Things to do in New Orleans
Once you plan your trip the first step after that is deciding what to do! I always start by check ever list I can find of “Top things to do in _________” and seeing what seems to match across all the lists because that’s usually a good sign that it’s a great activity. From there I usually start reading the review of the activities and the different tour companies that offer them to find the best fit. I spend a lot of time of trip advisor, google reviews, and yelp. After that comes figuring out how to make all the activities fit in your schedule
Our trip to New Orleans was a short one, 4 days, with the last day being dedicated to the Rock n Roll half marathon. These are the activities we decided on and I’m happy to say they did not disappoint we had a fabulous trip!
My favorite activity to do on a trip to a big city with a long history is to find a ghost tour. I’ve done them in Key West, Savannah, St. Augustine, and San Antonio to name a few. I read a bunch of reviews for tours and settled on the Voodoo, Vampire and Ghost tour. It was through a company name Witches Brew Tours. It was $15 per person which is reasonable, it’s on the lower end of the price range for all the Ghost Tours we’ve done. I advise you to always check the website and Trip Advisor before booking. This was a discounted price because we booked through Trip Advisor. (Sometimes the direct website can be cheaper so always check both!). Once we paid right on Trip Advisor, a voucher ticket was sent straight to my email with directions on where to meet for the tour.
I picked the 8 pm option because I like for it to be dark when doing Ghost Tours. It’s not because I think we might see a ghost, but I suppose you do have a better chance in the dark, but I think it adds to the experience when it’s not bright and sunny out. We met our group at the corner of Royal and Conti Streets right in the French Quarter. They had big banners that marked the spot making it easy to find. Once a complete group checked in we headed off with out host, Doug.
The tour lasted about 2 hours and was filled with tons of information about the building in the French Quarter. Did you know the first licensed pharmacy was right in the heart of the French Quarter? The building is now a pharmacy museum, but it has a very gruesome beginning centered around the Doctor who first opened the business. Our guide didn’t just tell us the “ghost stories,” he also pointed out landmark buildings, one being the school Ellen Degeneres attended.
One of the main stories centered around one of the first residential homes in the French Quarter. It was build by a woman who was married to her third rich husband. The first two had died of unknown causes. She built this house as a showboat to the town of her immense wealth. She employed tons of servants, who if they misbehaved were taken to the attic and never seen again. The story keeps going and has a lot more gross details. Moving more into modern times another interesting fact about the house is that it was once the home of Nicholas Cage, at least until he found out it’s gruesome history.
I highly recommend this tour it was informative and entertaining. Our guide was awesome, and the stories were great. I love being able to learn history in a fun way. Check it out next time you’re there and let me know what you think.
We choose the tour of the Bayou because it’s a landmark of New Orleans. There were two options for the boats used in the tour, you could choose between an air boat or a regular boat tour. I choose to do the regular boat because while the air boats are cool they are so loud, and you can’t hear anything while the boat is racing around. I also thought they would probably scare the animals with how loud they are, and we wanted to be able to see all the animals living in the bayou.
Our tour boat probably could have held close to 100 people, but luckily, we only had about 30 on our tour. It was nice because we could walk around on the boat and were able to see both sides. We mainly stayed on the main channels of the rive and lakes because the large boat couldn’t get back into the swamp lands. That would be one advantage of the air boat if you wanted to go that route.
It was quite chilly the day we headed out on the waters so luckily, we brought jackets and dressed warm. Despite the cold temperature we saw plenty of alligators swimming around. The guides hold out marshmallow on sticks to entice the gators to come closer to the boat and make them jump out of the water. A few of the reviews I read were people complaining about the marshmallow feedings. I get that as here in Florida you are prohibited from feeding alligators, so they are not encouraged to frequent where humans are, and they don’t loose their fear.
The tour was about and hour and a half plus about 30 minutes on a bus each way. It cost $50 a person, which was a little pricy but, we really enjoyed the tour. I will probably try to do another one the next time we are in New Orleans and its warmer so hopefully more wildlife it out.
