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Best New Orleans Tours

There are so many ways to behold new orleans, a city of infinite possibilities.

Whether you want to explore history or haunts, shopping or swamps, food or just have fun, there’s a tour for you with a locals’ perspective.  Pick your passion or simply get to know New Orleans from a new point of view.  Either way, diving a little deeper into the city’s stories and culture will reveal so much more left to discover. So follow your NOLA with one or more of these excursions.

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City Sightseeing New Orleans: Your Gateway to the Best City Vibes!

See you on the top-deck, ticket packages.

3-TOUR UNLIMITED PACKAGE

• 3-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Tour
• Stops Near All Major Sights
• Live Guide in English
• Guided French Quarter Walking Tour
• Guided Garden District Walking Tour

2-TOUR EXPERIENCE PACKAGE

• 2-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Tour

1-DAY HOP-ON HOP-OFF

• 1-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Tour

CITY SIGHTSEEING NEW ORLEANS

City Sightseeing New Orleans is the most entertaining, informative, and fun City Tour you can find that offers transportation approximately every 30 minutes on an exhilarating open-top, double-decker bus!

HOP-ON! and in a single 1-hour 30-minute loop, experience a complete City Tour — 3 centuries of history, architecture, and culture narrated live in English by your very own Tour Host – see the Garden District, French Quarter, and CBD.

HOP-OFF! at any stop along the way and explore New Orleans most popular neighborhoods, attractions, and shopping districts – or – take advantage of our Guided Walking Tours in the Garden District and French Quarter, included in the 2-Tour and 3-Tour Package or sold separately.

See the city at your own pace, the next bus is less than 30 minutes away!

HOP-ON HOP-OFF NEW ORLEANS TOUR FEATURES

Tour at your own pace, live guided city tour, buses visit each stop, every 25 minutes, daily tours, french quarter walking tours, garden district walking tours, deals and discounts along the way, bus tracking app, group tickets, private tours, sightseeing attractions.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Hop-On Hop-Off tour buses operate from 9:30am to 5:30pm, 7-Days a week. First Service at each stop will be between 9:30am and 10:00am. Board by 4:00pm from Any Stop for Full Loop tour.

Tour service closes at 5:30pm – You should board around 4:00pm if wanting to return to a particular stop.

Yes, on a few days each year, city-wide street closures impact our route and we are unable to operate. Here are the upcoming 2022 and 2023 Black Out Dates:

• Mardi Gras – No Tours on the 5 Daytime Parade Days (two Saturdays, two Sundays, and Mardi Gras Tuesday).
• Mardi Gras – Limited Services are provided on the 5 Parade Nights where streets are closed to vehicles between 3pm and 4pm .

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First Timer's Guide to New Orleans First Timer's Guide to New Orleans

Welcome to New Orleans, also known as The Crescent City or The Big Easy. Diverse cultures mix in this Louisiana hub which celebrates life through music, food, and festivals. There’s so much to see—these are our must-do recommendations.

New Orleans is the city of jazz and home to brass bands that play in Jackson Square in the shadow of St. Louis Cathedral. It's also where you’ll also find endless charming cafés, art galleries, and boutiques. Join the party on the neon-lit Bourbon Street, shop the antique stores on Royal Street, or wander down to the banks of the Mississippi River. Buildings that date back two and three centuries can be seen in the city's beautiful and historic French Quarter—the beating heart of New Orleans.

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See world-class musicians every night at the jazz clubs along Frenchmen Street, where it’s easy to bounce between venues. Two recommends? Fritzel’s European Jazz Bar and Preservation Hall, both famous music hot spots in the French Quarter. Good to know: the city’s incredible brass bands often take to the streets but look out for them in the clubs, too.

From simple red beans and rice to high-end tasting menus, no city loves its food like New Orleans. Creole and Cajun dishes are the most popular, and you’ll find gumbo and jambalaya everywhere. Stop at Cafe du Monde for beignets and cafe au lait, grab a muffuletta sandwich from Central Grocery, or find a crawfish boil at a neighborhood bar. Oysters, po’boys, and turtle soup are local classics—consider taking a cooking class to learn how to make them.

New Orleans is best known for its iconic Mardi Gras celebrations, many of which make their way through the French Quarter. From the first week in January until the start of Lent, parades take over the city. However, there are festivals year-round in New Orleans. In spring, Jazz Fest attracts world-famous musicians, or, you can join the locals for food and live music at French Quarter Fest. The city also goes all in for Halloween as New Orleans is known to be haunted.

Exploring downtown New Orleans is easy to do on foot or with a sightseeing bus tour. Also worth exploring is the Marigny neighborhood, filled with cute coffee shops, impressive art at Studio Be, and the tranquil riverside greenery of Crescent Park. And Treme is one of the country’s most historic African-American neighborhoods. Jazz evolved right there in Congo Square, and here you can find authentic Creole restaurants after a relaxing stroll through Louis Armstrong Park.

