Ghost Cities · Texas
We run walking tours in Arizona, and we research haunted history everywhere. This is our honest local guide to Austin: the tours worth booking and the stories behind them.
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Our top picks in Austin
Hear the historical tales of murder and mayhem that helped make Austin weird on this haunted history tour of Texas's capital city. Join an acclaimed storyteller and a small group for a walking tour through Austin's supernatural nooks and creepy crannies, including a tour of the famous Driskill Hotel.
In 1885, America’s first serial killer stalked the streets and alleyways of the city of Austin. He came to be known as the “Midnight Assassin,” but his identity remains a mystery. On this guided evening walking tour, explore historic Austin including West 6th Street, Guy Town, and the Warehouse District, plus stop for a drink at the Driskill Hotel, as you learn about his crimes.
If you are looking for a ghost tour the whole family can join, the Ghosts of Austin is designed to entertain anyone ages 5 to 100. Combining history with hauntings, it bills itself as Austin's number one all-ages, family-friendly ghost tour.
More worth a look
Discover Austin’s spooky side on an evening walking tour through the city's most haunted areas. Austin history features stories about forbidden lovers, suicides, brutal murders, and freak accidents. Learn about authentic hauntings that happened in locations such as the Cathedral of Junk, the Hope Outdoor Gallery, and the Museum of the Weird, as well as restaurants and vintage shops.
Experience a ghost tour with a difference on this themed adults-only tour that focuses on murders and hauntings in Victorian-era Austin. Instead of spending hours researching the city’s ghost stories, this tour takes you to places known for their poltergeists and paranormal activity. Notable locations that the tour passes include the Millett Opera House, the University of Texas Tower, and the Driskill Hotel.
Hear stories about Austin’s spooky history and unexplained happenings, and discover many of its most atmospheric drinking dens, on this two-in-one ghost tour and pub crawl. Meet your guide in the evening in central Austin, and get ready to explore. You’ll visit multiple bars and historical landmarks over the course of the tour, with a dose of storytelling, and chances to buy drinks, at each stop.
If you are a fan of a good drink and a great story, this one is for you. Five-star pub guides lead an adventure through some of Austin's harder-to-find pubs, layering in city history dating from the 1870s and, of course, a few haunted tales. Drinks are not included, but each stop has specials exclusive to the tour.
Discover another side of Austin on a 2.5-hour Segway tour that features bats and ghosts. Offered from March to October, this nighttime ride through downtown Austin visits haunted hotels and buildings, famous landmarks, and the world’s largest urban bat colony. See the Texas State Capitol Building, Lady Bird Lake, Austin Convention Center, the 6th Street Entertainment district, Moonlight Towers, and more
Explore the downtown of one of the most haunted cities in Texas and come face to face with the ghosts of Austin's past, some friendly, others less so. Learn about previous sightings, locations, and optimal ghost-spotting hours, then grab a companion and dig into the dark past of the Texas capital.
Let's Roam is a leading app-led scavenger hunt company. Walk to landmarks and hidden gems, answering trivia questions and solving challenges, working with your team or competing against them. The hunts work as an everyday activity or for bachelorette parties, birthdays, and corporate team building, and each player chooses an interactive role with challenges varying by person.
This adventure is an interactive game in which your sleuthing efforts, combined with your creativity, earn you points.
The charming Central Texas town just 30 miles north of Austin is the home of "the most beautiful Square in Texas." It is also the home of some of the state's darkest history and sordid secrets. Georgetown's past includes heinous acts of violence, murders, suicides, and public executions. The Ghost Maker Tour meets at a local pub, Mesquite Creek Outfitters, for everyone to grab a drink to-go.
Any city that brands itself weird was always going to take its ghost stories seriously. Austin's downtown preserves the buildings where its darker history happened: the Driskill Hotel with a century of reported activity, the Paramount Theatre with a history of death behind the laughter, the Handlebar on East 5th Street in a former funeral parlor, and the Texas State Capitol itself, which carries an unavenged murder and reports of restless spirits in its halls.
Then there is 1885, when a killer the papers called the Midnight Assassin stalked the city's streets and alleys. The crimes were horrific and the identity was never uncovered, which is exactly why an entire tour is built around them. The picks above are ranked with our strongest first.
The Haunted Austin walking history tour is the flagship pick, an acclaimed storyteller leading a small group through downtown's supernatural corners including the Driskill. The Murder Walk follows the Midnight Assassin case through West 6th Street, Guy Town, and the Warehouse District with a drink stop at the Driskill. For families, the Ghosts of Austin tour is built for all ages, and the Weird and Haunted Dark History walk adds stops like the Museum of the Weird.
Adults-only crowds should look at Murder by Gaslight, focused on Victorian-era Austin, or the Georgetown Ghost Maker tour 30 miles north, which meets at a pub and covers that town's surprisingly grim past. Social groups get two pub options, and if you want something different, the ghost and bat Segway tour pairs haunted buildings with the world's largest urban bat colony, March through October. Game-style hunts round out the list for groups who want points on the board.
Built in the 1880s, the Driskill has generated a century of reports: apparitions, cold spots, strange noises, and guests who felt watched. Several tours stop there, and you can book a room if you want the full night.
The name given to the killer who terrorized Austin in 1885, sometimes called America's first serial killer. The identity was never established, and the case anchors the Murder Walk.
The Ghosts of Austin tour is designed for all ages, and most other walks are pitched around PG-12. The Murder by Gaslight and Georgetown tours are adults-only, so check each listing.
Comfortable shoes and weather-appropriate clothing. Nearly every tour here is a walking tour through downtown, and most are not wheelchair accessible, though some companies can arrange private accommodations if you ask ahead.
Read our ranked list of the 5 best ghost tours in Austin, then browse haunted Austin, things to do in Austin, and where to stay in Austin, or see everything we cover in Texas.
The One State Where We Hold the Lantern
Everywhere else, we write the guide. In Flagstaff, Tucson and Prescott we lead the tour, nightly, in person, with five generations of Arizona roots behind every story.