Louisiana · United States
French, Spanish, West African and Caribbean, on a bend in the Mississippi — the least American-feeling city in America, and the one with the best food.
New Orleans was founded by the French in 1718, handed to Spain in 1763, returned to France in 1800 and sold to the United States three years later as part of the Louisiana Purchase. That sequence explains most of the city: the street names, the Catholic rather than Protestant character, the legal system that still uses French civil law concepts, and the fact that it feels less like the rest of America than any other major city in the country.
The deeper influence is West African and Caribbean. Enslaved people brought from Senegambia and the Bight of Benin, and free people of colour arriving from Saint-Domingue after the Haitian Revolution, shaped the food, the music and the religious practice. Congo Square, where enslaved people were permitted to gather and drum on Sundays, is generally credited as a birthplace of what became jazz. That lineage runs directly to the brass bands playing on Frenchmen Street tonight.
It is also a city built in a bowl below sea level between a river and a lake, which is why Hurricane Katrina's levee failures in 2005 flooded 80% of it and why the recovery is still visibly uneven twenty years on. Visitors who stay only in the French Quarter — which is on high ground and barely flooded — see a lovely and quite partial version of the place.
Why visit
New Orleans has the most distinctive culture of any American city, and it is concentrated enough to experience properly in four days.
Creole and Cajun cooking is a genuine fusion — French technique, Spanish and Caribbean ingredients, West African methods — and produces gumbo, jambalaya, étouffée, po'boys and beignets. It exists nowhere else and the standard at ordinary restaurant level is extraordinarily high.
Jazz, brass, funk, zydeco and blues, seven nights a week, in rooms that hold forty people and often charge nothing at the door. Frenchmen Street has half a dozen venues within two blocks.
The French Quarter's Spanish-built courtyards and cast-iron balconies, the Garden District's antebellum mansions under live oaks, and the shotgun houses of the Bywater and Tremé. Little of it looks American.
The French Quarter is thirteen blocks by six. The Garden District is a streetcar ride along one of the oldest continuously operating lines in the world. You can see most of the city on foot and by tram.
Mardi Gras is the famous one, but Jazz Fest in late April and early May is arguably the better event, and the city runs some kind of festival most weekends of the year.
Main attractions
The French Quarter is the obvious centre but the city extends well beyond it, and the neighbourhoods either side are where much of the interest is.
The original 1718 city, thirteen blocks by six, though most of what stands is Spanish colonial — the French buildings burned in fires of 1788 and 1794. Cast-iron balconies, hidden courtyards, and Jackson Square in front of St Louis Cathedral.
Tip Walk the residential lower Quarter — Royal, Chartres and Dauphine below St Ann — rather than Bourbon Street, which is a drinking strip and nothing more.
Three blocks in the Marigny just past the Quarter, holding the city's real live music scene: jazz, brass, funk and blues in small rooms, many with no cover charge, running from early evening until very late.
Tip Start around 20:00 and move between venues. The Palace Market art market on the street runs most evenings.
Antebellum mansions under live oaks hung with Spanish moss, reached on a green streetcar that has run this route since 1835 — one of the oldest continuously operating street railways in the world. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 sits in the middle of it.
Tip Ride the whole St Charles line to Audubon Park and walk back through the district. The fare is $1.25 and the ride takes 40 minutes.
Consistently rated among the best museums in the United States, built here because the landing craft used on D-Day were designed and manufactured in New Orleans. Immersive, extensive and excellent.
Tip Allow four hours minimum. The Road to Berlin and Road to Tokyo galleries are the strongest parts.
One of the oldest African American neighbourhoods in the United States, immediately north of the Quarter. Congo Square in Louis Armstrong Park is where enslaved people gathered to drum on Sundays, and is a plausible birthplace of jazz.
Tip The Backstreet Cultural Museum documents Mardi Gras Indians and jazz funerals, and is small, personal and excellent.
Above-ground tombs built because the water table is too high for burial, arranged in what look like small streets. St Louis No. 1 holds Marie Laveau's tomb and requires a licensed guide; Lafayette No. 1 in the Garden District is more accessible.
