Fall Activities for Kids in San Antonio (2026)

San Antonio has the best free fall options of any Texas market, and the most confusing paid ones. The city and its museums put on a remarkable amount at no cost — a zoo that gives away trick-or-treating every afternoon for six weeks, a free library Halloween in Boerne, a free Día de los Muertos festival with sensory-friendly hours — while the two big theme parks run a children’s daytime event and an adult scare event on the same days, under similar names, with very different age guidance.

This guide separates those carefully. Every date, price and hour below was read off the venue’s own page in late September 2026, and where a venue has not published a 2026 figure, we say so instead of recycling last year’s. San Antonio has a few genuinely misleading pages still live — including one farm whose own FAQ contradicts its own homepage — and those are flagged where they matter.

Quick glance: fall 2026 in San Antonio

Where	When	Cost	Best for
ZOO BOO!, San Antonio Zoo	Sept 19–Nov 1, treats 4–5pm daily	Trick-or-treat free with admission	Ages 2–10
The Patch at Winding Branch Ranch, Bulverde	Sept 25–Nov 1	Free — timed ticket required	Ages 1–8
Boerne Boo!	Sat Oct 24, 4–7pm	Free	Ages 0–12
Muertos Fest, Hemisfair	Oct 23–25	Free	All ages
BOOtanica, Botanical Garden	Sat Oct 17, 9am–1pm	Free with admission	Ages 2–9
South Texas Maize, Hondo	From Sept 26	$21 + tax, ages 3+	Ages 4–12
Devine Acres Farm	Weekends Sept 26–Nov 1, plus Oct 12	$18.95 online / $24.95 gate	Ages 3–10
Morgan’s Wonderland Halloween Bash	Weekends Sept 27–Oct 31	$20 ages 3–13 / $30 adults	Fully accessible
The DoSeum Trick-or-Treat	Sat Oct 31, 5:30–8pm	$20 child / $15 adult	Under 9
Natural Bridge Caverns Bat Fest	Every October weekend	Above-ground free, $10 parking	All ages

Free, and the best of the season

ZOO BOO! — San Antonio Zoo

Six weeks of free daily trick-or-treating from 4 to 5pm, included with ordinary zoo admission, plus free garage parking. On Halloween itself the zoo stays open until 9pm. Admission is dynamically priced and the zoo advertises it as low as $8, so the cost of a late-afternoon visit can be genuinely small.

Kids do: daily trick-or-treat stations, decorated zoo, Halloween programming
Ages: 2–10
Cost: free with admission; free for 2 and under; parking free
Dates: Sept 19 through Nov 1. Treats 4–5pm; extended to 9pm Saturday Oct 31.

Nanny tip: arrive at three, do the animals in the cooler part of the afternoon, then walk into the treat stations at four. The whole thing fits into a single afternoon without a nap collision.

The Patch at Winding Branch Ranch — Bulverde

Free admission, pumpkins taken by donation, on a rescue ranch north of the city. The catch is logistical rather than financial: timed tickets are required and they sell out. Book the slot as soon as you know the date.

Ages: 1–8
Cost: free; pumpkins by donation
Dates and hours: Sept 25 through Nov 1. Wed–Thu 3–6pm, Fri–Sun 9am–5pm, plus Monday Oct 12.

Boerne Boo!

Saturday Oct 24, 2026, 4 to 7pm, free, at the Patrick Heath Public Library. Costume contest brackets are 0–4, 5–8 and 9–17 — a rare event that is explicitly built to include teenagers alongside toddlers.

Muertos Fest — Hemisfair

Oct 23–25, 2026, free. Worth singling out: Muertos Fest publishes sensory-friendly hours on Friday from 5 to 7pm, which almost no festival of its size does. If you have a child who finds noise and crowds hard, that two-hour window is the one to use.