This tour was quite possibly our favorite tour of the trip. The distillery is about 5 miles north of the French Quarter. We took an Uber there and it was $8, but we later found out they have free shuttle that will pick you up in the French Quarter. The tour is $15 a person and it was a small tour. We only had 3 people on our tour. It’s a little off the beaten path and not one of the more know activities. I try to find a few things in each destination that are not so “touristy.”
Our tour guide, Bob, was great and you could tell he really enjoyed hid job and telling us about the Rum process. When we walked in they gave us a rum drink while we waited for the tour to start. Once he started the tour it lasted about an hour and half. He started from the very beginning of the process explaining how they start with locally sourced Louisiana sugar cane. It’s amazing how they turn the sugar cane into rum. The Distillery is not huge, but they produce a huge amount of rum each year.
A few interesting facts about the distillery they are the oldest Rum distillery in the US, they are the only distillery that uses activated charcoal in their process, they hand bottle every bottle of rum they produce, and they just recently made a limited-edition rum to mark the 300th anniversary of Louisiana.
At the end of the tour you get to try all their rums and signature drink, Gingeroo. Gingeroo is their version of a Moscow Mule, it was delicious, and we may have bought 2 bottles to ship home. We also purchased two of their rums, the Amber and their spicy Cajun Rums. The employees were so nice, their customer service was top notch. Without even asking them they refunded our friends who couldn’t make the tour because of a delayed flight due to the Nor’easter that swept the Northeast.
I highly recommend this tour to you it’s a unique experience and so interesting learning the process of making the rum. Bob took his time to answer all our questions and encouraged us to ask any and all questions we had. He even offered us to-go Rum drinks before driving us back to the French Quarter.
There are multiple plantation tours you could choose from it’s hard to know which one the best choice is. I choose Oak Alley because it was listed highly on all the review sights I checked. I really wanted to go to the one that is used for part of Gone with the Wind, but it’s much farther away from New Orleans. The second option was Whitney Plantation, but I believe, from what I’ve read in reviews it’s smaller and mostly a museum of slave history.
This tour cost $65 per person, mostly because of the transportation. If you have your own car and can drive yourself the actual admission and tour of the plantation house is only $25. We met our bus at the downtown Steamboat Natchez dock and loaded up for the hour ride out to the plantation. Our driver, Jude, talked the entire ride telling us about everything we were passing and lots of New Orleans history.
The planation grounds were beautiful, it’s named for the alley of 28 oak trees that line the walkway up to the front of the house (left picture, above). The entire grounds were filled with beautiful Oak trees. They have been left to grow almost untouched with their long sweeping branches that often sweep the ground and take off again. We have lots of Oak trees in Florida, but they are not as old and have been trimmed over time.
The tour of the main house, which was called the “Big House” was about 40 minutes and very informative, explaining the history of the family who built the home. It stretched from the beginning of construction in 1936 all the way through the family selling the house at auction, due to increasing debt, in 1866. It’s a beautiful two-story concrete block house, with a beautiful wrap around porch on the second story that lets you look out over the entire property. The house had 4 bedrooms upstairs centered around the main hallway. It’s interesting to compare this home that was considered “huge” in its day to houses today. In today’s standards this house would probably not stand out. In addition to the house there is a small slave exhibit, a café, restaurant, and bed and breakfast on the grounds. The entire trip to the plantation was around 4.5 hours. With an hour ride each direction, that leaves you about 2.5 hours of actual time to explore the grounds and take the tour of the main house. We found that plenty of time to look around and see everything.
If you have the time to dedicate to this type of excursion while visiting, I think it’s worth it. It was beautiful, and the history was great. I think I was expecting something a little grander, so just remember that a hundred years ago standard weren’t as large as they are today.
Hope these help you plan your next trip to new Orleans! If you end of doing any of the activities mentioned in this post be sure to let me know how what you thought!
Also let me know any activities I should be sure to check out on our next visit, because we will definitely be back!
Next up we’ll discuss the food! Spoiler alert: it was amazing!!
Great list! I would love to go on one of the ghost tours! Hope I can visit New Orleans at some point 😀