New Orleans as a Bucket List Destination
Dear NOLA: Thank you for setting my soul on fire!
This post is doozy, and it won’t display in its entirety in your inbox. It’s best to read it in the app.
If you’re looking for a tale of beads and Bourbon Street, this isn’t it. Flip the page.
I don’t look for “typical” when discovering a new destination. I try to pull back layers and go as deep as I can, and this is what I found in New Orleans.
When I told one of my American friends that I had booked ten days in The Big Easy, he told me I should change my flights and add another destination to the itinerary. He said I could easily cover New Orleans in a few days and then move on.
Worst piece of advice I’ve ever received.
After NOLA, I had officially forgotten what the term “moving on” actually meant.
New Orleans swallowed me whole and I willingly let it happen. I gave the city permission to capture and hold me prisoner and she did it without hesitation.
First of all, can we just start with the drawl, y’all?
I’m Canadian, we don’t have drawl where I’m from. We don’t say “Yes ma’am” as a pleasantry, and we don’t ever say “y’all” in a typical sentence.
This is the type of thing we only hear in American movies about the South. Canadian Uber drivers certainly don’t answer with, “Yes baby,” when you ask a question.
Speaking of Uber drivers, it seems every vehicle in the city doubles as an Uber.
My first ride was in a tinted-out, black BMW SUV, and all the following ones were just as fancy. My most memorable ride was from a guy we labelled “The Bourbon Street Shooter.” He had a gold grill covering his teeth, and he told tales of shootings that had taken place on Bourbon Street in the past.
Probably not the best stories to attract tourists but still highly entertaining.
What’s the best attraction?
Before I get into any attractions, by far the best is the people of New Orleans.
The friendliness and accommodating nature of every local I met made my trip stand out. Without them, I would have never known that Bourbon Street is NOT the place to hang out, and I would have never been as captivated by the city's history and charm as I was.
Without the locals, I would have never learned that most of them don’t want to share their stories of Hurricane Katrina. But the ones who were willing to talk transported me directly into their own stories of heroism and survival. It was mesmerizing and heartbreaking.
What a resilient and tenacious population they are. Everything you’ve heard about Katrina is true….and worse.
Before visiting, I had a predisposed notion that the people of New Orleans would be rough around the edges. I expected grit. Instead, I found genuine Southern souls who were truly interested in making my time in their city blow all my expectations out of the water.
On our first night, my travel partner and I passed around our phones with note apps open and let locals type in their recommendations of things we should do. And we did them ALL.
If and when you visit New Orleans, use Uber, ride a rickshaw, take a tour bus, or hop on a street car. When you do, make a point of talking to the locals accommodating you.
You’ll fall in love with their spirits.
(The music on this rickshaw came from a sound system installed right under our seat. We were the biggest spectacle on the street with this guy 😂)
Louisiana stirred my soul with its incredible plantation history.
My ambivalence toward standing on hallowed slave ground was confusing, to say the least. The sheer beauty of each plantation, combined with their disturbing histories of slavery, made me feel heavy, angry, and sad, but intrigued.
I was significantly moved.
A tour through Louisiana plantation country is eye-opening and educational in a multitude of ways. The scenery is stunning, the slave squalor is crushing, and the ghosts are very present. If you have even an ounce of thirst for knowledge, you need to visit the plantations and pay homage to those spirits. Each one of them has a story to tell.
While standing inside the grand parlours of the Oak Alley Plantation house, I tried to marvel at such a life of grandeur, but all I could feel was the oppression of centuries gone by. Although I’d like to say I could imagine the struggle of the slaves, I simply can’t.
They were born there, lived there, and died there, never having tasted the freedom of being human. I wondered how many of their calloused feet had touched the ground I stood on.
The French Quarter
It’s like a time machine. It’s old, colorful, vibrant, and SO alive.
It’s where you’ll inevitably find Bourbon Street even if you’re not looking for it. I ended up on Bourbon accidentally while looking for a supermarket. Only a few blocks walk from my hotel I found the supermarket and when I looked up there it was….the Bourbon Street sign.
The vibrancy of the French Quarter shouldn’t be missed. It’s a must-do and must-see, just to say you did it. But Bourbon Street itself looks just like the rest of the French Quarter, which spans many city blocks.
Before visiting New Orleans, I heard that Bourbon Street stinks. It literally does. It reeks of fermentation mixed with many nights gone bad. But it’s the only place you’ll find bartenders in full swing behind a packed bar at 10:00 a.m.
People have liquor for breakfast there. I even had liquor for breakfast there once, at the famous Carousel Bar in Hotel Monteleone.
I used to make my living as a bartender and I can’t imagine managing crowds like French Quarter crowds that early in my work day. It takes a special kind of bartender to hit the ground running like this on a daily basis.
Bourbon Street is a place where you’ll regularly see people stooped over, shamelessly hurling their guts out by lunchtime. I witnessed it a few times but proudly never took part in this ritual.
People also told me the safety rules about pickpocketers in the French Quarter, but no one ever told me about the safety rules for the sidewalks. They’re a disaster, riddled with uneven bricks and craters. Watch where you’re walking, and don’t wear heels.
My travel partner ended up flat out on the ground with a sprained ankle, due to a sidewalk pothole, and she hadn’t even had a drink yet. The injury rendered her useless for days and dampened her spirits for a good chunk of our trip. Walk with your eyes open and down.
There are tons of ways to spend money in the French Quarter — from cheap alcohol to tacky souvenir shops to street entertainers.
Bucket drummers are a thing here, and they’re very young. Stop and listen to one, let him entertain you, and drop your money in his bucket. It’s worth it.
I put in my time on Bourbon Street for one day and I’m happy to say I did it…just once.
New Orleans is a city that prioritizes pedestrians. The pedestrian lights will confuse you until you learn that they work FOR you, not against you.
