St. Louis Cemetery No. 1: Worth It?
St. Louis Cemetery No. 1: Worth It?
You cannot walk into St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 anymore. That surprises a lot of first-time visitors who show up expecting a free wander among above-ground tombs and instead find a locked gate and a sign pointing them toward a paid tour. The short answer: yes, it’s worth the $33 and 45 minutes, but only if you go in understanding exactly what you’re paying for and why the door closed to solo visitors in the first place.
Key facts
| Price | About $33 adult (verify seasonally); after-dark tours from $49 |
| Hours | Guided tours 9am-3:45pm daily, except Mardi Gras Day |
| Time needed | About 45 minutes |
| Booking | Mandatory, no independent walk-ins since March 2015 |
Why you need a guide now
The Archdiocese of New Orleans barred independent walk-ins to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in March 2015, after years of vandalism culminating in the 2013 pink-paint defacement of Marie Laveau’s reputed tomb. Before that, this was a free walk-up sight, arguably the most photographed cemetery in the country. Now it’s guide-only, and the guide fee is effectively a preservation tax on a site that couldn’t survive unrestricted foot traffic. Book the official guided tour departing the Basin St. visitor center.
What the tour actually covers
Forty-five minutes is enough to see why New Orleans buries above ground at all: a water table close enough to the surface that in-ground burial used to float coffins back up during heavy rain, which pushed the city toward family crypts and society tombs instead. Your guide will point out Marie Laveau’s reputed tomb, the Italian Mutual Benevolent Society’s pyramid-shaped structure that briefly made headlines as a Nicolas Cage burial plot, and the general layout of a 218-year-old Catholic cemetery that’s still an active burial ground today, not a museum piece.
St. Louis No. 1 versus the other New Orleans cemeteries
This is the rule most content about the city gets wrong: the guided-only requirement applies to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 specifically, not to every cemetery in New Orleans. St. Louis Cemetery No. 3, out near City Park, and Metairie Cemetery both still allow independent walk-in visits, guided tours there are optional, not mandatory. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, in the Garden District, sits in a third category entirely: it’s closed to public entry in 2026 for repairs, unrelated to the No. 1 vandalism rule, and currently viewable only from its gates on a Garden District walking tour . Don’t assume one cemetery’s rules apply to the rest of the city.
Can I visit St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 without a tour?
No. This is the single fact worth confirming before you plan a French Quarter afternoon around it: independent walk-ins have been barred since March 2015, and the Archdiocese, which owns and administers the cemetery, enforces this through nolacatholiccemeteries.org . Every legitimate way in runs through a licensed guide, official or otherwise.
Is the guided tour actually worth paying for?
Yes, more than most paid add-ons in the French Quarter. At $33 for 45 minutes you get context a solo visit never provided even when it was free: why the tombs sit above ground, whose families built them, and which stories (Marie Laveau’s especially) are documented fact versus tourist folklore. The official tour operator’s site lists current departure times if you want to book directly rather than through a marketplace.
Book an early tour, 9am or 10am, if you’re visiting May through September; there’s no shade inside and the heat is a real factor by midday. After-dark tours run less crowded and cost more, worth it if the standard daytime slots are booked out.
Our New Orleans guide and New Orleans 3 Day Itinerary both slot this tour into an actual morning schedule alongside the National WWII Museum and Frenchmen Street.