ACADIANA - CAJUN COUNTRY
Acadiana aka Cajun Country. What's the difference between Cajun and Creole. Creole refers to the urban dwellers with a French background. Cajun specifically refers to the French, who were in Acadia, present day Nova Scotia, and driven out by the English in the early 1800s. Rather than return to France, the Acadians relocated to New Orleans and rather than settle in the city, they settled in the swamp/woodlands outside the city. Fast forward to the second half of the 20th Century and all of a sudden Cajun food becomes popular and the distinction between Cajun and Creole becomes a bit blurred. I'm fascinated by America's various subcultures and when deciding where to continue my Louisiana drive after Oak Alley, a loop through Acadia from Morgan City to New Iberia to Erath to Abbeville then finishing Lafayette became the can't miss option. Drove through this area in December 2025. 
The surprising aspect of Acadiana was how nice the drive was - for the most part. I was expecting red neck and swamp creature culture, I got Lancaster, PA in Louisiana. Nice homes. Nice towns - nothing of much substance, basic but nice. Sure some parts looked like they hadn't been touched since Hurricane Katrina (and maybe they weren't) but it was mostly a pleasant drive through a nice, albeit somewhat remote, residential area.

I liked how sugar cane roasting bowls were repurposed - in the one photo below they are being used to store water for horses. The other three photos are of New Iberia.
I'm not a hot sauce kind of guy. Avery Island, home to Tabasco, is fifteen minutes outside of New Iberia. A tour of their facilities takes you through the entire production process from growing chiles to creating the sauce to aging the sauce. There's also a great restaurant where I had the best of meal of this trip - Boudin Eggrolls, amazing, and their crawfish etouffee blew Jacque Imo's away. Seriously.
A stop in Erath and the Acadian Museum.
A stop in Abbeville, a nice, quiet town.
Dinner at Spoonbill in Lafayette.
Baton Rouge and the LSU campus was a headscratcher. School was out of session, but it was very difficult to get a lay of the land, where is the main restaurant and bar drag that students patronize. I went to the Chimes. Drove around Tigerland. It was all very strange. Elsie's Plate and Pie, a James Beard nominated restaurant, for a slice of their Eye of the Tiger pie. That made sense. That was good. Everything else. I need to talk with an LSU alum.