Best Freebies

Our Local Expert Says:

One of the best things about Royal Street is that some blocks are closed to traffic and talented performers entertain you as you window shop. The Spanish and French architecture is beautiful, and Royal Street is the perfect place for a stroll – day or night.

Description:

Royal Street in the French Quarter is the perfect place to go for window shopping and a daytime stroll. On this beautiful and historic street, visitors will find art, antiques, specialty shops, and restaurants, as well as dozens of street performers. On any given day you might hear a jazz ensemble, bluegrass group, brass band, or just a boy and his guitar. Magicians, tap dancers, saxophone players, and men in head-to-toe metallic costumes are also common sights. The art galleries are breathtaking, and the street boasts some of the best restaurants in the city, such as Brennan's and The Court of Two Sisters. Other excellent Royal Street points of interest include Painted Alive Gallery, Cornstalk Bed and Breakfast, and the Carousel Bar, located inside Hotel Montelone.

Our Local Expert Says:

The street performers and fortune tellers in Jackson Square are great, but if a man asks you to make a bet about where you got your shoes, don’t fall for it! He’ll say “you got your shoes in Jackson Square in New Orleans, Louisiana!”

Description:

Jackson Square is a beautiful little park that sits in front of the commanding St. Louis Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in America. Presiding over the park is a statue of Andrew Jackson on his horse, and surrounding the square are artists and street performers, as well as horse-drawn carriages waiting to take you on a tour of the Quarter. Have the fortune tellers look at your palm, or let a local artist draw your caricature. Of course, there are also museums, shops, and restaurants surrounding Jackson Square, including Muriel's, a five-star haunted restaurant where each day the wait-staff sets a table and pours wine for their resident ghost. "We don't know who drinks the wine," they say, "but every morning it's gone." In Jackson Square at night, you really can feel the presence of the ghosts of New Orleans past. During the Christmas Season, Jackson Square is the spot for nighttime caroling, and in the spring the park blooms with bright flowers.

Our Local Expert Says:

Bourbon Street in the French Quarter is one of the best places for people watching. It bright, crazy, and loud – a party for all the senses. No matter when you go, you know there will be something happening on Bourbon Street!

Description:

It wouldn't be a trip to New Orleans without Bourbon Street! The party never stops on this crazy, colorful street that runs through the heart of the French Quarter. Any time of day or night, you can hear live music, dance in the streets, drink a daiquiri, or dangle Mardi Gras beads at passersby from one of the many balconies. Closer to Canal Street are the adult entertainment clubs, closer to Esplanade Avenue are the gay-friendly venues, and in between are blocks and blocks of bars, clubs, shops, and restaurants. Don't miss Pat O'Brien's famous four-shot rum Hurricane and their outdoor patio with the beautiful fiery fountain. Check out Fritzel's for great jazz, Razoo's for sweaty dancing, and the Cat's Meow for karaoke, as well as Jean Lafitte's, a dark and cozy bar located in the pirate's historic blacksmith shop. Go ahead and have a drink (it's five o'clock somewhere!) and saunter down Bourbon Street, the greatest adult playground in the country.

Our Local Expert Says:

Taking a tour of Lafayette Cemetery is definitely worthwhile. There are a lot of fascinating things to learn about the cemetery and the burial customs of New Orleans.

Description:

Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District is one of the oldest cemeteries in the country, and has been in operation since 1824. New Orleans residents quickly learned that because of the high water table and unpredictable flooding, coffins cannot be placed six feet underground; their dead must be buried in above-ground tombs. These rows of sarcophagus tombs are the reason New Orleans cemeteries are often referred to as "Cities of the Dead." Lafayette Cemetery may look strangely familiar - it has been used in several movies, including Interview with a Vampire. Author Anne Rice lives nearby and wrote about Lafayette Cemetery in many of her vampire books. Visitors can take a tour and learn the history of Lafayette Cemetery (you can even take a carriage ride there from the French Quarter), or you can explore on your own. See the wall vaults and the "Secret Garden," a square of four tombs built by a secret society of friends who wanted to be buried together. As for lunch after touring, the Commander's Palace, one of the best restaurants in the city, is right across the street.

Our Local Expert Says:

If you go on the Le Monde Creole tour, they will take you to St. Louis Cemetery Number One, but if you want to spend more time there, or learn about the famous people who are buried in St. Louis Cemetery, take a tour of the cemetery itself.

Description:

Established in 1789 on the outer edge of the French Quarter, St. Louis Cemetery Number One is the most famous of all the "Cities of the Dead" in New Orleans. Take a tour or explore on your own the rows of sarcophagi and large society tombs. Marie Louveu, the famous Voodoo Queen, is buried there, and many visitors leave toys, flowers, and coins around her tomb. It is said that if you want to ask her for a favor, just knock on her tomb three times! St. Louis Cemetery is within walking distance of the French Quarter, but you can also take a carriage ride there from Jackson Square, and learn more history along the way.

Our Local Expert Says:

Audubon Park is alive with nature – ducks, geese, egrets, and squirrels. And if you walk from Audubon Park to Riverview Park on the side of the stables, you will be able to see the giraffes inside Audubon Zoo!

