Whether youre a longtime resident or a first-time visitor, you know New Orleans is different from other cities in the U.S. For beginners, it’s one of the oldest cities in the country. It also has a unique and diverse culture due to the merging of different ethnicities and racial groups. Such reflects in the architecture, foods served, and southern hospitality unlike anything else in the world.
This provides visitors with the chance to have a one-of-a-kind adventure that will leave a memorable impression. But where to begin? With so much to see and do, its best to start with the French Quarter and work your way outward with the help of several highly recommended tours.
Walk Around the French Quarter
The reality of the Vieux Carre much outweighs its Mardi-Gras reputation, which is renowned for its beads and beers on Bourbon Street. The French Quarter is a centerpiece in a city that impresses visitors with its spectacular architecture, with influences from Spain, the Caribbean, France, and America. It’s also a neighborhood full of performers, from musicians to voodoo experts.
We know what first-time visitors expect to find in the French Quarter. From margarita popsicles to world-famous hurricanes, the French Quarter has it all. But there’s more tothis historic district than drinking. Walk around Jackson Square, the heart of the French Quarter that is always bustling with activity. The street performers are well worth seeing, and if you love watching them, please tip them as this is how they earn their living. The square is named after Andrew Jackson, and while he had a fairly complex history, the square is lovely. It’s a nice area to sit and observe the world go by.
Garden District with a Stop at Lafayette Cemetery Tour
The New Orleans historic Garden District walking tour focuses on the American settlement and their exquisite mansions, landscapes, prosperity, and how life was improved due to their incredible efforts. After this tour, you will cover the magnificent city’s fascinating history, culture, and design.
Start your tour outside the gates of Lafayette Cemetery, where you will learn about fundamental burial rituals and understand why New Orleans cemeteries are so special. Next, wander around the area, where you can witness American architectural styles. There are celebrity houses and impeccably groomed landscapes. Take a walk with a local and explore the world through our eyes.
New Orleans Music and Heritage Tour, Abel Tours
This walking tour explores New Orleans’s reputation as the home of jazz, focusing on the musical artists and neighborhoods where jazz originated in and around the French Quarter. Beginning with the finding site of the original Dixieland jazz band on canal street, the trip travels to Louis Armstrong’s childhood suburb, Back of Town. It extends to the vaudeville playhouses and dance halls of the Tango Belt and Storyville neighborhoods.
In the Treme district, public paintings in Louis Armstrong Park honor the city’s rich musical legacy. Finally, the lower French Quarter highlights the neighborhood’s history as an African American and Italian immigrant community. Early jazz historians idealized the beginning and spread of jazz in the 1910s and 1920s. This trip discloses the distinctiveness of locations and performance sites during this time and the rich cultural context of the communities where artists grew up.
Cajun Proud Swamp Tours By Boat
After touring across cemeteries, reveling on Frenchmen Street, and exploring museums, you might want to take some time away from New Orleans’s vibrant environment – and a swamp tour might be just what you need. You will trade city highlights for scenic views, quiet waters, and the possibility to see some native species.
This tour takes you deeper into the Manchac Swamp to see indigenous plants and animals and the Cajun town of Frenier. You may see alligators, turtles, raccoons, and bald eagles as you sail by boat through the company’s private wildlife sanctuary. Still, the standout for many reviews is being able to hold baby gators, and potentially other species, on board. Visitors also comment about the entertaining and educational guides. Tours last 90 minutes and leave several times per day.
Garden Tours
Gardens in New Orleans are a sanctuary of beauty in an already amazing city. They are vibrantly green, brilliantly colored, shaded by Live Oaks dripping Spanish moss, and accented with art. Seeing hidden courtyards and planted swaths of year-round horticulture inside the garden walls gives a greener aspect to any visit to New Orleans. Visitors are welcome to view both public and private gardens.
In Summary
Whether you love it or despise it, New Orleans is a city that stirs up emotions deep within you, regardless of your conclusion. Its power is limitless, and it absorbs and reacts to change. Any first-time visitor will appreciate the hospitality and the surrounding
of the city.
