Nearbyly
Follow Nearbyly

Things to Do in New Orleans, Louisiana

French Quarter ironwork, Creole and Cajun kitchens, neighborhood music rooms and streetcar lines through the city that invented jazz.

Explore New Orleans in Nearbyly

Last updated: September 2026

New Orleans, Louisiana — photograph from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: George Bannister / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

New Orleans sits near the mouth of the Mississippi River on Louisiana's Gulf Coast, a city shaped by French, Spanish, African, Caribbean, and American influences that show up in its architecture, food, music, and language. The French Quarter's cast-iron balconies, the sound of live jazz spilling out of Frenchmen Street clubs, and the city's deep Creole and Cajun food traditions make it one of the most distinct urban cultures in the United States.

The city has weathered enormous hardship, most visibly Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and its recovery and resilience are woven into how residents talk about their neighborhoods today. It draws music lovers, food travelers chasing gumbo and po'boys, architecture and history fans, and anyone looking for a city that treats celebration, food, and community as central to daily life rather than as tourist performance.

Beyond Bourbon Street's bachelor-party reputation, New Orleans rewards visitors who wander into the Garden District, ride the St. Charles streetcar, or catch a second-line parade, experiences that reveal a much richer and more resident-driven city than its most commercialized blocks suggest.

Quick facts

Population
383,997 (2020 census)
Parish
Coextensive with Orleans Parish
State
Louisiana
Country
United States
Founded
1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville
Elevation
From about 7 feet below sea level to 20 feet above
Nickname
The Crescent City; The Big Easy
Setting
On the Mississippi River near the Gulf of Mexico
Nearby cities
Baton Rouge, LA; Gulfport, MS
Best known for
Jazz, Creole and Cajun cuisine, and the French Quarter

Things to Do

  • French Quarter architecture walk

    Wander streets like Royal and Chartres to see Spanish colonial courtyards and cast-iron balconies away from the noisier Bourbon Street crowds.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Frenchmen Street

    A few blocks in the Marigny packed with live music clubs featuring jazz, brass bands, and funk, generally considered a more local alternative to Bourbon Street.

    View in Nearbyly

  • St. Charles Avenue streetcar

    One of the oldest continuously operating streetcar lines in the world, running past oak-lined mansions between downtown and Uptown.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Garden District

    A neighborhood of grand 19th-century mansions and Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, best explored on foot or with a walking tour.

    View in Nearbyly

  • National WWII Museum

    A large, highly regarded museum built in the city where Higgins boats used in the D-Day landings were manufactured.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Preservation Hall

    An intimate, no-frills French Quarter venue that has hosted traditional New Orleans jazz performances since 1961.

    View in Nearbyly

Eat Local

  • Gumbo

    A Creole and Cajun stew built on a dark roux, okra or filé, and a mix of seafood, sausage, or chicken, found in countless variations across the city.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Po'boys

    A New Orleans sandwich staple on crusty French bread, classically stuffed with fried shrimp or oysters, or roast beef with debris gravy.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Café du Monde

    A 24-hour French Quarter institution since 1862, serving café au lait and beignets dusted heavily in powdered sugar.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Beignets and Creole cream cheese

    Beyond Café du Monde, several neighborhood bakeries serve their own takes on beignets and other Creole pastry traditions.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Commander's Palace

    A Garden District fine-dining landmark since 1893, credited with training a generation of prominent New Orleans chefs and known for its haute Creole menu.

    View in Nearbyly

Shopping & Markets

  • French Market

    A historic open-air market along the river dating back over two centuries, selling produce, spices, crafts, and souvenirs.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Magazine Street

    A six-mile stretch of independent boutiques, antique shops, and galleries running through Uptown neighborhoods.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Royal Street antique galleries

    The French Quarter's Royal Street is lined with high-end antique dealers specializing in Louisiana and European furnishings.

    View in Nearbyly

Hidden Gems

  • Treme neighborhood

    One of the oldest Black neighborhoods in America and a birthplace of jazz culture, with the Backstreet Cultural Museum documenting its Mardi Gras Indian and second-line traditions.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Bayou St. John

    A quiet waterway near City Park where locals paddle and picnic, offering a slower, more residential side of the city.

