New Orleans: 8 Worth Doing (and 3 to Skip)

New Orleans: 8 Worth Doing (and 3 to Skip)

Most New Orleans trips get built around Bourbon Street, and that is the fastest way to spend four days in the wrong city. The real New Orleans is the National WWII Museum, a guided walk through St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, Frenchmen Street after 9pm, and a St. Charles streetcar ride into the Garden District, not a daiquiri in a plastic yard-glass. Three to five days is enough to do this properly. Below: eight things worth your time, three that are not, and the cemetery rule almost every visitor gets wrong before they land.

Essentials before you book anything

Essentials
Days needed 3 minimum, 5 to add a slower pace without repeating a day
Best months October and November: 70s F, hurricane risk fading, no festival markup
Daily budget $120-180 mid-range (food, one paid attraction, streetcar or rideshare); $250+ staying inside the Quarter
Booking warning St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is guided-tour-only, book that before your hotel

Things worth doing in New Orleans, ranked by what actually pays off

  1. The National WWII Museum. A multi-building campus, not one exhibit hall: $36 adult, $33 senior, $26 student or military, free under 5 and for WWII veterans. Budget a half-day minimum; enthusiasts lose a full day. See current hours on nationalww2museum.org .
  2. A guided tour of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. You cannot walk in anymore, a rule dating to March 2015 after repeated vandalism, including the pink-paint defacement of Marie Laveau’s reputed tomb. Official tours run about $33, 45 minutes, from the Basin St. visitor center. Book the cemetery tour .
  3. Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral. Both free. The cathedral is open 9:30am-4pm; add the Cabildo or Presbytère next door ($11) for the actual Louisiana history behind the postcard shot.
  4. Frenchmen Street after dark. The Spotted Cat, d.b.a., and the Maison run three or four bands within a block, low or no cover. This is where the city’s own musicians play; Bourbon St sells the cover-band version to people who never asked for the real one.
  5. The Garden District, on foot, off the St. Charles streetcar. The oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the country, running since 1835. Ride it up from Canal St, then walk Prytania and Washington Ave for the Greek Revival mansions.
  6. Preservation Hall. No advance-seat reservation exists, door policy only: general admission $15-20 standing, “Big Shot” reserved seating $35-50. No bar, no air conditioning. Arrive 30-45 minutes before doors or expect to stand. Check the current lineup on preservationhall.com .
  7. A Steamboat Natchez jazz cruise. About $43.50 daytime, a two-hour narrated Mississippi River cruise with a live trio, departing the Toulouse St. Wharf. Book the Steamboat Natchez cruise .
  8. Actual Creole food, not the tourist-menu version. A po’boy ordered “dressed” (lettuce, tomato, mayo) at Parkway Bakery, gumbo or jambalaya at a Creole kitchen like Dooky Chase, beignets at Café du Monde before 9am while the line is still short.

For the day-by-day version of this list, our New Orleans 3 Day Itinerary and New Orleans 5 Day Itinerary slot all eight into an actual schedule.

Three things not worth your time

  1. Treating Bourbon Street as a dinner destination. It’s a nightcap street, not a food street; the kitchens worth eating at sit on Royal, on Frenchmen, or in the Garden District.
  2. The sidewalk “haunted history” pitch. The generic $20-30 walk-up ghost tours hawked on street corners are interchangeable filler. A better use of that slot: a proper Garden District walking tour that actually covers the neighborhood’s architecture and Lafayette Cemetery No. 1’s gates (the cemetery itself is closed to public entry for repairs in 2026).
  3. Assuming every New Orleans cemetery works like St. Louis No. 1. It doesn’t. St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 and Metairie Cemetery both still allow independent walk-ins; only No. 1, and currently Lafayette No. 1 for an unrelated repair closure, require a guide or a gate view.

Is St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 worth the guided tour?

Yes, once you know what you’re actually paying for. It isn’t access to a free sight, it’s a licensed guide required since 2015, after the cemetery’s above-ground tombs, including Marie Laveau’s reputed grave, were repeatedly vandalized. At $33 for 45 minutes you get the context, why New Orleans buries above ground, whose family crypts these are, that a solo wander never provided anyone anyway. More detail on the rule itself is in our St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 breakdown .

Is Café du Monde actually open 24 hours?

No, and this is one of the most repeated wrong facts about the city. It closes nightly, around 11pm Sunday through Thursday and midnight Friday and Saturday, reopening at 7:15am. Plan a visit before 9am for beignets without the queue that forms by mid-morning, and bring cash, it’s the only thing they take.

Do Mardi Gras parades roll down Bourbon Street?

No. The major krewes parade Uptown along St. Charles Ave and on Canal St; the French Quarter’s narrow streets have been off-limits to parade routes since the 1970s over safety rulings. Bourbon St during Mardi Gras is a street party, not a parade route, worth knowing if you booked a hotel expecting floats outside the window.

When to go

Mardi Gras 2026 falls on Feb 17; book six or more months out, hotel minimums apply and prices triple. French Quarter Festival, Apr 16-19, is free with 300-plus acts and no cover charge. Jazz Fest runs two weekends, Apr 23-26 and Apr 30-May 3, at the Fair Grounds Race Course, not inside the Quarter itself, a common point of confusion. June through September is genuinely oppressive: overnight lows rarely below 75 F, daytime highs in the low 90s, and hurricane season runs June through November with the real risk window mid-August to mid-October. Full event listings live on neworleans.com .

Where to stay in the French Quarter or Garden District

Stay inside the Quarter, on or near Royal St, if you want zero rideshare dependence and everything on this list within walking distance. Pick the Garden District or Marigny instead if you’d rather sleep somewhere quieter and streetcar or walk in each day. Compare current rates for both areas on Booking.com before committing to a neighborhood.

Book the cemetery tour and a WWII Museum time slot before you land; everything else on this list runs on a walk-up or a same-day reservation.