The “walk” symbol doesn’t occur with the green lights for cars. The green light happens, and then the walk symbol happens separately. You’ll learn to love this handy feature within five minutes of being a pedestrian.
I’d lose my mind if I had to drive in this city. God bless the Uber drivers.
One thing I did a LOT of in New Orleans that I’ve never done anywhere else is guided tours. If you don’t do them you’ll miss the whole point of traveling, which is to learn.
You’ll never learn a fraction of the history, culture, and reasons why this city is what it is without participating in some guided tours.
I booked all of mine before I even left home and they included all the nuts and bolts of New Orleans. A Voodoo tour, a ghost tour, a cemetery tour, a bayou tour on a high-speed airboat, and a riverboat dinner cruise down the Mississippi River.
Each one of them contributed to my unquenchable thirst for the knowledge that I crave when travelling.
If you don’t book any tours, you won’t understand why the cemeteries are above ground, that many generations of families are housed in the same crypt, or how they all fit into one.
The “one year and one day” factor is quite intriguing.
Just as an oven would not be constructed to bake a single loaf of bread, the tombs in New Orleans cemeteries are used again and again. The specifics vary depending on the exact design of the tomb, but a typical scenario is that after a year, the bones of the departed are swept into an opening in the floor of the tomb, which is then ready for its next occupant. It is a common practice to bury all the members of a family—or multiple families—in the same tomb, with names and dates added to a plaque or headstone as necessary. This procedure is not only sanitary and efficient; it also avoids the problem of growing real estate needs as time goes on.
You also won’t know that actor, Nicholas Cage, has his own crypt reserved in the St. Louis #1 cemetery, even though he’s still alive and well today.
One can’t even begin to understand the nuances of this city without knowing its culture and history, which the tour guides are eager to share.
Witnessing “Touchdown Jesus” against the dark sky of New Orleans is also something a tour guide can lead you to while on a nighttime ghost tour through the back streets of the French Quarter.
Getting outside the city will teach you that alligators love marshmallows for lunch as much as they love humans. This can be discovered when you find yourself two feet away from a jumping, snapping gator on a high-speed airboat in Lafitte, Louisiana.
Your authentically Cajun airboat driver will take you into the depths of the Louisiana bayou, bringing you face-to-face with stunning greenery and plenty of hungry gators.
Our guide, Sam, told us these boats are like the ice cream trucks of the bayou. When the boats come around, the gators are in hot pursuit just to taste that elusive marshmallow.
By far, the most charming excursion to experience in New Orleans is the jazz dinner cruise aboard the steamboat Natchez. This grand old paddle boat takes passengers on a two-hour journey down the Mississippi River at dusk.
Watching the city disappear behind us and the sun go down around us was nothing short of magical.
During dinner in the big, old galley, the lights dimmed and flickered occasionally, making me feel like I was aboard the Titanic in the early 1900’s. It added some old-school charm and ambiance to our evening.
If you’re anything like me, someone who loves the industrial urban feel, the gentrification in the south side of the inner city will fascinate you.
Upon checking into my hotel on South Peter Street I wondered why they would plop a Hilton in such a crumby part of the city. It wasn’t until nightfall when I could see into the lit windows of the warehouse buildings, that I realized they were all high-end condos.
They’re everywhere.
I walked for blocks and blocks….and more blocks, marvelling at the old buildings turned into new homes and wondering what the price tags might look like.
Old America has become new and fashionable.
But let us not forget the reason we ALL want to visit New Orleans.
The Jazz. The Blues. The notes that stir up our insides and make us want to move.
Music is the real reason I came to New Orleans and I was not disappointed. Remember I mentioned those locals referring me to places other than Bourbon Street? They nailed it when they said Frenchmen Street. It’s where the locals come out to play.
Frenchmen Street is literally that….just one out-of-the-way street lined with bars where the locals hang out. Every single doorway leads to another world of incredible live music.
Cafe Negril was our first stop and we walked in just in time to soak up the soulful Dana Abbott band. I’d never heard of them before but I’m sure I’ll never forget them. They were my first live band in New Orleans.
The second most memorable spot on Frenchmen Street was the Balcony Music Club. The night we stopped in, an eight-piece brass band performed on stage, and the entire club moved. This band looked like it should be on a college football field, yet here they were on a stage, in a bar, keeping the crowd alive.
Before visiting Frenchmen Street, I thought those pop-up brass bands on street corners were just something you on TV. But they’re absolutely real, and they’re incredible! The instant one of them pops up, a crowd quickly draws, and the street comes alive. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
The ONE thing I found on Frenchmen Street that completed my entire trip?
The elusive New Orleans balcony.
Those balconies on every building are just something you see from the ground looking up. But on Frenchmen Street, we found a bar with a balcony open to the public. We flooded onto it with the rest of the people, and the view of the street action below was stellar!
My life became complete. My bucket list overflowed.
There were 1001 more things I saw and experienced during my monumental ten-day trip to New Orleans, but I can’t possibly list them all. This is already a 12-minute visual overload.
This entire story is one huge shout-out to the city and its people for helping dreams come true.
Before New Orleans, I thought I was living…..but after? I was truly ALIVE.
Whew!! That was a long one, hey? And you thought I only wrote about Jamaica!
Have you ever been to New Orleans? If so, did it hit you in the sweet spot like it did me?
Wow, this was a fabulous read. I've never felt like I left anything in New Orleans, if you get my drift. Never had a desire to visit. And this post definitely has given me a new outlook. Thank you so much. If my travels bring me to New Orleans, I will keep these tips in mind! Thanks so much! 💕
I haven’t been to New Orleans in at least 20 years. I remember having a great time and the food was sooooo good! Did you have beignets? This reminds me it’s time to revisit!