The San Antonio stories to know before you book
The square came first. Juan Antonio Perez de Almazan laid out the central square of the villa of San Fernando de Bexar on July 2, 1731 for the Canary Islanders who had just arrived, the cornerstone of the first stone church went down most likely on May 11, 1738, and a master stonemason from San Luis Potosi finished the building in 1755, per the Handbook of Texas. That church earns its place on the routes for one reason above the rest: during the Texas Revolution, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna used it as a lookout and ordered a red flag flown from it to signal that the Texans at the Alamo would be shown no mercy.
Then the siege. Mexican forces surrounded Lt. Col. William B. Travis and his garrison on February 23, 1836, and the thirteen days ended on March 6 with the loss of every Texan combatant, per the Handbook of Texas. The same entry records something the night routes rarely mention: the first hospital in San Antonio, and in Texas, was set up inside the Alamo, a military infirmary described in a letter dated October 19, 1805 as a partly ruined chamber in the secularized mission, its beds made of reeds to keep the damp off the patients. Hospital ground is a recurring theme in this city. The Emily Morgan across the plaza began as a 1926 medical building on the battle site, and the reports from its halls keep circling back to that.
The Menger opened on Alamo Square on January 31, 1859, built by William and Mary Menger, German immigrants who had run a boarding house on the same block; the foundations went in on June 18, 1858 and the work was done by the end of that January, per the Handbook of Texas. William Menger died in the hotel in March 1871. After the railroad reached town in 1877 the Menger became the best-known hotel in the Southwest, Theodore Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders there in 1898, and in 1976 the building joined the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Alamo Plaza Historic District. The name guides come back to on the sidewalk outside is Sallie White, a maid whose end came inside those walls.
The flood is the story the guidebooks skip. Rain that started at midnight on a Thursday in September 1921 put the river over its banks within hours, and by the morning of September 10 the water had taken a strip of the city the wire dispatch measured at two miles wide and six miles long, the business district included. "At one time the water was standing almost to the mezzanine floor of the Gunter Hotel," the Laredo Weekly Times reported on its front page of September 11, 1921, in the issue held by the Library of Congress. The same column counted 22 bodies recovered by that morning, put troops on patrol in the streets by midnight, and noted that the Alamo came through undamaged because of its elevation. The Gunter is still downtown, and it is still one of the addresses guides slow down for.
The longer files on every address in this section live in our guide to haunted San Antonio.
Which San Antonio ghost tour is right for your group?
The ghost bus
The bus trades sidewalk closeness for a seat and a wider map. The Haunted Ghost Bus Tour in San Antonio is our top pick on volume: 4.7 stars across 1,033 reviews, the deepest record on this page, 2 hours 30 minutes from $55, run by Sisters Grimm Ghost Tours with a maximum of 29 travelers. It is also the San Antonio tour our own booking data ranks first so far this year. Two hard facts from its listing: it states No Children 8 and Under Allowed, and it does not list wheelchair access.
- Choose it if you want the widest map of the night; the route reaches the Menger, the old Red Light District, the former Bexar County Jail, and a historic cemetery.
- Choose it if the walking is the part that would sink the evening.
- Skip it if anyone in the party is 8 or under; the listing does not allow it.
- Skip it if you need wheelchair access; five walks in our table list it and the bus does not.
Verdict: the one we would book first, and the priciest seat on this page at $55.
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The all-ages walk
The San Antonio Haunted History Ghost Tour is the on-foot default and the family lane: 4.7 stars across 791 reviews, 90 minutes from $32, also from Sisters Grimm, with guides in period costume carrying lanterns on a route that begins and ends at the Alamo. Its own listing title calls it all ages, and it lists wheelchair access and strollers. It also publishes the line that answers the question everyone asks, Tour does not go inside buildings. Two cautions sit on the same listing, one for heart conditions and one for back problems.
- Choose it if the youngest member of the group sets the tone for the night.
- Choose it if you need wheelchair access or you are pushing a stroller.
- Choose it if you want the Alamo as both your start and your finish.
- Skip it if you want to get inside a building; this route stays on the street by its own statement.
Verdict: the easy yes for mixed ages, with the second deepest review record here.
