New Orleans operates on its own terms, which is to say it operates on almost no terms at all. It is the most distinctive city in the United States — more European than American in its street layout and architecture, more Caribbean in its food and music culture, and entirely itself in the combination. The French Quarter is not a theme park reconstruction; it is a working neighbourhood that has been continuous since 1718. The food is serious. The music is everywhere and is not performance — it is how the city breathes.
We have been to New Orleans and would go back. It is a city that rewards time spent in it rather than moving through it, and the instinct to tick off the attractions should be resisted in favour of sitting in a bar on Frenchmen Street at midnight and letting it happen.
A Little Background
The city was founded in 1718 by French colonists and named for the Duc d’Orléans. It passed to Spanish control in 1762, back to France briefly in 1800, and was sold to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. This layered colonial history — French, Spanish, African, Creole, and eventually American — produced the distinctive culture that still defines the city: the architecture (French and Spanish Creole townhouses, iron lacework, courtyards), the food (a synthesis of French technique, Spanish influence, African ingredients, and Gulf seafood), and the music (jazz was born here, at the intersection of African American musical traditions and the city’s permissive culture).
Hurricane Katrina struck on 29 August 2005, causing catastrophic flooding that devastated much of the city — particularly the Lower Ninth Ward and other low-lying residential areas. The recovery has been long, uneven, and in some areas still incomplete. New Orleans survived and returned; its culture is intact, though the experience of the storm and its aftermath is woven into the city’s consciousness.
What to See and Do
The French Quarter (Vieux Carré) is the original city — roughly a square kilometre of streets laid out by the French in 1722, bounded by the Mississippi River, Canal Street, Rampart Street, and Esplanade Avenue. The architecture is predominantly Spanish Creole (most of the French original burned in fires in 1788 and 1794). Walk it slowly: the details are in the ironwork balconies, the interior courtyards glimpsed through half-open gates, the layering of three centuries in a single block. Bourbon Street is the loud, neon, tourist-facing face of the Quarter; it exists and has its uses but is not the point.
Frenchmen Street, just outside the Quarter in the Faubourg Marigny, is where the music actually lives — a strip of bars and music clubs where jazz, blues, brass band, and zydeco spill onto the pavement every night of the week. The Spotted Cat, the Snug Harbor, and the d.b.a. are reliable. No cover charge at most venues; the tip jar is the economy. This is where locals go and where you should go.
Preservation Hall is the most famous jazz venue in the city — a small, plain room on St Peter Street in the French Quarter where traditional New Orleans jazz has been performed nightly since 1961. Three shows per night (8pm, 9pm, 10pm); each runs approximately 45 minutes. General admission is US$25 (standing or limited bench seating); reserved “Big Shot” seating is US$35–50 and must be booked online in advance. No air conditioning, no bar, no food. Go anyway.
The Garden District is the answer to anyone who wants to understand what New Orleans looked like when the American newcomers arrived after 1803 and built their own version of it — grand Greek Revival and Italianate mansions set in gardens along Magazine Street and St Charles Avenue. The St Charles streetcar (one of the oldest continuously operating street railway lines in the world) runs through it and connects back to the French Quarter. A long, unhurried walk down Magazine Street, looking at the houses, takes an afternoon.
The National WWII Museum on Magazine Street is, by most accounts, one of the best museums in the United States — a serious, comprehensive, and emotionally powerful account of the Second World War from the American perspective. Its location in New Orleans is historically grounded: the Higgins boats used in the D-Day landings were manufactured here. Adult admission approximately US$30; allow at least half a day.
The food is the reason New Orleans has a culinary reputation that extends far beyond its size. The essentials: a proper bowl of gumbo (a slow-cooked stew of the Louisiana holy trinity — onion, celery, green pepper — with okra, seafood or sausage, served over rice), a muffuletta (a round Sicilian sesame loaf filled with Italian meats, cheese, and olive salad, invented at Central Grocery on Decatur Street, still the best place to get one), a po’boy (a long roll filled with fried seafood or roast beef debris, dressed with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and pickles), and beignets (deep-fried dough squares under a snowstorm of powdered sugar) at Café du Monde, open 24 hours, on the edge of Jackson Square. Eat at least one meal that is not in the French Quarter — the city’s best cooking is often found in its residential neighbourhoods.
Getting There
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) is 24 kilometres from the French Quarter. The E2 bus runs between the airport and Tulane University for US$2, connecting to the city’s streetcar network, though the journey takes over an hour. Rideshares (Uber, Lyft) take 30–45 minutes depending on traffic and cost US$30–45. Amtrak serves New Orleans on the City of New Orleans (from Chicago), the Crescent (from New York), and the Sunset Limited (from Los Angeles).
Cost and Hours
New Orleans is considerably more affordable than New York or San Francisco. Good hotel rooms in or near the French Quarter can be found for US$150–250 per night; eating and drinking is similarly reasonable. The main budgeting wildcard is the festival calendar: Mardi Gras (late January to mid-February depending on the year) and Jazz Fest (late April to early May) double or triple accommodation prices and fill the city completely — book months ahead if visiting during either, or deliberately choose the quieter shoulder months.