New Orleans runs on live music, Creole cooking and a French Quarter that looks the part at any hour. It rewards slow mornings and later nights more than any efficient itinerary.
Good to know
- Hurricane season (June–November) can disrupt trips; watch the forecast, especially August–October.
- It's legal to walk around with a drink in a plastic 'go-cup' in the French Quarter — bars will pour it into one for you.
- Frenchmen Street is the better bet for live music than Bourbon Street, with better bands and no cover most nights.
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Places the planner can use
Mark places as a must or something to skip. The itinerary is built only from this list; ★ marks the destination’s highlights.
Wrought-iron balconies, street musicians and St. Louis Cathedral overlooking a square that's been the city's heart since 1721.
Loud, neon and hard to avoid — go once for the spectacle, then find the quieter bars a block or two over.
Beignets and chicory coffee, open 24 hours, at marble tables under the green-and-white awning since 1862.
Sit-down Creole cooking — dark roux gumbo, red beans on Mondays, and bread pudding for dessert.
A small, slightly ramshackle museum on the city's Voodoo history — more atmosphere than artifact, and a good rainy-hour filler.
A neighbourhood shrimp or roast beef po'boy shop that's barely changed since 1918 — cash only, worth the trip.
The oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world, rattling past oak-lined mansions from downtown to Uptown.
The locals' alternative to Bourbon Street — small clubs like Snug Harbor and The Spotted Cat with no cover most nights.
Antebellum mansions under live oaks, plus Lafayette Cemetery No. 1's above-ground tombs — go with a guide for the history.
An hour outside the city for a boat ride through cypress swamp, spotting alligators and wild boar with a Cajun guide.
One of the best military history museums in the country, built around New Orleans' role manufacturing the landing craft used at Normandy.
Live oaks draped in Spanish moss around a free outdoor sculpture garden — quieter and greener than the Quarter.