Multi-Day Trips From New Orleans
New Orleans has no standard packaged multi-day tour. What works is a self-drive loop: New Orleans, the River Road, then west on I-10 to Cajun Country. It suits a long weekend of three to four nights and a rental car.
The shape of the route
Spend the first two nights in New Orleans so you can fit in music and a museum or two. On day three, drive the River Road west for a morning at Whitney Plantation, then continue toward Lafayette. Stay one or two nights in Acadiana, and drive back on the final day. Lafayette is about 2 hours 15 minutes from the city by I-10, so the drive is manageable, and the River Road stop is on the way if you leave early. If you do not already have a car, you can compare rental cars on DiscoverCars for pickup near the airport.
River Road stop
Whitney Plantation is a museum of slavery about an hour west of New Orleans. It is closed on Tuesdays, so the loop works best if you reach the River Road on a Wednesday to Monday. Opening hours run 9:30 to 16:30 with last entry at 15:00, and advance booking is recommended through whitneyplantation.org . Plan to spend a couple of hours and keep the rest of the schedule open.
Lafayette and Cajun Country
Vermilionville, a living-history museum in Lafayette, is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 16:00, and adults pay about $10. Around it, look for boudin sausage, cracklins and live Cajun fiddle at local dancehalls. This is country cooking from the prairies and bayous, built on pork, lard and dark roux, and traditional gumbo and jambalaya here come without tomatoes. In New Orleans the style is Creole, an urban mix of French, Spanish, African and Caribbean influences that does use tomatoes and butter.
Back in New Orleans
Keep one evening unplanned. Frenchmen Street has live music most nights, and a Preservation Hall set is a 45-minute commitment, with tickets sold online in advance only. For ideas that fill each day, use the 3-day New Orleans itinerary as a base and swap one day for the road trip.
Planning notes
Hurricane season runs 1 June to 30 November, peaking from mid-August to mid-October, so travel insurance and a flexible rental policy make sense then. Mardi Gras Day falls on 9 February 2027, and hotels across the region book out well ahead of Carnival. Jazz Fest weekends, 22 to 25 April and 29 April to 2 May 2027, also fill rooms. Fuel up before leaving the city, and check Louisiana road conditions on the morning you set out.
Book the Whitney slot first, since it sets which day of the week you cross the river.