Must-Do Activities in New Orleans + Travel Tips

Our 3 Day Trip to NOLA | What to do, where to stay, and travel tips

We just got back from our NOLA trip and had THE BEST time while we were there. So I’ll cut to the chase and tell you what you HAVE to do!

BUT FIRST! I need to brag on my sweet husband, Jason! He planned this whole trip out hour-by-hour and surprised me with ViP Taylor Swift Reputation tickets! I ABOUT DIED. While the trip didn’t go 100% as planned, I am so grateful for him and feel so lucky to have a husband who treats me like a queen’s queen. 

Onward..

Here’s an outline of how this post will go, so you can skip to whichever part you want to see :)

1. Our Favorite Activities in NOLA
2. Travel Tips
3. Our Itinerary
4. Photos

1. Our Favorite NOLA things we did:

A Swamp Tour.

This sounds weird, like who wants to hang out in a swamp? 😂 But trust me, it was so cool riding around on an airboat, and we saw a big alligator that came right up to our boat! If that’s not enough to convince you  that you need to take a swamp tour, Taylor Swift was on the same boat as us the day before our tour!

Oak Alley Plantation Tour

We got a package deal with the plantation and swamp tour, so we toured the plantation in the morning, then our driver took us to the swamp tour in the afternoon. The plantation tour was SO BEAUTIFUL! I’ve never seen oak trees THAT BIG, ever. The plantation itself is beautiful and the tour is interesting. We learned after the tour that the plantation is haunted! So if you’re weirded out by spirits/ghosts that’s something to consider. But, in my humble opinion, if those things creep you out you should probably just not go to New Orleans at all because the whole place is haunted! More on that soon…

City Park

This was a favorite of mine, probably because I’m a photographer and appreciate pretty things ;). They have Spanish moss EVERYWHERE, and the bridges in the park are SO cute! We didn’t have much time here, but we enjoyed the time we had.

French Quarter Royal Carriage Tours

This was HANDS DOWN my favorite thing! My sweet husband, Jason, booked us a private tour. And before you start wondering if these animals are beaten and starved, they get a THREE MONTH vacation every year, work 6 hours a day, and get breaks after every tour (30 min-1 hour). They’re living the DREAM. lol.

Harrah’s Casino

We had fun playing craps here after our daytime adventures, and even won a little spending money!

(Not pictured, but if you check out my Instagram stories you can see some funny stuff.)

2. Travel Tips

1. Bring an umbrella with you on your trip! If you’re planning to adventure for a while, take it with you, even if the forecast shows absolutely nothing!
2. There are no accurate forecast/weather apps for NOLA. Rain will literally pop out of nowhere.
3. Bring extra changes of clothes(Like, double. lol) for when you forget your umbrella or you “think you know better” because it’s bright and sunny outside. It will rain on you. And when it does, it’s not a sprinkle. It’s a storm.
4. Don’t wear white! Because it will rain on you. (Do you see a pattern here? lol)
5. Let your hair do what it wants. The humidity there is outrageous, and if the humidity doesn’t get you, the surprise-attack rain storm will.
6. Go to Frenchman Street instead of Bourbon street. If you MUST go to Bourbon, go in the daytime. If you go at night, be sure to move with the crowd, because you don’t want to get puked on.
7. Bring snacks to your plantation/swamp tour if you go! They picked us up at 8:30 AM and we got back at 4:30. All I had in between that time was a salad from the cafe at the plantation.

3. Our itenerary:

Day 1: fly to NOLA

check in, get a snack at the concierge lounge

take a ferry ride. (We got there and it was closed early!)

Dinner

Harrah’s

Day 2. (This is the day Jason got really sick!)

Lunch at Red Gravy

City Park

Taylor Swift

Day 3.

Oak Alley Plantation Tour

Swamp Tour

Dinner

Carriage Ride at Sunset

Meander around the French Quarter like we aren’t afraid of ghosts now. 😂

Day 4.

Jason Scheduled a couples massage, and it was my other favorite thing.

lunch at backspace bar & kitchen (the only place we could find where we could both eat — gluten free and shellfish free)

If we had extra time we would have definitely explored Magazine street and the other areas more! We were originally supposed to do that on Day 2, but we were exhausted and Jason got food poisoning.

FOLLOW ALONG WITH US!

   

Also, *Disclaimer*!!! Most of these (90% at least) are iphone photos! Can you tell which ones are not??

We stayed at, literally, the cutest hotel I’ve EVER seen! Windsor Court is located in the non-haunted ( 😂) business district of New Orleans and has vines growing over walls, a nice pool, beautiful rooms, and a concierge lounge. I’m kicking myself for not getting more photos of its cuteness!  the view from our room: True story: before we headed out to the French Quarter we went down to the pool bar. It started POURING DOWN RAIN! So hard that we had to go back to our room and change. I learned my lesson and brought my umbrella with me the rest of the day. And then it was sunny. PS if you’re looking for “Instagrammable” spots, you don’t have to look very hard! They’re EVERYWHERE!  Day 2:

I found out Jason got us VIP tickets to the Taylor Swift concert!! Taylor Swift was AMAZING!

Out for Day 3! This is the day we did the Plantation and Swamp combo + the haunted carriage ride and a million more steps in between.  If you haven’t gathered yet, Oak Alley Plantation is named after these gorgeous trees 😍 They are HUGE! We look like little ants standing next to them. Bonus tip: Bring a tripod! I left mine at home on accident, so I had to put my camera on my purse and hope for the best. I have this one from Amazon. It works for your “real” camera OR your phone AND it comes with a remote. it would have been handy for sure 

On our swamp tour it started raining the minute we stepped into the boat. We should have brought ponchos! But we did air dry after a while. And then it started raining again. LOL. But we did manage to have a boat to ourselves, so that was cool!  This, kids, is why you don’t wear white in Louisiana lol. It’s also a good idea to wear sunglasses for the swamp tour because when it rains it feels like a thousand needles stinging you! These things saved my eyeballs! NOLA Wall art on Magazine Street St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square Jason scheduled our carriage ride for sunset, so we were able to see some of the cuteness of the French Quarter in the daylight  AND hear all of the crazy ghost stories about this place.
Our tour guide, Angela, said that there are some mules who won’t even go down this street because of how haunted it is. When we stopped here to get the low-down on the hotel during the civil war, our Mule, Sandy, did not like it! Angela said one time she had a medium on tour with her and she said that two soldiers were trying to march the mule into battle, and that’s why he was freaking out! There are also a dozen other crazy stories about this hotel, but I’ll let the tour guides tell them ;)
There used to be a torture chamber under this intersection! Jason and me with Sandy :) This was just a celebratory photo because I found a hat that fits my BIG HEAD! It was in a “big and tall” hat shop on Royal street. It’s a Mens XL. LOL.

   

 

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