Louisiana: New Orleans, the River Road and Cajun Country

1. Day 1: Arrive in New Orleans

   Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) to your hotel by the French Quarter

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in New Orleans
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY), about 25 km west of the French Quarter, where a driver meets you in arrivals for the 30 to 40 minute ride to the hotel. Plan to land by about 3 pm so you can settle in, or walk to the river, before the group meets at 5:30 pm; late arrivals are met and brought to dinner. Your See Sight Tours guide runs through the days ahead: the walk in the morning, the Whitney, the road west across the Atchafalaya and the dance hall in Lafayette, and what to expect from the clubs. Then we sit down together to a welcome dinner of Creole cooking a few blocks from the hotel. Afterwards the guide walks anyone who wants it through the lit streets of the Quarter, past Jackson Square at night and down to the river, and back to the hotel. Bourbon Street is loud and crowded after dark; your guide will tell you where the better music is.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Welcome dinner
   • An evening walk through the French Quarter with your guide

   Free time: Free until the 5:30 pm meeting

   Activity: Plan to land by about 3 pm.

   

2. Day 2: The French Quarter, Tremé and a night of jazz

   A day on foot in the French Quarter and Tremé, then Preservation Hall and Frenchmen Street

   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in New Orleans
   Day 2 details

   We start at 8:30 am, when the square is quiet and the air is still cool, on a walk with a local guide: Jackson Square, St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo, where the Louisiana Purchase was formally handed over in 1803, then the balconied side streets and the French Market. From the Quarter we cross Rampart Street into Tremé, one of the oldest African American neighbourhoods in the country, with St. Augustine Church, founded in 1841 by free people of colour, and the oaks and murals along Claiborne Avenue. The walk ends at Congo Square in Louis Armstrong Park, where enslaved and free people gathered on Sundays to drum, sing and dance, a gathering many trace to the roots of jazz. Late morning we cook our own lunch at a Creole cooking class: gumbo, jambalaya and pralines. The afternoon is free. In the evening we go to Preservation Hall for a concert of traditional jazz in its small room on St. Peter Street, then your guide takes the group to Frenchmen Street, where the clubs have live bands most nights.

   Included

   • French Quarter and Tremé walk with a local guide: Jackson Square, St. Louis Cathedral, the Cabildo, the French Market, St. Augustine Church and Congo Square
   • Creole cooking class with lunch
   • Preservation Hall concert
   • An evening on Frenchmen Street with your guide, cover charges included

   Optional experiences

   • New Orleans Jazz Museum at the Old U.S. Mint
   • Historic New Orleans Collection

   Easier option: Stop after Jackson Square and sit with a coffee and beignets on the square; your guide brings you to the cooking class, or a taxi takes you to the hotel to rest until then.

   More active option: In the free afternoon, ride a rental bike along the Lafitte Greenway from Armstrong Park through Tremé to Mid-City and back.

   Free time: Afternoon free

   Activity: About 3 to 5 km on foot in the morning, on flat pavements; the concert is about 45 minutes, partly standing.

   

3. Day 3: The Whitney Plantation on the River Road

   New Orleans to the Whitney Plantation at Wallace on the River Road, then back to New Orleans

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in New Orleans
   Day 3 details

   We leave at 9 am and drive about an hour and a quarter west along I-10 and then the river road, past refineries, sugar cane fields and the grass levee that hides the Mississippi, to the Whitney Plantation at Wallace. The Whitney opened as a museum in 2014 and tells the history of a sugar plantation through the people who were enslaved there: their own words, recorded in the 1930s, the memorial walls carrying the names of more than a hundred thousand people enslaved in Louisiana, and the Field of Angels for the children who died here. We join a late-morning guided tour; the museum runs them through the day, and we arrange the group's visit with the Whitney when we confirm your dates. We take it slowly, and your guide makes room afterwards to talk about what we have seen. Lunch is at a local place on the river road. We are back in New Orleans by mid-afternoon. The rest of the day is free, with a streetcar pass for the St. Charles line out under the oaks to the Garden District and Audubon Park.

