NEW ORLEANS
I first visited New Orleans on a church trip in the summer of 1993 or 1994. A national gathering of Lutheran Youth. I remember it being a fun time. I remember hearing a preacher with a hard Minnesota accent at the Superdome. I remember walking Bourbon Street. We took a dinner cruise on a Mississippi Ferry. A swamp tour. I thought this counted as a visit to New Orleans.

As the years wore on, I'd see images of Jackson Square. No recollection. I'd hear about beignets, po' boys, muffalettas. No recollection. No idea what the difference between gumbo and jambalaya. Or Creole vs. Cajun. The Garden District and The St. Charles Streetcar? No images come to mind. Had I truly visited New Orleans. I couldn't even recall the major tourist sites.

New Orleans finally scratched off the list in December 2025.
I was fried. 2025 was a crazy year start to finish. The craziest started literally on New Year's Eve 2024. I needed a recharge. A place to relax and recover. A place with some culture too. Some good food options. Good drinking options. A place to escape to a new environment but closer than Europe. A place with good weather. New Orleans checks all those boxes.

On this trip, I didn't shy away from the tourist sites. After checking into my Garden District area bed and breakfast, I hopped on the St. Charles Streetcar across town to Canal Street and took a stroll down Bourbon Street. 
I didn't over think it. I didn't go for a place off the beaten path. I went straight to Pat O'Briens. I ordered a hurricane. A few sips and I knew I picked the perfect place for a recharge. 
Unique architecture throughout the French Quarter. I was constantly stopping to take photographs.
I did go off the beaten path a few times. At Loretta's I order two beignets: a savory crab beignet and a sweet praline beignet. Unbelievable. Easily the best meal/snack I ate the entire trip. I'll say this now - I made a mistake on this trip of focusing on New Orleans cuisine and choosing to eat that cuisine at New Orlean's most established restaurants. I think that was a culinary mistake. I think I should have mixed in a few of New Orlean's James Beard-type restaurants. Oh well. I'll need to return. Loretta's beignets? I was already planning to return for them alone.
The French Quarter has historic bars, like Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop (below left), and historic homes, like Tennessee William's residence (below right), that make for great destinations to zig and zag along the neighborhood's streets.
The French Quarter also tends to be a bit of a vortex that sucks tourists from the surrounding areas. I went across N. Rampart Street to visit Louis Armstrong Park and Congo Square, where Marie Laveau practiced voodoo. The area was a ghost town and I returned to the French Quarter.
More beautiful architecture. Middle photo below is Preservation Hall.
Then to Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral.
Rabbit and sausage jambalaya from Coop's Place. Jazz music at The Spotted Cat. Crawfish etouffee from Jacques Imo's. I went out of the way to reach Jacque Imo's. It was disappointing. 
I learned this year that it's a good idea to travel during the Christmas season. It's an added cultural element to see how other sections of the country celebrate Christmas. New Orleans' homes tended to not be decorated but those that were, wow they were truly decorated well. Beautiful, fancy, large decorations yet classy and not over the top. I exited the Uber back from Jacque Imo's early to walk along St. Charles Avenue and see the decorations up close.
A morning stroll along Magazine Street, the Garden District's hipster street.
I try and read local literature when visiting a location. For New Orleans the reading included A Streetcar Named Desire (also the film version) and A Confederacy of Dunces (which, eh, I don't I thought this was just ok). There's Ignatius Riley, A Confederacy of Dunces' protagonist - you'll either love the character and the book or not - standing where his tale begins, on Canal Street.
On Sunday's many New Orleans' restaurants offer a jazz brunch - a band moves around the restaurant playing jazz music. I went to Arnaud's, one of New Orlean's oldest and classic restaurants. It's where eggs sardou were invented - if that means anything. The souffle potatoes (middle photo below) were amazing - these should be on every restaurants menu next to French fries. Their gumbo? Again another, eh, it was ok.
More French Quarter street scenes.
To prepare for my New Orleans trip, I binge watched Treme on HBO. The series opens with a Second Line Parade - as a Philadelphian the easiest comparison to this parade is our Mummer's parades, although Second Line Parades lack the costumes, they do occur more frequently meaning you could get lucky and catch one during your visit. The parades are not going to pass through the tourist areas or the Garden District so you can increase your luck venturing outside these zones. There's no posted schedule of when the parades will occur although they tend to be on Sunday afternoons. 