BOOtanica and Jardín de las Catrinas — San Antonio Botanical Garden

BOOtanica is Saturday Oct 17, 2026, 9am to 1pm, free with garden admission. The Jardín de las Catrinas installation runs much longer, Sept 15 through Nov 2. Weekend admission is $22 for adults and $15 for children 3 to 13, free for under 3, with free parking.

Note: the garden’s current site is sabgtx.org. The older sabot.org address redirects, so bookmark the new one.

Pumpkin patches and corn mazes

South Texas Maize at Graff 7A Ranch — Hondo

Forty minutes west of the city and the biggest corn maze in the region. Read the dates carefully, because the ranch’s own pages disagree with each other: the homepage says the season opens September 26, 2026, and that is the correct one. The FAQ’s “October 15 – November 20” line is left over from an earlier year.

Kids do: corn maze, hayride, farm attractions, pumpkins
Ages: 4–12 for the maze; younger children are fine on the grounds
Cost: general admission $21 plus tax for ages 3 and up, free under 3. Tickets are sold on arrival — no advance purchase needed — but the ranch is cashless on weekends.
Hours: Friday 6–9pm with grounds closing at 10pm (October and November only); Saturday 10am–9pm, grounds close 10pm; Sunday noon–5pm, grounds close 6pm. Also open Columbus Day, Monday Oct 12.

Nanny tip: Sunday afternoon is the civilised option — a five-hour window, no night driving back from Hondo, and the maze is far easier to supervise in daylight with more than one child.

Devine Acres Farm

Weekends from Sept 26 through Nov 1, plus Columbus Day. The price gap here is the thing to know: $18.95 booked online against $24.95 at the gate, so a family of four saves $24 by buying in the car park rather than at the window. Free for 2 and under.

One safety note worth having in advance: the Mega Slide has a 42-inch minimum height. If your five-year-old is small for their age, know that before they queue.

Alamo Heights United Methodist Church Pumpkin Patch

Oct 10 through 31, 9:30am to 7pm daily, free to visit. The simplest pumpkin stop inside Loop 410 and the one to use when you want half an hour, not half a day. The church’s own page does not list a street address for the patch — look the campus up before you set off.

Paid events, with the details that matter

Morgan’s Wonderland Halloween Bash

Weekends from Sept 27 through Oct 31, 2026, plus Halloween itself. $30 adults, $20 ages 3 to 13, free parking — and free admission for individuals with disabilities and for children under 2, as across everything Morgan’s Wonderland does. The park is designed from the ground up to be fully accessible, and there is nothing else like it in Texas.

The one gap: the Bash’s own hours are not posted for 2026. Confirm them before you plan the afternoon around it.

The DoSeum

Halloween programming across October, with a dedicated Trick-or-Treat on Saturday Oct 31, 2026, 5:30 to 8pm, ticketed separately at $20 per child and $15 per adult. Ordinary admission is $18 for ages 1 and up, free under 1, with free parking.

Natural Bridge Caverns — Cavern Bat Fest

Every October weekend: Oct 3–4, 10–11, 17–18, 24–25, and 31–Nov 1. The above-ground activities are free and there is free trick-or-treating on Oct 31 from 3 to 5pm; parking is $10. Cave tour prices are not posted on the Bat Fest page, so price those separately if you want to go underground.

The costume contest is for 9 and under only — older siblings can watch but not enter.

Trick-or-Treat on the Trail — Brackenridge Park

Friday Oct 23, 2026, 5 to 8pm. The 2026 cost has not been posted; the dedicated event page still online is from 2025, so check the park conservancy’s current listing rather than that one.

Read the age guidance at the theme parks

Both big parks run a children’s daytime event and an adult scare event in the same season, often on the same days. Getting this wrong is the single most common fall mistake San Antonio families make.

Six Flags Fiesta Texas — the daytime Tricks and Treats event runs Saturdays and Sundays from Sept 12 through Nov 1 and is for children. Fright Fest runs the same days and the park itself states it is not recommended for children under 13. Leave before it starts.
SeaWorld San Antonio — Spooktacular is the daytime children’s event, with trick-or-treating for 12 and under, Sept 11 through Nov 1. Howl-O-Scream runs the same season and is the scare event.