Tip St Louis No. 1 can only be entered with an authorised guide. Book through the archdiocese or a licensed tour.
The river is 700 metres wide here and the free — or near-free — ferry to Algiers Point gives you the skyline from the water and a quiet 19th-century neighbourhood on the far bank.
Tip Far better value than the paddle-steamer cruises, and Algiers Point is a pleasant hour.
Bayou country begins 40 minutes west, with airboat and flat-boat tours through cypress swamps. On the River Road, Whitney Plantation is a museum told from the perspective of the enslaved, and is unlike any other site of its kind.
Tip Whitney is the one plantation worth visiting and is deliberately uncomfortable. It is about an hour from the city.
Things to do
Eating and listening are the two main activities, and both are best done by moving around rather than settling in one place.
Frenchmen Street for jazz and brass, Preservation Hall for traditional jazz in a bare room with no amplification, and neighbourhood bars in the Bywater and Tremé for the local version.
Tip Preservation Hall sells timed tickets and has no drinks, no air conditioning and mostly no seats. It is 45 minutes and worth it.
The po'boy is fried shrimp or oysters, or slow-roast beef with gravy, on crisp Leidenheimer French bread. Gumbo is a dark roux-based stew with okra or filé. Both are everyday food rather than special-occasion.
Tip 'Dressed' means lettuce, tomato, pickle and mayonnaise. Say yes.
Forty minutes through the Garden District and Uptown beneath live oaks, on wooden-seated cars that have run since 1923 on a line dating to 1835. It costs $1.25 and is one of the best things in the city.
Tip Sit on the left heading uptown for the mansion side. Board at Canal Street.
The above-ground tombs and the neighbourhoods' history are both much better with a guide. Tremé tours in particular put the music and the civil rights history in context that self-guided walking cannot.
Tip Choose a locally owned operator. The city has a lot of tour companies and the quality varies enormously.
Cypress swamps, Spanish moss, alligators and herons, 40 minutes west of the city. Flat-boat tours are quieter and better for wildlife than the loud airboats.
Tip Morning trips see more wildlife. Alligators are inactive below about 20°C, so winter trips see few.
Mardi Gras in February or March and Jazz Fest in late April are the big two, and both transform the city. Outside them, French Quarter Fest in April is free and locals often prefer it.
Tip Mardi Gras accommodation books a year ahead at three or four times normal rates. Decide early which side of that you want to be on.
Local food
Creole is the city cooking — French-influenced, using tomatoes, butter and cream. Cajun is the country cooking of the bayous — darker roux, more pepper, one-pot. Both are excellent and locals distinguish them carefully.
A stew built on a roux cooked from blond to dark chocolate, thickened with okra or filé powder, with seafood, chicken and andouille sausage, served over rice. The single most important dish in Louisiana cooking.
Where to try it Everywhere. Seafood gumbo in the city, chicken and sausage in the country, and every family has opinions.
Fried shrimp, oysters, catfish or slow-roast beef with gravy, on light, crisp Leidenheimer French bread. Named for striking streetcar workers — 'poor boys' — who were fed free in 1929.
Where to try it Neighbourhood po'boy shops in Uptown, Mid-City and the Bywater rather than the Quarter.
Square doughnuts, deep fried and buried under icing sugar, served three at a time with chicory coffee. A French colonial inheritance and the city's standard breakfast or 02:00 snack.
Where to try it Café du Monde in the French Market, open 24 hours, and its quieter branches elsewhere in the city.
Jambalaya is rice cooked with meat and stock in one pot, a relative of paella. Étouffée is crawfish or shrimp smothered in a butter-and-roux sauce and served over rice. Both are staples rather than specialities.
Where to try it Creole restaurants across the city. Crawfish étouffée is best in spring when crawfish are in season.
Oysters grilled in the shell with garlic butter and parmesan, and — from roughly February to May — boiled crawfish with corn, potato and heavy spice, eaten by the pound off newspaper.
Where to try it Oyster bars year-round; crawfish boils in spring at neighbourhood joints and back-yard events.