    View in Nearbyly

  • St. Roch Chapel and Campo Santo

    A small cemetery chapel in the Seventh Ward whose side room is lined with plaster limbs, braces and glass eyes, left since the 1800s in thanks for healings. Free, unsettling, and almost never on an itinerary.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Second line parades

    Community-organized brass band parades that move through neighborhoods on weekends are one of the most authentic ways to experience local music culture.

    View in Nearbyly

Nature & Outdoors

  • City Park

    A large urban park with ancient live oaks, lagoons, and the New Orleans Museum of Art, offering a green counterpoint to the dense French Quarter.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Mississippi River Levee walks

    Paths atop the levees near the French Quarter and Audubon Park give unobstructed river views and a sense of the city's relationship with the water.

    View in Nearbyly

  • Jean Lafitte National Historical Park

    The Barataria Preserve, about twenty-five minutes south, carries boardwalks through swamp and bayou. Storm repairs have closed the visitor centre and much of the trail system, with services moved to the nearby wetland education centre, so check the park's status first.

    View in Nearbyly

A little history

New Orleans was founded by the French in 1718 near a bend in the Mississippi River, strategically positioned to control river trade, and it passed between French and Spanish colonial control before the United States acquired it in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Its early population blended French and Spanish colonists, enslaved and free people of African descent, and Caribbean immigrants, creating the distinct Creole culture that still defines much of the city's identity.

The city became a major port for the transatlantic and domestic slave trades, and its French Quarter architecture, ironically, dates mostly to Spanish colonial rebuilding after fires in the 1780s rather than to the French period. Jazz emerged from New Orleans in the early 20th century, born from a mix of African rhythms, brass band traditions, blues, and ragtime among Black musicians in neighborhoods like Treme, one of the oldest Black neighborhoods in the country.

Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005, breaching levees and flooding roughly 80 percent of the city, displacing hundreds of thousands of residents and devastating neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward. The city's recovery has been uneven, but cultural institutions, Mardi Gras krewes, and neighborhood traditions have been central to its rebuilding, and Katrina's legacy remains an essential part of understanding the city today.

If you only have a day in New Orleans

  1. Morning

    French Quarter, on Royal and Chartres

    Coffee at the French Market end, then the quiet streets rather than Bourbon.

  2. Late morning

    St. Charles Avenue streetcar to the Garden District

    One of the oldest streetcar lines running, and the ride is half the point.

  3. Lunch

    Magazine Street

    A few blocks down from the streetcar line, with the shops to walk off afterwards.

  4. Afternoon

    National WWII Museum

    In the Warehouse District; allow three hours, more if you watch the films.

  5. Evening

    Frenchmen Street

    Marigny, a few blocks past the Quarter, for music in rooms that locals actually use.

Good to know

  • Carnival season runs from 6 January to Fat Tuesday, with dozens of parades closing streets across the city. Some museums close on Mardi Gras Day itself.
  • Hurricane season is June to November, and much of the city sits below sea level behind levees and pumps.
  • The Quarter, Marigny and the Garden District are walkable; anywhere else means the streetcar, a bus or a car.
  • The city has lost a number of long-running independent restaurants in the last two years. Ring ahead rather than trusting an older list.

Explore more of New Orleans

This guide highlights some of the places that help define New Orleans. There is plenty more around it — restaurants, hidden gems, history, events, shopping and outdoor places — waiting in the live explorer, sorted by distance from wherever you are.

Explore New Orleans in Nearbyly

Places in New Orleans

More city guides

How Nearbyly builds City Guides

Our city guides are written and curated by the Nearbyly team using local research, historical and public sources, open map data and the place records behind the app. We lean toward independent businesses, distinctive attractions and the places that help tell a community's story, rather than listing everything a search would return. We don't claim to have visited every place we mention. Details change — check ahead before making a long drive. More about our approach is on the about page.