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The murder walk
San Antonio's Ultimate Ghost and Murder Walking Guided Tour is the newest name on this page and the best rated on it: 4.8 stars across 279 reviews, 90 minutes from $25, run by Walking Tours of San Antonio. It lists wheelchair access and strollers, and it cancels free up to 24 hours out. This is the tour that was missing from this page until this pass.
- Choose it if the crimes are what you came for rather than a circuit of legends.
- Choose it if you want the top rating on this page with the deeper record behind it, 279 reviews.
- Choose it if $25 decides it; nothing in our table starts lower.
- Skip it if you want the wider map; 90 minutes on foot covers less ground than the bus.
Verdict: the addition this page owed its readers, at the lowest starting price in our table, $25, matched only by the Bad Wolf walk.
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The straight 90-minute walk
Two more walks run the classic 90 minutes, and they split on rating and price. The San Antonio Ghost Walk from Bad Wolf Ghost Tours holds 4.8 stars across 123 reviews from $25, lists wheelchair access and strollers, and is the other 4.8 on this page. The San Antonio Ghost Tour: Haunted History Walking Tour from Ghost City Tours San Antonio holds 4.4 across 142 reviews from $29.99, and also lists wheelchair access and strollers. Read the operator names on this pair: the Ghost City route's new name reads almost exactly like the Sisters Grimm all-ages walk above, and the two are not the same tour.
- Choose the Bad Wolf walk if you want a hometown operator, the top rating, and the lowest price at once.
- Choose the Ghost City walk if you would rather have the larger national brand behind the booking.
- Skip both if you want a longer night; the bus and the Booze and Boos walk each run 2 hours 30, and the investigator-led walk runs two.
Verdict: the Bad Wolf walk is the better buy of the two, on both numbers.
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The 21 and over bar walk
Haunted San Antonio Booze and Boos Ghost Walking Tour is the grown-up lane by rule rather than by tone: its listing states Minimum age is 21 years. It runs 2 hours 30 minutes from $36.52, holds 4.5 stars across 100 reviews, caps the group at 14, meets near Alamo Plaza per its itinerary, and operates in all weather. It carries a Likely to Sell Out chip, and it does not list wheelchair access.
- Choose it if your group measures a story by the round; a costumed guide works the haunted bars in between.
- Choose it if group size is what ruins tours for you; 14 is the smallest cap in our comparison.
- Skip it if anyone in the party is under 21; the listing sets that as a minimum.
- Skip it if you need wheelchair access; this listing does not offer it.
Verdict: the smallest group on the page, and the only listing here that commits to running in all weather.
Book the 21 and over haunted bar walk in San Antonio
The investigator-led walk
The San Antonio Ghost Walking Tour puts professional paranormal investigators in front of the group for two hours from $30. It holds 4.3 stars across 317 reviews, the lowest rating in our table on the third deepest review count, and its listing is unusually blunt about the ground: expect a lot of walking, climbing steps and stairs, and uneven ground, with comfortable shoes called important. It does not list wheelchair access.
- Choose it if you want the people who do this work off the clock as well as on it.
- Choose it if two hours on foot sounds like the right length of night.
- Skip it if stairs, uneven ground, or two hours standing are a problem; this is the most physical route in our table.
Verdict: the serious-subject pick, bought at the lowest rating here.
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The one-hour walk
San Antonio Apparitions Ghost Tour is the short one: one hour from $26, 4.4 stars across 67 reviews, the thinnest record in our table, run by River City Ghosts. It lists wheelchair access and strollers, and its confirmation can take 48 hours, so this is not the one to book for tonight. It also carries a new name; until recently it ran as San Antonio Ghosts of River City Haunted Dark History Walk.
- Choose it if one hour is all the walking your evening has room for.
- Choose it if you need wheelchair access with the shortest commitment on the page.
- Skip it if you are booking for tonight; confirmation on this listing can take 48 hours.
- Skip it if you want a deep review record; 67 is the thinnest here.
Verdict: the short lap, honestly rated.