The Sazerac — rye, bitters, sugar and an absinthe rinse — is claimed as the first American cocktail and is the official drink of the city. Chicory coffee dates to Civil War shortages and stuck.
Where to try it Old hotel bars in the Quarter for the Sazerac; Café du Monde or any café for the chicory.
Accommodation
The French Quarter is central and noisy; the neighbourhoods immediately either side are quieter, cheaper and closer to how the city actually lives.
Transport
New Orleans has one airport with good domestic connections, and sits at the end of some long but scenic drives through the Gulf South.
Walk the Quarter and take the streetcar for everything else. The city is flat and compact, and a car is a hindrance downtown.
When to go
New Orleans is subtropical and sits below sea level in a swamp. The summer humidity is the single biggest factor in planning, and hurricane season overlaps it.
The best window: 18–28°C, low humidity by local standards, crawfish in season, and the festival calendar at its fullest with Mardi Gras, French Quarter Fest and Jazz Fest. Book far ahead for all three.
Hot and extremely humid at 32–35°C with dew points that make it feel worse, plus daily afternoon thunderstorms. This is also peak hurricane season. Hotel rates are at their lowest for exactly these reasons.
The humidity breaks in October and the weather becomes excellent — 18–26°C, clear, with the hurricane risk falling away by November. Quieter than spring and cheaper.
Mild at 10–18°C, occasionally cold and damp, and the quietest and cheapest time of year. Oysters are at their best and the city functions normally.
Worth planning around: Hurricane season runs 1 June to 30 November and peaks in August and September. Travel insurance that covers weather disruption is worth having if you travel then.
Itinerary
Built around late nights, because the music does not start until 20:00 and the good rooms are still going at 01:00. Mornings start accordingly.
Get oriented in the oldest part of the city, then find the music.
The green half of the city, by streetcar.
The city's history, told properly.
Out of the city, and one last night in it.
Travel tips
New Orleans specifics, including one thing visitors get wrong about the geography of the nightlife.
FAQ
Frenchmen Street in the Marigny, three blocks past the French Quarter — half a dozen venues within two blocks, playing jazz, brass, funk and blues seven nights a week, many with no cover charge. Preservation Hall in the Quarter does traditional jazz in a bare, unamplified room for 45-minute sets. Bourbon Street, despite its reputation, is a drinking strip with very little worth hearing.
Four. One for the French Quarter, one for the Garden District and Uptown by streetcar, one for Tremé and the WWII Museum, and one for the swamps or the River Road. The city is compact, but the nights run late and the days need to start accordingly — three days feels rushed.
Creole is the city cooking — French-influenced, using tomatoes, butter and cream, and shaped by Spanish, West African and Caribbean ingredients. Cajun is the country cooking of the bayous west of the city, brought by Acadians expelled from Canada: darker roux, more pepper, one-pot dishes, no tomatoes. Both are excellent and locals distinguish them carefully.
February to May and October to November. Spring has the best weather, crawfish season and the festival calendar — Mardi Gras, French Quarter Fest and Jazz Fest. Autumn is quieter and cheaper with similar weather. Avoid June to September: 32–35°C with punishing humidity, daily thunderstorms and peak hurricane season.
The tourist areas — the French Quarter, Marigny, Garden District and Warehouse District — are heavily patrolled and fine with normal precautions. The city does have high crime statistics overall, concentrated in neighbourhoods visitors have no reason to be in. The practical advice is to stay in well-lit populated streets late at night, take a ride rather than walking home alone at 03:00, and be aware that Bourbon Street after midnight attracts the usual problems of any drinking strip.
It depends what you want. Mardi Gras is extraordinary — weeks of parades run by century-old krewes, with the city entirely given over to it — but hotel rates triple or quadruple, everything books a year ahead, and the crowds are immense. Many people prefer Jazz Fest in late April or the free French Quarter Fest in April, both of which show the city's culture with far less strain.
No. The French Quarter is thirteen blocks by six and entirely flat, the St Charles streetcar reaches the Garden District and Uptown for $1.25, and the city is compact and walkable. Parking in the Quarter is expensive and awkward. Rent a car only for the swamp tours or the River Road plantations, or take an organised trip with hotel pickup.
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