Ellis Family Vacation: New Orleans
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The Essential Sites of Louisiana
This complete itinerary allows you to discover the essential sites of Louisiana and a sampling of Mississippi through the town of Natchez. Take off on a discovery of this little slice of France across the ocean. Enjoy the warm welcome you will receive from our Acadian *cousins* and their culinary delights. Explore this unique region with its plantations and centuries-old oak trees, feel the rhythm of the Jazz of New Orleans, and be fulfilled by Louisiana from its heart!
New Orleans sits at the mouth of the Mississippi River in southern Louisiana, and it is one of the few American cities with a culture that feels like nowhere else. Jazz was born here, the food draws on French, Spanish, African and Creole traditions, and the streets still have the character of a city that has always done things its own way. In the Ellis Family Vacation episode, Devale and Khadeen Ellis tour the Big Easy, as the city is nicknamed, with the family in tow. They soak up the music, eat beignets and take an airboat through the bayou. This trip follows the same family-friendly instinct at a slower pace. It opens in New Orleans, heads upriver into plantation country and on to Cajun country, and finishes in the bayou. The link below opens the full trip, and you can change any part of it.
Start in the Big Easy
A private taxi meets you at the airport (MSY) and takes you to the Best Western Plus St. Christopher, which keeps you close to the sights. The French Quarter is where you get your bearings. It's the oldest part of the city, with wrought-iron balconies, gas lamps and music coming out of open doorways. A two-and-a-half-hour guided tour walks you through it and explains what you're looking at, and then a free day is yours to spend as you like. Start with beignets, the square fried pastries buried in powdered sugar that are a New Orleans staple, and then wander down to the riverfront. It's worth giving the city a little room before the road trip begins.
Beignets, dusted thick with powdered sugar, as the episode demands.
Head Up the River
From New Orleans, the road follows the Mississippi north through Gonzales to Baton Rouge, the state capital, and then across the river to Natchez. Along the way, you stop at the Myrtles Plantation, a historic house on the river shaded by old oak trees. The region is lined with plantation houses built on the wealth of sugar and cotton, which was produced by enslaved labor, and many of these sites now tell that history alongside the architecture.
After the river towns, the landscape and the language change. Lafayette is the capital of Cajun country, a region settled by French-speaking Acadians who came from Canada and built a culture of their own. A tour of the TABASCO factory is on the route, so you can see where the famous hot sauce is made. A free day in Lafayette leaves plenty of time to eat your way through the local menu of gumbo, boudin and étouffée.
End in the Bayou
The last stretch takes you into the wetlands around Houma, the bayou country the episode's airboat ride explores. Bayous are slow-moving waterways that wind through cypress swamps, and an airboat skims across the shallow water on a flat-bottomed hull powered by a large fan. The scenery here is quieter than anything earlier on the trip, which makes it a good place to slow down before the loop closes back in New Orleans for your departure.
An airboat ride through the bayou, the signature move of the New Orleans episode.
Two parts of the episode sit outside the itinerary and are easy to add on your free day in New Orleans: the airboat run and a full evening of jazz. Together with the beignets, they're the moments your family will talk about on the drive home.
The itinerary books as a single trip through the link below. Add city nights, swap hotels or trade a plantation stop for more bayou time. Click through and shape it into your own.
The Essential Sites of Louisiana
This complete itinerary allows you to discover the essential sites of Louisiana and a sampling of Mississippi through the town of Natchez. Take off on a discovery of this little slice of France across the ocean. Enjoy the warm welcome you will receive from our Acadian *cousins* and their culinary delights. Explore this unique region with its plantations and centuries-old oak trees, feel the rhythm of the Jazz of New Orleans, and be fulfilled by Louisiana from its heart!
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