New Orleans Travelers Recommend

Road Trip The transition from urban New Orleans to the mysterious realm of cypress swamps, vast sugarcane fields and historic bridges spanning the mighty Mississippi River are best experienced in that most American method of transportation: the automobile. Explore the region on your own or soak up some local history with the aid of one of the many guided tours readily at hand in New Orleans’ French Quarter. All Aboard Learn the secrets of local alligator hunters, fur trappers and fishermen aboard a guided boat tour of the swamps and backwater bayous of Louisiana. Though many travelers take pleasure in blazing their own trail, these gator-infested waters are not for the uninitiated. Take advantage of local knowledge of reptile habitats, healing plants and exotic birds while in pursuit of alligators, snakes, egrets, raccoons, nutria, and other wildlife.

To some, connotations of New Orleans lead to images of the antebellum plantation houses and big fan boats skidding along a marshy alligator-ridden bayou. Though New Orleans is a town that never forgets its roots and is, in fact, in very close proximity to these things, is nevertheless a modern and busy city with all that comes along with it – big city culture, big city dining, big city fun. And while you may be out indulging in some of these big city finer points, the historian and old-country lover in you might long for a return to simpler times. Luckily, the antebellum south is remembered well in some of the nearby New Orleans Plantations. Once the mainstays of an agrarian economy, nearby New Orleans plantation houses offer visitors a glimpse into the windows of a bygone era. The Bocage Plantation stakes its claim to fame for being the best representation of American Greek Revival architecture in the nation.