I was on a bus heading to Bywater along St. Claude Avenue when the driver made an announcement. We'd be taking a detour. It sounded as though the road ahead was closed because a Second Line Parade was marching. A passenger confirmed to me that was the case. I hopped off the bus and powerwalked down the street until I reached parade. This parade appeared to be celebrating either a marriage or a wedding anniversary. Either one, it was a lot of music. A huge crowd. A lot of drinking. I walked with and around the parade for about an hour. Great experience. Made the entire trip worthwhile. The event was better captured in the video below.
I eventually reached Bywater. The neighborhood became popular as a cheap location after Hurricane Katrina although the re-development/gentrification still seems to be a work in progress. Two destinations that make the trek over here worthwhile are Bacchanal Wine Bar (primarily for adults) and Music Box Village (primarily for children) which even though the cater to different crowds can be enjoyed by anyone.
Then a muffaletta at Central Grocery. Another eh. Too expensive. Not as good as a hoagie. Cool shop though.
Early that evening I went to Kermit's Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge. Kermit Ruffin is a famous in New Orleans jazz musician, who made many an appearance on HBO's Treme. If you are going to see one jazz show in New Orleans, make it a Kermit Ruffin show, with the caveat the neighborhood around the Lounge gets a bit rough early in the evening - by 6pm there was already street racing going on under the I-10 underpass.

Kermit's Loung is unique in that Kermit is there mingling with everyone. Adding to the experience, not only was it my birthday tonight but it was also Kermit's. It felt like half the crowd in attendance was there to celebrate his birthday. In addition to standard jazz fare, he and his band also played jazz versions of Christmas classics. Louis Armstrong also made a surprise appearance.
I did the touristy thing and went to Cafe du Monde. For ten bucks, you get three bad beignets (going to Loretta's first will ruin you for beignet's thereafter) and one of the worst coffees ever, but for ten bucks, it's a deal - a classic experience, great people watching. Two additional notes: it's cash only, and this I believe was the only cash only place I visited, and the bathroom line is brutal. 
Caroling in Jackson Square.
Another morning walk along Magazine Street. Breakfast sandwich at Molly's Rise and Shine - a James Beard nominated (I think) restaurant. Good. Gave off vibes similar to Philadelphia's Middle Child. Food not as good as Middle Child, although no breakfast sandwich in America compares to Middle Child.
After breakfast I took a walking tour through the Garden District starting at Lafayette Cemetery #1. There's a great collection of homes in this neighborhood. There's the Benjamin Button house. Various celebrity homes including Sandra Bullock and John Goodman. There's a house that Jefferson Davis died in. It was good to put some stories and information behind the neighborhood I'd been walking through for the past two days.
Domilise's for a po'boy. Eh. Greasy. Heavy. I don't get it. Visit Philadelphia and I can think of two or three terrible cheesesteak places out of fifty. Pat's and/or Geno's are ok and you know going in that they are relying on their history. I'm not sure what was going on with Domilise's.
Another stroll down Magazine Street. I made a beaded necklace at The Bead Shop.
Did I really want to check out the National World War II museum? I told myself that if on Monday afternoon, if I had nothing else to do, I'd go and check out this museum. Huge underestimation on my part. This was a phenomenal museum and should be at the top of any New Orleans trip itinerary. It's not simply all the planes. There're fantastic exhibits that are both informative and entertaining that retell the events, with personal stories interspersed, of the fighting in both the European and Pacific theaters. I've always known the bookends of these theaters and this museum filled in all the gaps in between. I was here for two hours and easily could have spent another two hours if I arrived earlier.
A beer at Hot Tin, a rooftop bar at The Pontchartrain Hotel. A last ride on the St. Charles Street car. Another beer and desert at Columns.
There're various sugar plantations upriver from New Orleans that make for an easy half day trip or a full day if you want to visit multiple plantations. Easy enough to rent a car and drive to one of the plantations yourself before the tour bus crowds arrive. I only wanted to visit one plantation - Oak Alley. Oak Alley is the grand dame of all the sugar plantations. Just look at the pictures below. I arrived early, before the plantation opened, and spent at least an hour capturing images of Oak Alley's "Alley" as the weather changed and the sun burned off the fog.
The tour is informative and there's also a video/exhibit explaining the sugar cane farming to harvesting to market process. Although the reason you come is for the oaks.
I continued my non-New Orleans portion of the Louisiana trip through Acadia.