I didn't plan this trip well. I'll admit that upfront. I booked the flight on a Sunday night, landed on a Tuesday, and had exactly one restaurant reservation and zero hotel research done. New Orleans rewarded my chaos.
Flight landed at MSY at 2PM. The airport is 20 km west of the French Quarter, and I did the smart thing for once — skipped the cab line and took a rideshare ($22, 25 minutes without traffic).
Dropped my bag at a small guesthouse on Chartres Street in the Quarter ($145/night, no frills, killer courtyard). The owner, a woman named Denise who's lived in NOLA for 40 years, handed me a key and said: "Don't eat on Bourbon Street. Don't buy the overpriced hurricanes. Go to Frenchmen."
I did not listen. Not immediately.
First stop: Cafe Du Monde. Obviously. You have to do it. Three beignets ($5), a cafe au lait ($3), and powdered sugar on every surface of my body. The place has been open since 1862 at 800 Decatur Street, operates 24/7 (closed Christmas), and the line on this Tuesday afternoon was maybe 10 minutes. On weekends? Thirty.
The beignets are good. Not life-changing. But the experience — sitting under the green-and-white awning with the Jackson Square artists packing up in the distance and a saxophonist playing across the street — is the thing.
Walked Jackson Square. St. Louis Cathedral is free to enter and genuinely beautiful. Then I made my first mistake: I walked up Bourbon Street.
Here's the thing about Bourbon Street — you should go once. Not because it's good, but because you need to understand what it is so you know what to avoid for the rest of your trip.
It's loud. It smells like spilled daiquiris and decades of questionable decisions. Bars blast competing music at volumes that create a single wall of noise. Men in neon tank tops carry 3-foot-tall plastic yard drinks. Someone tried to sell me a shot of something neon green for $12.
I lasted 45 minutes.
Then I remembered Denise's advice and walked five blocks southeast to Frenchmen Street.
Frenchmen Street in the Marigny neighborhood is three blocks of live music clubs, and it changed my entire understanding of this city.
I walked into The Spotted Cat Music Club around 8PM. No cover, two-drink minimum. A six-piece jazz band was playing — trumpet, sax, clarinet, upright bass, drums, and a singer who couldn't have been older than 25 but sang like she'd lived three lifetimes.
People were dancing. Not club dancing — proper swing dancing, Louisiana style, in a room smaller than my apartment. I stood near the bar with a Sazerac ($10) and watched for an hour. Then a woman grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the floor and I danced badly for 20 minutes and it was perfect.
I hit d.b.a. next door ($8 cover) for a brass band set that rattled the walls. Then Maison ($10 cover) for something more chilled. By midnight I was sitting on the curb outside, eating a $5 po'boy from a cart, listening to the music leak from three different doorways, and thinking: oh, this is what they mean.
Took the St. Charles Streetcar ($1.25, exact change) from Canal Street through the Garden District. It's the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world, and the ride itself is worth it — live oaks draped in Spanish moss arching over the tracks, antebellum mansions sliding past the windows.
Got off at Washington Avenue and walked. The mansions are absurd — columns, porticos, wrought-iron fences, gardens that look maintained by invisible teams. Sandra Bullock's house is apparently on one of these streets. I didn't spot it. Didn't try hard.
Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is free (Mon-Sat, 9AM-4PM). The above-ground tombs are weathered and photogenic and slightly eerie even in daylight.
Then: lunch at Commander's Palace.
I'd read about the 25-cent martini lunch deal (with an entree purchase, $25-40) and thought it was a myth. It's not. I sat at a table by the window, ordered the turtle soup and bread pudding souffle (their signatures), drank two 25-cent martinis, and spent a total of $52 including tip.
This is the best restaurant deal in America. I don't care what anyone says. Book 2+ weeks ahead at commanderspalace.com.
A Cajun Encounters swamp tour left from a pickup point near my guesthouse at 9:30AM ($45 for the 2-hour tour). The guide was a man named Dale who grew up on the bayou and narrated in an accent so thick I missed about 30% of his words and loved every second of it.
We saw six alligators. Two came within 3 meters of the boat. A heron stood completely motionless on a cypress knee for the entire duration of its relevance to our tour, then flew off dramatically the moment Dale stopped talking about it. The Spanish moss hanging from every tree made the whole bayou look like a movie set.
Hot tip: March through June is best for alligator activity. The smaller airboat tours ($65-90) are more thrilling if you want speed.
Back in the city by 1PM. Thursday is not Monday (the traditional red beans and rice day), but Dooky Chase's Restaurant ($15) doesn't care about traditions — they serve gumbo and red beans that would make a grown person weep on any day of the week.
Evening: caught a free ranger-led jazz performance at the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park (916 N. Peters St., 2PM and 3PM most days, check nps.gov/jazz). Then walked to Congo Square in Louis Armstrong Park, where enslaved people gathered on Sundays in the 18th and 19th centuries, and where jazz arguably began.
Slept until 10AM. NOLA runs late, and so should you.
Skipped Bourbon Street entirely and walked Royal Street instead — the French Quarter's quieter, more refined sibling. Antique shops, art galleries, street musicians playing jazz on corners. One guy was playing a full drum set while simultaneously playing a harmonica mounted on his neck. I watched for 15 minutes and tipped $5.
Lunch: muffuletta at Central Grocery ($16, feeds 2 easily). It's a round Italian sandwich with olive salad, ham, salami, and provolone on sesame bread. They've been making it since 1906. Get it to go and eat it on a bench by the river.
Afternoon: walked the Moonwalk along the Mississippi. Watched a steamboat paddle by. Felt something close to contentment.
Friday night on Frenchmen was louder, more crowded, more energized than Tuesday. I ended up at a second-line parade — a brass band marching through the streets with a crowd dancing behind them, complete strangers joining in, umbrellas twirling. Nobody organized this. Nobody planned it. It just happened because this is New Orleans.
I danced in the street at 11PM with a group of strangers from Germany, a bartender who'd just gotten off her shift, and an elderly man in a seersucker suit who moved better than any of us.
One final trip to Cafe Du Monde. Same beignets. Same sugar everywhere. But this time I sat longer, watched the pigeons fight over crumbs, and felt the specific sadness of knowing a trip is ending.
Picked up a bottle of Crystal hot sauce ($4) and a bag of Community Coffee ($8) as souvenirs. Took a rideshare to MSY ($25, 30 minutes).
I've already booked my return. Jazz Fest, last weekend of April. $85-95/day for world-class music and food at the Fair Grounds. Denise is holding a room.
New Orleans is the only American city that feels like a foreign country. The food is better than anywhere else in the US at its price point. The music is real — not performed, not curated, just alive. And the people have a warmth that comes from living in a place that's been through hurricanes, flooding, and heartbreak and decided to keep dancing anyway.
For a deeper dive, read our complete New Orleans travel guide and the top 10 NOLA experiences beyond Bourbon Street. If you love music cities, Chicago's jazz and blues scene is the other American essential.
Bring cash. Bring comfortable shoes. Stay off Bourbon Street (except to see it once). And when a stranger grabs your arm and pulls you onto a dance floor, say yes.
Always say yes in New Orleans.
