Let me save you some time: Bourbon Street is loud, expensive, and smells like a frat party held inside a margarita machine. Walk it once to say you did. Then leave and discover the city that New Orleans actually is.
I've been here enough times to have strong opinions. Here are the 10 things I'd do if I could only pick 10.
This is where the music lives.
Three blocks of clubs in the Marigny neighborhood, just outside the French Quarter. The Spotted Cat Music Club has no cover and a two-drink minimum — walk in around 9PM and you'll find a jazz ensemble playing to a room of people who are actually listening, not just holding drinks.
D.b.a. has $5-15 covers and books brass bands that shake the walls. Maison ($10-20) skews slightly more curated. But honestly? Walk the strip and follow your ears. Whichever doorway pulls you in is the right one.
I once stood outside between clubs at 11PM and counted three different genres of music bleeding out of three different doors. Jazz from the left. Funk from the right. Brass band directly ahead. That moment is New Orleans.
Everyone goes during the day. The line is 20-30 minutes on weekends. The experience is fine.
But Cafe Du Monde is open 24/7 (closed Christmas only). Go at 2AM. There's barely a line. The same beignets ($5 for 3), the same chicory cafe au lait ($3), but the crowd is different — late-night musicians, bartenders after their shifts, couples coming from Frenchmen Street. The vibe shifts from "tourist obligation" to "this is just a place people go."
The original location is at 800 Decatur Street. Wear dark clothes or accept powdered sugar as a permanent accessory.
The oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world costs $1.25 (exact change or Jazzy Pass). Board at Canal Street and ride 30 minutes through a tunnel of live oaks to the Garden District.
The mansions are absurd. Not in a McMansion way — in a "this was built in 1850 by someone with more columns than sense" way. Antebellum architecture draped in Spanish moss, every one of them looking like the set of a period drama.
Get off at Washington Avenue and walk. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 (free, Mon-Sat 9AM-4PM) is a block away — above-ground tombs weathered to perfect photographic patina.
I don't care if you're on a budget or not. This is the best restaurant deal in America.
Commander's Palace in the Garden District has been operating since 1893. At lunch, order an entree ($25-40) and get 25-cent martinis. That's real. Not a promotion. Not limited time. Just 25 cents.
The turtle soup is legendary. The bread pudding souffle is better than any dessert you've had this year. The room is elegant without being stuffy. Jackets suggested for dinner but not required at lunch.
Book 2+ weeks ahead at commanderspalace.com. Go at lunch, not dinner. Lunch is more fun.
You can't plan this. That's the point.
Second-line parades happen throughout the year — a brass band marches through a neighborhood, and everyone behind them dances. Some are organized by social aid and pleasure clubs. Some just happen. You'll hear the drums first, then the horns, and then you'll see a crowd moving down the street with umbrellas spinning.
Join. Nobody will ask if you belong. Nobody cares where you're from. The music is moving and so are you.
For a more predictable option: check WWOZ radio's parade calendar (wwoz.org) for scheduled second lines, usually Sunday afternoons.
Po'boys are New Orleans' sandwich contribution to the world, and Parkway Bakery on Hagan Avenue makes the best one I've ever eaten.
The roast beef debris ($12-14) is shredded beef with gravy on French bread that shatters when you bite it. "Dressed" means lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and pickles. Get it dressed. Get it messy.
The restaurant is in a converted gas station in Mid-City with a patio overlooking Bayou St. John. Order at the counter. Eat outside. Bring napkins — you'll need a lot of them.
Alternative: Domilise's on Annunciation Street for shrimp po'boy ($8-12). Smaller, more local, equally destructive.
I almost didn't include a museum on this list. But the National WWII Museum is not a normal museum.
Founded by Stephen Ambrose (Band of Brothers author), it's consistently ranked the #1 museum in the US by TripAdvisor. The immersive exhibits — a recreated Normandy D-Day experience, oral history recordings, actual Higgins boats — are overwhelming in the best sense.
Admission: $32. Allow 4+ hours. The 4D film "Beyond All Boundaries" (narrated by Tom Hanks, $7 supplement) is worth it. Located on Magazine Street in the Warehouse District.
Louis Armstrong Park is free and mostly empty, which is crazy given what happened here.
Congo Square, inside the park, is where enslaved people gathered on Sunday afternoons in the 18th and 19th centuries to play music, dance, and maintain cultural traditions. This is arguably where jazz began — African rhythms meeting European instruments in a specific place at a specific time.
There's no flashy exhibit. Just a circle of stones and a marker. But standing there and knowing what happened on this ground — and hearing a trumpet echoing from somewhere in the Quarter — is one of the most powerful moments you can have in New Orleans.
Free. Always open. In the Treme neighborhood, a 10-minute walk from the French Quarter.
Cajun Encounters runs 2-hour boat tours into the bayou ($30-55) departing from the city or with hotel pickup. The guide tells stories, points out alligators (I saw six), and explains the cypress-swamp ecosystem that surrounds New Orleans.
Best from March to June when alligators are most active. The smaller airboat tours ($65-90) are louder and faster if that's your thing.
The Spanish moss hanging from every tree, the silence between the guide's stories, the sudden appearance of a 3-meter alligator 5 feet from the boat — it's a reminder that New Orleans exists on the edge of wilderness.
This is a tradition, not a restaurant recommendation.
Every Monday, restaurants across New Orleans serve red beans and rice. The origin: Monday was laundry day, so cooks would put a pot of beans on the stove to simmer all day while they worked. It became a citywide ritual.
Nearly any neighborhood restaurant will serve it for $8-12 on Mondays. Willie Mae's Scotch House in the Treme (also famous for America's best fried chicken, $15-18) does an excellent version. Or just walk into any place with a chalkboard that says "Monday: Red Beans."
Order it with a side of cornbread. Sit at the bar. Talk to the person next to you.
New Orleans isn't a city you visit. It's a city you experience. The music, the food, the heat, the humidity, the way strangers become friends over a po'boy — it's all connected. And none of it happens on Bourbon Street.
Planning a food-and-music trip across the Americas? Oaxaca's Day of the Dead celebrations share that same intersection of ritual and joy. And for world-class ceviche on the Pacific, Lima is the culinary counterpart to NOLA's southern soul.
Follow the music. Always follow the music.
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