Discover New Orleans: A Self-Guided Tour

The historic heart of the French Quarter has served as parade ground, execution site, and public gathering space since the city's founding in 1718, its iron-fenced garden now hosting artists, fortune tellers, and street performers beneath the gaze of General Andrew Jackson's bronze monument. The square's Pontalba Buildings, with their iconic wrought-iron galleries, represent America's oldest apartment buildings and frame views of St. Louis Cathedral's soaring spires. Tarot readers, brass bands, and mule-drawn carriages create the quintessential New Orleans atmosphere that has attracted visitors since Mark Twain first described its peculiar magic.

The oldest continuously active Roman Catholic cathedral in the United States has anchored Jackson Square since 1727, its current incarnation dating from 1850 when the triple-steepled facade became the defining image of the New Orleans skyline. The cathedral's interior glows with murals, stained glass, and the baroque altar where Creole aristocrats worshipped alongside free people of color in a city whose racial complexity defied simple categorization. The adjacent St. Anthony's Garden, hidden behind the cathedral, provides peaceful escape where duels were once fought and pirate Jean Lafitte allegedly plotted with future president Andrew Jackson.

America's most famous neighborhood preserves the colonial street grid and architectural character established under French and Spanish rule, its narrow streets lined with Creole townhouses whose galleries and courtyards create spaces for the social life that defines New Orleans. The Quarter's 80 square blocks encompass Bourbon Street's neon revelry, Royal Street's refined antiques, and quiet residential lanes where locals tend potted gardens on ironwork balconies. The neighborhood's remarkable survival through fire, flood, and development pressure has made it a National Historic Landmark whose authentic 18th and 19th-century fabric draws millions seeking a glimpse of America before homogenization.

The world's most famous party street pulses with music, neon, and revelry from dawn to dawn, its bars and clubs serving hurricanes, hand grenades, and the go-cups that allow drinking to spill onto the street in a celebration that never ends. The street's reputation for excess obscures its historical significance as the center of colonial New Orleans and its architectural beauty visible above the tourist-oriented storefronts. By day, the bleary aftermath and power-washing crews reveal the street's ornate ironwork and ancient buildings; by night, the competing sounds of jazz, rock, and karaoke create the cacophony that has defined American freedom since French colonists first named this street for their royal dynasty.

The French Quarter's most elegant thoroughfare offers the sophisticated counterpoint to Bourbon Street's bacchanal, its blocks lined with world-class antique shops, art galleries, and the ornate facades of Creole townhouses built by the city's wealthiest families. Street musicians perform classical and jazz beneath the galleries while auction houses sell everything from Civil War swords to Fabergé eggs in establishments that have served collectors for generations. The architecture along Royal reveals the French Quarter's true character—intricate ironwork, hidden courtyards, and the subtropical lushness that makes New Orleans feel more Caribbean than American.

New Orleans' oldest and most famous cemetery showcases the above-ground tombs necessitated by the city's high water table, creating the 'City of the Dead' that has inspired vampire novels, voodoo legends, and countless photographs. The whitewashed tombs, family vaults, and society crypts reflect the hierarchies of 19th-century Creole society while the alleged tomb of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau draws visitors who leave offerings and scratch X marks seeking her intercession. Access requires a licensed tour guide, protecting the fragile tombs while ensuring visitors understand the unique funerary traditions that make New Orleans cemeteries unlike any others in America.

This iconic coffee stand has served beignets and café au lait 24 hours a day since 1862, its open-air pavilion beneath the French Market awnings becoming the essential New Orleans experience for generations of visitors and locals alike. The powdered-sugar-dusted beignets arrive three to an order, their yeasted dough fried to golden perfection and designed to be consumed immediately with the dark-roasted chicory coffee that French settlers adopted during the Civil War blockade. The restaurant's lack of walls, constant crowds, and strategically unavoidable location make it impossible to visit New Orleans without succumbing to its sweet, caffeinated temptation.

The locals' alternative to Bourbon Street has become New Orleans' most vibrant live music corridor, its clubs hosting the brass bands, jazz combos, and genre-defying acts that represent the city's contemporary music scene. The street's three blocks pack in legendary venues like the Spotted Cat, d.b.a., and the Maison where world-class musicians play for audiences squeezed onto tiny dance floors or spilling onto the sidewalk. The Frenchmen Street Art Market and surrounding restaurants have made the area a complete evening destination where the music is authentic, the crowds are diverse, and the spirit of New Orleans burns brightest.

This antebellum neighborhood of magnificent mansions represents the wealth and aspirations of American merchants who settled upriver from the French Creole establishment after the Louisiana Purchase. The oak-shaded streets reveal an architectural parade of Greek Revival columns, Italianate brackets, and Victorian gingerbread that housed cotton kings, sugar barons, and their rivals in increasingly elaborate displays of prosperity. Magazine Street's boutiques, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1's atmospheric tombs, and Commander's Palace restaurant anchor a neighborhood that feels worlds removed from the French Quarter's raucous energy.

The world's oldest continuously operating streetcar line has rumbled along St. Charles Avenue since 1835, its olive-green cars providing the most romantic transportation in America as they pass beneath a tunnel of live oak trees draped with Spanish moss. The 13-mile route connects the French Quarter to Carrollton, passing the mansions of the Garden District, the campuses of Tulane and Loyola universities, and Audubon Park's ancient oaks. Riding the wooden seats, pulling the brass cord for stops, and watching the neighborhoods change provides an essential New Orleans experience that costs merely the price of a transit fare.

Consistently ranked America's finest museum, this sprawling complex tells the story of World War II through immersive exhibitions, personal testimonies, and artifacts ranging from Higgins boats (invented in New Orleans) to a restored B-17 bomber. The museum's pavilions trace the war from the road to conflict through victory in both European and Pacific theaters, using state-of-the-art technology and first-person accounts to make history viscerally immediate. Beyond the military history, the museum explores the home front, the Holocaust, and the war's lasting impact on American society.

The mighty river that created New Orleans and determined its destiny curves past the French Quarter in a sweeping bend that gave the city its Crescent City nickname. The Moonwalk promenade offers views of cargo ships, paddlewheel steamboats, and the distant West Bank while Woldenberg Park provides green space where festivals, concerts, and ordinary afternoons unfold against the industrial poetry of the working river. The Steamboat Natchez departs twice daily for jazz cruises that recall the era when river traffic made New Orleans America's wealthiest and most cosmopolitan city.