   Included

   • Whitney Plantation guided tour, entry included
   • Lunch on the River Road
   • A streetcar pass for the afternoon

   Optional experiences

   • National WWII Museum
   • Steamboat cruise on the Mississippi

   Easier option: Sit out part of the Whitney grounds on one of the shaded benches; the vehicle waits close by.

   More active option: Walk the Garden District and Magazine Street from the streetcar, about 5 km.

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free

   Activity: About 2 hours on foot at the Whitney, outdoors on paths; bring a hat and water. The Whitney lists hours of 9:30 am to 4:30 pm with last entry at 3 pm; we confirm opening days and the group visit when we book. If it cannot take the group on day 3, we visit it on day 2 and walk the French Quarter and Tremé on day 3, so the pairing runs the other way.

   

4. Day 4: The Atchafalaya swamp and a Lafayette dance hall

   New Orleans to the Atchafalaya Basin near Henderson, then Breaux Bridge and Lafayette

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Lafayette
   Day 4 details

   We leave at 7:30 am and take I-10 west past Baton Rouge, with a coffee stop, then out across the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, which runs about 29 km over swamp and open water. At a landing near Henderson we board a covered flat boat at about 10 am for two hours among the cypress and tupelo: herons and egrets all year, alligators on the banks in the warm months, and a boat captain from the basin who explains how the river and the people here live with each other. Lunch is in Breaux Bridge, crawfish in season or a Cajun plate lunch. Early afternoon we visit Vermilionville in Lafayette, a living history village on the Bayou Vermilion about the Acadians, Creoles and Native people of the region, with old houses, music and craft, and stay until it closes at 4 pm. After check-in and a rest we have a Cajun dinner together, then go on to a zydeco dance hall, where a band plays Creole accordion and rubboard music and the floor fills with dancers of every age. Your guide will get you dancing, or not.

   Included

   • Drive across the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge with your guide
   • Swamp boat trip in the Atchafalaya Basin, about 2 hours
   • Lunch in Breaux Bridge
   • Vermilionville living history village
   • Cajun dinner in Lafayette
   • A night at a zydeco dance hall, cover charge included

   Easier option: Skip Vermilionville and rest at the hotel before dinner; at the dance hall, take a table and watch, and the vehicle can bring you back early.

   More active option: Join the dance lesson some halls give at the start of the night, then dance the whole set.

   Free time: Late afternoon rest before dinner

   Activity: Seated on the boat; about two hours on foot at Vermilionville, which lists hours of 10 am to 4 pm, Tuesday to Sunday (we confirm seasonal hours). The dance hall is loud and late, and you can leave whenever you like; some halls admit only guests aged 21 and over, so carry photo ID.

   

5. Day 5: Lafayette back to New Orleans and home

   Lafayette to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast
   Day 5 details

   A slow breakfast in Lafayette, with time for a short walk downtown to the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist and the great live oak beside it, or a last coffee and boudin from a Cajun grocery if your guide can find one open on the way. We leave at about 10 am and drive back east on I-10, about 210 km and two and a quarter hours, across the Atchafalaya bridge once more, with a stop on the way. The vehicle goes straight to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY), arriving around 12:30 pm, and your guide sees the group to departures and checks your flight before saying goodbye. Book a flight leaving after about 3 pm. If yours leaves earlier, ask us about a transfer from Lafayette Regional Airport (LFT) instead. If you would like more time in New Orleans for the music or the food, we can book extra nights at the same French Quarter hotel and take you to the city instead of the airport.

   Included

   • Drive from Lafayette to New Orleans with your guide
   • Drop-off at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)

   Optional experiences

   • Extra nights in New Orleans, booked on request

   Easier option: Stay at the hotel over a long breakfast instead of the downtown walk; the vehicle collects you at the door.

   Free time: Early morning free in Lafayette

   Activity: Book a flight leaving after about 3 pm.

   

Wildlife and weather: October, November, March, April and May bring warm days that suit walking; December to February is mild with some cool, damp days. Alligators bask in the swamp from about March to October and are mostly out of sight in winter, when herons, egrets and the cypress forest are the draw. Autumn departures carry a hurricane-season weather plan.

• New Orleans3 nights
• Lafayette1 night