6-Day New Orleans Itinerary

New Orleans is the only American city with no dominant cultural ancestor. French, Spanish, African, Creole, Haitian, and German streams mixed here under conditions that produced a cuisine, a music, and an architecture that belong to nowhere else. The French Quarter is where most first-time visitors spend most of their time, and it is fine, but the more interesting version of the city is in the Tremé (the oldest Black neighbourhood in America), the Bywater, and the Magazine Street corridor, where New Orleans operates for itself rather than its visitors.

From Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) to the French Quarter takes about 26 minutes without traffic. A flat-rate taxi from the airport costs USD 36 for one or two people, plus USD 15 per additional passenger. Uber and Lyft run USD 43-50 depending on surge pricing. The official airport shuttle costs USD 24 one-way (USD 44 round-trip) and stops at multiple hotels. Cash is expected for taxis, always.

The streetcar system is the most enjoyable way to navigate the city: the St. Charles line runs through the Garden District and Uptown for USD 1.25 per ride (exact change), and the Riverfront line connects the French Quarter to the Warehouse District.

Day 1: French Quarter and Jackson Square

Arrive and walk. The French Quarter is not actually French in its architecture: the original French settlement burned twice in the 1780s and was rebuilt by the Spanish, which is why the iron-lace balconies and courtyard buildings look more like Havana or Cartagena than Paris. The Spanish Colonial buildings survive largely intact because the city’s geography (surrounded by water and swamp) made demolition and replacement impractical.

Jackson Square is the centre of the Quarter: the Saint Louis Cathedral (consecrated 1794) on one side, the Mississippi on the other, artists and tarot card readers and street musicians occupying the space between. Preservation Hall, a block away on St. Peter Street, runs jazz concerts from 8 pm nightly. The hall holds perhaps 60 people, standing room only, tickets at the door for USD 25-35, the musicians are serious professionals rather than tourist entertainment, and the acoustics are excellent because the room is a raw, unimproved 19th-century space. This is worth doing once before anything else on the itinerary.

Cafe du Monde has sold beignets (square doughnuts blanketed in powdered sugar) and cafe au lait from the same spot since 1862. It is a tourist institution and also genuinely good. Go for breakfast or late at night, when it is less crowded. Skip the line and take a table at the outside edge.

For a proper first dinner, Muriel’s on Jackson Square serves Creole cooking at the upper end: gulf shrimp, duck confit, and remoulade-sauced dishes in a building where, local lore holds, the former owner gambled the property in a poker game and lost. The haunted ambience is part of the atmosphere rather than a distraction.

Where to stay: Hotel Monteleone on Royal Street is the French Quarter’s best traditional hotel, with a rotating Carousel Bar in the lobby that is worth a drink regardless of whether you are staying there. Mid-range options in the Warehouse District offer better value and are still within walking distance.

Day 2: Garden District and the National WWII Museum

Take the St. Charles streetcar from Canal Street to the Garden District (about 20 minutes). The neighbourhood’s Greek Revival and Italianate mansions were built by American merchants in the 1840s to 1880s, deliberately positioned upriver from the Creole Quarter as the two communities kept their distance. Walking the blocks between St. Charles and Magazine Street is free and the architecture is extraordinary, the best concentration of 19th-century American domestic architecture in the country.

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 on Washington Avenue is a working cemetery (still active burials) and not a tourist stage set. The above-ground tombs are a response to the city’s high water table, which made in-ground burial impractical. Entry is free; the cemetery society offers walking tours.

Commander’s Palace on Washington Avenue has been the top table in New Orleans since the 1880s. Weekend jazz brunch (reservation required, book two weeks ahead) offers a 25-cent martini with every meal, a longstanding promotion that understates the seriousness of the kitchen. The turtle soup and gulf fish dishes are as good as the reputation.

The National WWII Museum in the Warehouse District is one of the finest museums in America, full stop. It chronicles the entire conflict from an American perspective across multiple large buildings and several theatres. Allow half a day at minimum. Tickets around USD 30.

Day 3: Tremé, Bywater, and the Live Music Circuit

The Tremé neighbourhood, directly north-east of the French Quarter, is the oldest African-American community in the country and the neighbourhood most directly responsible for jazz. Congo Square (now Armstrong Park) is where enslaved people gathered on Sundays to play music and preserve African cultural practices, which is not a minor historical footnote but the origin story of jazz itself.

