brides decades apart; and a little girl, often said to be a relative of Sam Houston, who died chasing a ball down the grand staircase.
Austin’s tours — run by outfits like Austin Ghost Tours and several national operators — typically fold the Driskill into a downtown walk that also covers the Texas Capitol grounds and Sixth Street’s older bones. It’s a good pairing of nightlife and history if you’re already out on the town.
Houston: a ghost tour that’s really a pub crawl
Houston plays it more social. Nightly Spirits runs a roughly two-and-a-half-hour ghost-tour-meets-pub-crawl downtown, launching from Public Service Wine & Whiskey and stopping at four historic bars while a guide threads ghost stories between rounds. It’s 21-and-up, usually about $25 a person, and runs Friday and Saturday evenings with extra dates piled on through October. If a candlelit cemetery walk sounds like too much and a beer with your hauntings sounds like just enough, this is your tour.
About all that “evidence”
You’ll see tours advertise EMF meters, thermal cameras, and EVP recordings, and it’s worth being clear-eyed about what those actually are. EMF meters detect electromagnetic fields — which old wiring, phone signals, and the meters themselves readily produce. Cold spots have ordinary explanations in drafty historic buildings. And EVP, the practice of hearing voices in audio static, is a textbook case of the brain finding patterns in noise. No instrument has ever been scientifically validated as a ghost detector.
That doesn’t make the tours less worthwhile — it just reframes them. Treat the gadgets as props that make the night more fun, the way a corn maze is more fun than a cornfield. The history is real. The buildings are real. The thousands of people who actually died in these places are real. That’s plenty.
How to pick the right tour and actually enjoy it
Match the tour to your group first. Traveling with kids? Look specifically for an “all-ages” or “family-friendly” label, because a lot of Texas tours are 21-plus pub crawls in disguise. Want genuine history? Read recent reviews for the word “research” — the good guides cite dates, names, and records; the weak ones just tell campfire stories.
Book ahead in October, when these tours sell out fastest and operators add extra nights. Wear real walking shoes — most are a mile or more on uneven historic sidewalks — and bring a light jacket for evening river or coastal air. Tours run rain or shine in most cases, so check the weather policy. And if you want to play ghost hunter, your phone’s voice recorder and camera do everything a $200 gadget does; just take lots of photos and listen back later for the fun of it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best ghost tour in Texas?
Sisters Grimm in San Antonio is the most decorated — voted the #1 ghost tour in Texas by USA Today readers — largely because of its after-hours access to the Menger Hotel and its deep, book-backed history. For sheer real-world tragedy, Galveston’s 1900-storm tours are unmatched, and Jefferson is the pick if you want a whole haunted town rather than a single walk.
Are Texas ghost tours kid-friendly?
Some are, some aren’t. Walking tours like Sisters Grimm’s Haunted History Walk and many “all-ages” Stockyards and Galveston tours welcome families, while pub crawls such as Nightly Spirits in Houston and the 21-plus versions in Fort Worth do not. Always check the age policy on the booking page before you reserve.
How much do ghost tours in Texas cost?
Most walking tours run roughly $20 to $35 per adult. Pub crawls like Nightly Spirits sit around $25 (drinks separate), and premium experiences — bus tours with hotel access, private group bookings — cost more. Private Stockyards tours, for example, start around $300 for a group of ten.
When is the best time to take one?
October is peak season, with the most dates and the biggest crowds, so book early. The rest of the year you’ll find smaller groups and easier reservations. Tours run after dark year-round; spring and fall evenings are the most comfortable for the walking ones.
Do you really see ghosts on these tours?
Honestly, almost never — and any reputable operator will tell you the same. What you reliably get is excellent local history, atmospheric settings, and the occasional unexplained photo or chill that makes a good story later. Go for the experience and the history, and treat anything spookier than that as a bonus.