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The dinner tour
One format on this page feeds you while the story runs. The San Antonio 3-Course Haunted Dinner and Guided Ghost Tour meets and dines at the Emily Morgan Hotel in Alamo Plaza, the 1926 medical building beside the Alamo walls, then puts you on the ghost walk through the plaza and the streets of Old San Antonio, ending at a haunted metaphysical shop. We did not check its price or its rating on this pass, so this page prints neither, and its booking page is where those numbers live. It is the only listing here where dinner is the first half of the night.
- Choose it if you would rather eat inside the building the stories are about than look at it from the sidewalk.
- Choose it if one longer evening beats stacking dinner and a tour separately.
- Skip it if you want the numbers we checked; this is the one format on this page without them.
Verdict: the eat-while-you-listen option, and the reason to read its listing rather than our table.
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On accessibility, the pattern runs opposite to instinct. Five of the eight compared tours list wheelchair access on Viator, and every one of the five is a walking tour: the all-ages Haunted History walk, the Ultimate Ghost and Murder walk, The San Antonio Ghost Walk, the Ghost City haunted history walk, and the one-hour Apparitions tour. The three that do not are the seated ghost bus, the 21 and over Booze and Boos walk, and the investigator-led San Antonio Ghost Walking Tour, whose listing is the one that spells out the climbing steps and stairs and the uneven ground. Strollers are welcome on the same five walks that list wheelchair access, per the listings. If access decides your booking, the vehicle is the option to rule out first, which is the reverse of what a seat usually means.
Haunted hotels in San Antonio
In San Antonio the hotels are not a side plot. The Menger, on Alamo Square since January 31, 1859, is the address most often called the most haunted hotel in Texas, and Sallie White's story belongs to it. The Emily Morgan next door began as a 1926 medical building on the battle site, and guests still report elevators that move on their own and figures in the hallways. The Gunter, the hotel the 1921 flood dispatch measured its water against, keeps a file of its own. We keep the longer versions in our guide to haunted San Antonio.
Three downtown properties put you inside walking distance of the meeting points rather than a ride away. Hyatt Regency San Antonio Riverwalk is the closest of the three to the plaza, 328 feet from the Alamo by its own listing, with a rooftop pool above the river bend. Omni La Mansion del Rio is the historic riverside choice, built around a courtyard with the Las Canarias dining rooms stepping down three levels to the water. Drury Inn and Suites San Antonio Riverwalk is the value bed, with a heated rooftop pool, a free hot breakfast, and the 5:30 Kickback in the evening. All three carry booking cards in the list above.
The full rundown, the big convention hotels and the historic names included, lives in our guide to where to stay in San Antonio.
Planning your San Antonio ghost tour night
Two tracks work. The family track books the all-ages walk: the San Antonio Haunted History Ghost Tour runs 90 minutes from $32, lists wheelchair access and strollers, and begins and ends at the Alamo, which keeps the geography simple with kids in tow. Put dinner on the River Walk first and the night still ends at a sensible hour. Daylight plans live in our guide to things to do in San Antonio.
The adults track starts later and runs longer. The Booze and Boos walk sets a minimum age of 21 years, caps the group at 14, and runs 2 hours 30 minutes. The ghost bus covers the wider map from a seat in the same 2 hours 30 minutes, with no children 8 and under aboard. If the crimes are the draw, the Ultimate Ghost and Murder walk holds the top rating on this page at $25.
Meeting points sit on the individual listings rather than in one shared corner of downtown, and two are worth reading twice: the all-ages walk begins and ends at the Alamo, and the Booze and Boos route meets near Alamo Plaza per its itinerary. Read yours the day before rather than the hour of. Booking early costs nothing here, because all eight compared tours cancel free up to 24 hours before start time, eight out of eight. The one timing catch is the one-hour Apparitions tour, where confirmation can take 48 hours.
If you are driving in, the clock is on your side. The City of San Antonio's parking service lists on-street parking as free after 6 p.m. every day and all day on Sunday, with meters and pay stations enforced Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., per its affordable parking page. Nearly every tour on this page departs after that window opens. If you would rather be in a garage, the same page prices the St. Mary's Garage at 205 E. Travis Street, which it describes as steps from the River Walk, at $5 after 5 p.m. on weeknights and all day Saturday and Sunday, with a $15 rate when the event rate is in effect.
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