A news photograph showing South Ward School in Clearwater, Florida on Oct. 5, 2007. Captured in a full-length exterior shot, the historic two-story white wooden school building stands on a lush green lawn. The building features two rows of four tall shuttered windows on its front facade, a gabled roof with a small vent, and small foundation vents near the base. In the background to the left, a tall palm tree, a church steeple, and a white dome structure are visible under a cloudy sky with dark storm clouds gathering overhead. — South Ward School in Clearwater, Florida on Oct. 5, 2007. Credit: Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s your last acceptable weekend to talk about the ghosts you’ve seen without people thinking you’re weird—and there are plenty of haunted tours around the Tampa Bay area to help.

The scariest may be the Ghosts of Tampa Theatre Tours and more frightening is that that every single one of them is totally sold-out.
Down the street, however, the University of Tampa’s Henry B. Plant Museum is in the “Erie Evening” spirit for its screening of “Dracula” and exhibit tours happening every night through Halloween.
If you want to shit your pants and maybe get shitfaced, too, then have a drink or three at the 13 Ugly Men Halloween Party, which will take over one of Ybor City’s most haunted buildings, The Cuban Club.
In Clearwater, the historic and haunted early-1900s South Ward School is open for tours that will surely include the old kindergarten where some guests have reported child-like figures asking for crayons and even responding when the living sing to them.
Anyone up for a drive can tour the Wesley Chapel home of eccentric tiki artist Lewis VanDercar.

See more Halloween-related events happening across the Bay area via Creative Loafing Tampa Bay’s user-generated calendar.

Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.

This article appears in Oct. 22 – 28, 2026.