Lil’ Dizzy’s Cafe on Esplanade Avenue in Tremé is a family-run restaurant serving Creole soul food: fried chicken, gumbo, red beans and rice, and seafood platters. The prices are local, not tourist, and the room is busy with the neighbourhood rather than with tour groups.

The Bywater is the neighbourhood immediately downriver from the French Quarter and Marigny, and it has some of the most interesting restaurants in the city right now. Saint-Germain is a 10-course tasting menu in a Bywater building that moves guests between rooms with each course. It has received national recognition and reservations fill fast; book at least two weeks ahead. Acamaya, also in Bywater, is an upscale Mexican seafood restaurant where the sourcing is precise and the crab masa dumplings are memorable.

For live music beyond Preservation Hall: Tipitina’s in Uptown (local original; the best large venue in the city for funk and rock) and Blue Nile on Frenchmen Street (smaller, jazz and blues from midnight on). Frenchmen Street in the Marigny neighbourhood is where local musicians play for local audiences on weekend nights, and it is a better experience than Bourbon Street for anyone who cares about the music more than the spectacle.

Day 4: Swamp Tour and Plantation

A swamp tour is the single best excursion from New Orleans and the one most different from city-based activities. Several operators run morning tours into Manchac Swamp, about an hour’s drive, on pontoon boats that move slowly through cypress channels while guides point out alligators, herons, turtles, and the occasional water moccasin. Book in advance (USD 35-55 per person from tour companies, more if part of a package). The wildlife density is highest in the early morning hours.

For the plantation visit: Oak Alley Plantation on the River Road is the most visited, with its famous avenue of 300-year-old live oaks leading to the 1839 Greek Revival house. It is photogenic and well-maintained. More important than the mansion, Oak Alley now includes reconstructed slave cabins with exhibits documenting the lives of the enslaved people whose labour made the plantation profitable. The interpretation is honest and the exhibits are genuinely affecting. Laura Plantation, nearby, offers a more historically layered tour that discusses Creole culture, French inheritance law, and the complex social hierarchies of antebellum Louisiana. Both are worth visiting if time allows; if only one, Laura has the better storytelling.

Car rental or a guided tour is required for the River Road plantations; no public transit serves the route.

Day 5: Magazine Street and Mardi Gras World

Magazine Street runs 6 miles through Uptown and holds the city’s best independent shops: vintage furniture, antique prints, local clothing designers, bookshops, and a concentration of restaurants that serve the neighbourhood rather than tourists. Worth an afternoon even if you are not shopping, just for the scale and variety.

Mardi Gras World (closed Sundays) is the working warehouse where Blaine Kern Studios builds the floats for Mardi Gras parades, some of them 40 feet tall. Admission is around USD 25. You can see floats being constructed or finished depending on the season, and the scale of the work, given that Mardi Gras lasts two weeks and requires hundreds of floats, is genuinely staggering.

For lunch, Herbsaint on St. Charles is a long-established Warehouse District restaurant with a kitchen that blends French technique and Louisiana ingredients, and the two work well together here. Pêche Seafood Grill a few blocks away is the other recommendation: wood-fired fish and Gulf shellfish in a large, open, loud room that understands what it is doing.

Day 6: Final Morning and Departure

Allow a final hour for the Cabildo on Jackson Square, the former seat of Spanish colonial government where the Louisiana Purchase was signed in 1803. The collection covers Louisiana history from colonisation through Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement and does not avoid the uncomfortable parts. Admission included in some Louisiana State Museum passes.

A last beignet at Cafe du Monde is the conventional farewell and not a bad one.

Airport logistics: allow 90 minutes from the Quarter to departure gate, more during rush hour. Rideshare apps work reliably. Flat-rate taxi remains the simplest if your hotel can arrange one. The streetcar does not reach the airport.

A cash note: New Orleans tipping culture is serious and service workers depend on gratuities. In restaurants, 20% is standard. For live music performers, USD 1-5 per set in tip jars is appropriate. Street musicians work long hours for what ends up in the hat; bring small bills.