Exploring the French Quarter

Make sure to give yourself plenty of time to explore and wander the French Quarter, there is so much to do and see! The beautiful historical buildings make it hard to put your camera down.

Dining in the French Quarter

We decided to have lunch during at New Orleans Hamburger & Seafood Co. the food here is delicious! I ordered the gourmet hamburger with the garlic herb fries and Eric ordered the rajun’ cajun burger with a side cup of gumbo, and everything was great! We would definitely dine here again.

For dessert you have to pick up some beignets, you can find some of the best beignets in two locations: Cafe Du Monde their beignets are $2.73 for a order of 3 which is a great deal, which is why there is always a huge line! So make sure you get there early, or you can opt for a close second option: Cafe Beignet their fresh handmade beignets are $3.99 per order of 3.

Usually when we travel we like to try new foods and go to places we typically don’t go to but when it comes to coffee it’s difficult to find a good place to get a cheap cup of coffee without it being Starbucks, so we decided to try CC's Coffee House and even though they have multiple locations it’s only located in Louisiana. Eric got a tall cup of black coffee for $2.50 and I got a tall cup of hot chocolate for $3.00, along with a slice of chocolate cake for $2.00 and everything was great!

Exploring Royal Street & Beyond

After you take a walk on Bourbon Street make sure to turn into Royal Street to enjoy some live music, local art, and beautiful buildings! On the right side of the street you’ll be able to spot the gorgeous architecture that is Jackson Square!

Once you get to St. Peter Street you’ll find all sorts of voodoo stores, we happened to stumble across Reverend Zombie's House Of Voodoo (which is a second location of Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo just in case you can’t find one or the other, they are sister stores). Here you’ll find readings, voodoo dolls, jewelry/charms, and more! We I personally liked about this store is that it there is more many things here that it really looks like a museum, there is a lot of information about Marie Laveau in towards the back of the store.

If you’re interested in more information over voodoo, just around the corner you can visit the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum. We thought it would be neat to learn more but unfortunately the museum was packed so we decided against it, tickets are $7.00 a person.

Wander through the Garden district

If you are looking for beautiful instagrammable locations in New Orleans the Garden District is a must! Take a walk down Coliseum Street, this is where you’ll find beautiful mansions and if you are a American Horror Story fan you’ll walk past the Buckner Mansion just down the street! Another great thing to see in the Garden District is the Lafayette Cemetery No.1 it is much smaller than other cemeteries across New Orleans but it certainly is nice to stop by and take a look around.

Click here for a Free Self Guided Garden District Tour!

Haunted History Tours

You can’t go to New Orleans and not go on a haunted tour! I personally love scary and thrilling experiences real or not so of course I had to sign us up! Since we decided to go on this trip they day after New Years and it was completely spontaneous we didn’t have much time to plan, I basically had to plan our entire trip on our 16 hour drive from Lincoln, NE. Since it was still winter, Eric wasn’t too convinced on going on a 2 hour walking tour (I’m positive it was just him being scaredy cat since he’s not a fan of anything scary!) but after a little convincing we paid the $25 per ticket which is a bit pricey since we were on a budget but it was completely worth it! There are numerous haunted tours you can go to but after a bit of research of reading reviews we decided on Haunted History Tours they have 10 different options and we chose “5 in 1 Ghost & Mystery Tour of the French Quarter” this way we could see a little bit of everything! The pictures shown above are from our tour, we didn’t go inside any buildings since they are private residences. The tour guides go into extreme detail at each location, this tour in general is more historical rather than spooky scary.

Plantation Tours

If you really enjoy plantations you definitely won’t find any affordable plantation tours, the cheapest I could find was $50/person for the Oak Alley Plantation Tour click here to search/booking more plantation options!

Or click on the map below to see all the plantation in the area!

New Orleans Plantations