Description:

Audubon Park is really several parks in one, spanning St. Charles Avenue all the way to the Mississippi River. A fitness trail circles the Audubon Golf Course and runs alongside live oak trees and lush lagoons that are home to ducks, geese, egrets, and turtles. Cross over Magazine Street, and you'll come to the Audubon Zoo and Cascade Stables. Keep walking alongside the zoo, past the Audubon Labyrinth and across the train tracks, until you get to Riverview Park. Known to locals as "the fly," this is a great spot for playing soccer, or just laying in the sun with a daiquiri, admiring the waters of the Mississippi. The park is a great place to play or picnic, and if you don't want to drive there, you can get to the park from the French Quarter on the St. Charles Streetcar or by the John James Audubon ferry boat.

Description:

Located in Mid-City, near Lake Ponchatrain, is beautiful 1300-acre City Park. City Park is the home of the Botanical Garden and the New Orleans Museum of Art, as well as the Besthof Sculpture Garden, through which visitors can wander for free. Kids can meet life-size replicas of fairy tale characters in Storyland, enjoy rides at the Carousel Gardens Amusement Park, or take a train ride around the entire park. City Park also has tennis courts, walking trails, a golf course and driving range, stables, and paddle boats. If you're looking for something simpler, take a walk around the duck pond or just stroll through the grounds, admiring the bald cypress trees and live oaks. City Park has more live oak trees than anywhere else in the world, some of which are several hundred years old. Although there is a playground, kids might rather explore the low, sweeping branches of these beautiful trees.

Description:

Only twenty-five minutes from downtown New Orleans is Jean Lafitte Swamp. There are plenty of swamp tours that explore the watery lands by airboat or ferry, including some that provide transportation to the swamp from the city. You can also go to the Barataria Preserve National Park and walk through the swamps for free, either on your own or with a ranger guide. Sometimes the rangers even do moonlight swamp tours by canoe! Jean Lafitte Swamp is beautiful and mysterious with it's cypress trees and winding bayous. It is also home to hundreds of animals, including alligators, egrets, frogs, snakes, and over 300 species of birds.

Description:

A smart, sharp, and chic version of the generic business hotel -- sort of like a Crowne Plaza, if it was done up in chartreuse and that new misty gray-blue that's all the rage. Oddly, it's not set up as a business hotel, lacking amenities such as separate dataports and even room service, but it does offer 4,000 square feet of meeting space. Rooms are average size; the ones with king-size beds are a bit cramped thanks to all the furniture jammed in along with it (chair, desk, TV). Queen rooms are even smaller.

Our Local Expert Says:

Down a dark, narrow brick passage and up a steep, winding staircase, you'll find the Dragon's Den, which feels somewhat like a cross between a Thai opium parlor and a 60s go-go bar. Catch experimental and unconventional performances here, or take a cocktail out on the tiny balcony and take in the view of the scene below on Esplanade. On Friday night check out the free NOmadic Belly Dancers' performance around 9pm.

Description:

This hippy den, with pillows on the floor for lounging, is transformed after dark into one of the funkiest jazz venues in the city. You never quite know what to expect in a place that functions as a bar, coffee house and performance venue, so take your chances... It could be, and usually is, quite fun!

Our Local Expert Says:

Frenchmen Street is unique and fun and not to be missed! Go to Frenchmen Street during the day to admire the Marigny architecture or go there at night to hear great live music. On Fridays around nine p.m. the fabulous N.O.madic belly-dancers perform upstairs at the Dragon’s Den.

Description:

The four blocks of Frenchmen Street between Esplanade and Elysian Fields are sort of like the Bourbon Street for locals. Just past the French Quarter, on the edge of the hip Marigny neighborhood, this is where the real music is being played! The little stretch is packed with intimate jazz and blues bars like The Apple Barrel and The Spotted Cat, and high-energy music clubs like d.b.a. and Blue Nile. Some of the most unique and eccentric people in New Orleans hang out on Frenchmen Street, and there's always something going on, especially late at night. You can dance salsa at Café Brazil, have a smoke at the upscale Hookah Café, or enjoy great music and a killer burger at Snug Harbor. And at the end of the night, when you're feeling like a snack, try a local favorite - totchos (tater-tot nachos) at Monaghan's 13.

Description:

Made up of just under 20 acres of newly repaired green space, Woldenberg Riverfront Park has historically been the city's promenade; now it's an oasis of greenery in the heart of the city with numerous works by popular local artists scattered throughout. The park includes a large lawn with a brick promenade leading to the Mississippi, and it's home to hundreds of trees -- oaks, magnolias, willows, and crape myrtles -- and thousands of shrubs. That greenery got beat up, but nothing like a rainy tropical climate to help foliage thrive again.

The Moonwalk is a paved pedestrian thoroughfare along the river, a wonderful walk on a pretty New Orleans day but really a must-do for any weather other than pouring rain. It has steps that allow you to get right down to Old Muddy -- on foggy nights, you feel as if you are floating above the water. There are many benches from which to view the city's main industry: its busy port (second in the world only to Amsterdam in annual tonnage). To your right you'll see the Greater New Orleans Bridge and the World Trade Center of New Orleans (formerly the International Trade Mart) skyscraper as well as the Toulouse Street wharf, the departure point for excursion...