One stale page to ignore: the Witte Museum’s Halloween page still online is dated Oct 31, 2024. Do not plan from it.

Free parks and trails, any day

Phil Hardberger Park and the Robert L.B. Tobin Land Bridge — free, open sunrise to sunset. The land bridge over Wurzbach Parkway is a genuinely interesting ten minutes for a child of any age.
Cibolo Center for Conservation, Boerne — free, trails open 8am to dusk. Pair it with Boerne Boo! on Oct 24.
Government Canyon State Natural Area — $6 adults, free for 12 and under, 7am to 10pm, but open Friday through Monday only. Reservations recommended.
Guadalupe River State Park — $7 adults, free for 12 and under, gate open 8am to 10pm.

Fall at home

Leaf-and-tape suncatchers. Cedar elm, live oak and sycamore all press flat. Sandwich between two strips of clear packing tape, trim to a circle, stick to a window.
Papel picado. Folded tissue paper and safety scissors. The obvious follow-on to Muertos Fest, and a six-year-old can do it unsupervised.
Marigold garlands. Thread marigold heads onto cotton thread with a blunt needle — fine motor practice disguised as decoration.
Pumpkin seed mosaics. Rinse, dry overnight on a towel, glue onto cardstock in patterns. Food coloring in a sandwich bag dyes a batch in a minute.

San Antonio fall activities: common questions

ZOO BOO! at the San Antonio Zoo includes free trick-or-treating from 4 to 5pm daily between September 19 and November 1 with ordinary admission, and parking is free. The Patch at Winding Branch Ranch in Bulverde is free admission with pumpkins by donation, though timed tickets are required. Boerne Boo! on Saturday, October 24, 4 to 7pm, and Muertos Fest at Hemisfair on October 23 to 25 are both free, and BOOtanica on October 17 is free with garden admission.

September 26, 2026, according to the ranch homepage. The October 15 to November 20 range shown in the ranch FAQ is left over from an earlier year. Admission is $21 plus tax for ages 3 and up, free under 3, with tickets sold on arrival. Hours are Friday 6 to 9pm, Saturday 10am to 9pm and Sunday noon to 5pm, and the ranch is cashless on weekends.

No. Six Flags states that Fright Fest is not recommended for children under 13. The park’s daytime Tricks and Treats event, on Saturdays and Sundays from September 12 through November 1, is the children’s event. The same pattern applies at SeaWorld San Antonio, where Spooktacular is the daytime children’s event with trick-or-treating for 12 and under, and Howl-O-Scream is the scare event.

Morgan’s Wonderland Halloween Bash is fully accessible and admission is free for individuals with disabilities, running weekends from September 27 through October 31. Muertos Fest at Hemisfair publishes sensory-friendly hours on the Friday from 5 to 7pm. Both are among the few events of their size in Texas to do this.

$18.95 booked online or $24.95 at the gate, free for 2 and under. It runs weekends from September 26 through November 1, plus Columbus Day. The Mega Slide has a 42-inch height minimum, which is worth knowing before a small five-year-old queues for it.

The Alamo Heights United Methodist Church pumpkin patch, open daily from 9:30am to 7pm between October 10 and 31, free to visit. It is a half-hour stop rather than a half-day outing. The church does not list a street address for the patch on its own page, so look up the campus location before setting off.

If you are considering in-home childcare this fall, our San Antonio nanny agency page covers how placement works locally, and every market we serve in the state is listed on our Texas page.

Hiring a nanny in San Antonio?

San Antonio’s best fall events are free, timed, and quick to fill — the sort of thing a nanny who knows the city stays ahead of. We place career nannies with families across San Antonio, Alamo Heights, Stone Oak, Bulverde and Boerne: fully screened, reference-checked and matched to how your household actually runs.

Start Your Search

Prefer to talk it through? Call 1-844-626-6922.