Bourbon Street is a world-famous party center where you can find cheap drinks, karaoke, live music, and adult entertainment. Join the locals by exploring beyond the neon signs along Saint Claude Avenue, home to lively spots with some outstanding local talent. The AllWays Lounge and HiHo Lounge put on exciting burlesque, drag, variety and comedy shows, and Siberia showcases all kinds of bands. You can also catch touring Broadway shows at the historic Saenger Theater.

The colorful street murals in the Marigny hint at the incredible artistic talent that resides in NOLA. New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) holds its own against any big city gallery, with a collection that includes works by Degas, Picasso, and Renoir. The museum has an outstanding outdoor sculpture garden, too. Discover regional artistic highlights at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the Contemporary Arts Center.

New Orleans is home to the National World War II Museum, largely due to the fact that the vital Higgins Landing Craft was built here. The museum houses an array of comprehensive exhibits, including actual aircraft and weaponry. If you want to travel even further back in time, visit Chalmette Battlefield where you can see canons and monuments to the War of 1812.

New Orleans is built on bayous and swampland, and the natural wetlands just outside the city are easy to explore. The best way to do this is with an expert guide on a Honey Island Swamp tour. You're likely to see a variety of wading birds, turtles, nutria, and of course, the resident alligators. Don’t worry, bayou gators are relatively docile, and your guide can get you up close for the best photo opportunities.

City Park is a sprawling green space, 50% bigger than Central Park in New York. Its most famous attractions are the centuries-old mature live oak trees, including the Dueling Oaks, where men would settle disputes back in the 19th century. You can also enjoy rolling along the Mississippi River on an old-fashioned steamboat cruise for beautiful views and live jazz.

5 of the best New Orleans Airboat Tours

Make your time in New Orleans a whole new kind of thrilling, while getting closer to nature, on these top airboat tours.

(Photo: Getyourguide.com)

New Orleans sits near the Mississippi River delta, where a vast network of bayous, lakes and wetlands crisscross the fringes of America before succumbing to the Gulf of Mexico. With so much water around, sometimes the best, and often the only, way to get from one place to another is by boat. With sea levels on the rise, this method of transport will only become more necessary than ever. Some airboat tours ply the extensive network of waterways around the New Orleans, while others incorporate other sights into the tour. Here are our favorite five.

Swamp Tours South of New Orleans by Airboat

For a chance to spend two hours winding along the cypress-lined waterways of the Lafitte wetlands at Bayou Barataria, check out this popular ride from Airboat Adventures. You’ll see plenty of wildlife along the way, including alligators (two of which are albino), turtles, snakes and plenty of water birds, such as ibis, egrets and herons. These airboats are large, holding up to 30 people. The prices do not include transport to the dock from New Orleans, although this can be added onto your ticket. From $59 per person.

Book at Getyourguide.com

New Orleans High-Speed 16 Passenger Airboat Ride

Get a swampy thrill on a high-speed airboat ride on this two-hour tour. Taking up to 16 passengers, the boat alternates between speeds of up to 35 miles per hour and virtual standstill, once reaching areas where the wilderness becomes particularly fascinating. Professional guides help lend context to the flora and fauna, that’s if the alligators don’t first come and introduce themselves. The fan-propelled boat can get to areas of the swamp that would be inaccessible by any other means. From $63 per person.

New Orleans High Speed 6-9 Passenger Airboat Tour

With passengers limited to only nine people, there is a much more personalized feel to this New Orleans swamp tour. Over the course of two hours the boat will explore varied waterways, including swamp, lake and marshland. The emphasis of this tour is to discover local wildlife, getting nice and close to large reptiles and fascinating birdlife along the way. Although there are no guarantees with the wild, it is highly likely that alligators will appear. From $82 per person.

Small-Group Swamp Tour by Airboat with New Orleans Pickup

For travelers who don’t have any way of getting out to the start points of some of the other tours, this is a great option as downtown hotel pickup in New Orleans is included. The tour itself will last two hours (not including transfers to and from New Orleans). Your guide will help unlock the mysteries of the local flora and fauna, including alligators, which will be clearly abundant on all sides once the airboat gets moving. Group numbers on the boats are kept low. From $102 per person.

Book at Viator.com

Swamp Airboat, 2 Plantation Tours & Lunch from New Orleans

It’s worth remembering that there are plenty of other great sights around New Orleans, and some of them can be combined with an airboat tour. In this example, you can pair a short airboat ride with guided tours of two different plantations. Start the day with a scenic narrated history of New Orleans, before discovering the teeming wildlife of a swamp environment from the comfort of your airboat. Then visit Laura and Houmas House plantations, and enjoy a Cajun lunch served at the latter. From $230 per person.

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The 3 best new orleans plantation tours.

Learn about the Big Easy's role in slavery on one of these daytrips.

Best New Orleans Plantation Tours

Courtesy of New Orleans Kayak Swamp Tours

Whitney Plantation's exhibits are largely devoted to the lives of the enslaved people who worked on the property hundreds of years ago.

Known for its Creole cuisine, Mardi Gras festivities and iconic architecture, New Orleans has something to offer every traveler, especially history buffs. The area's antebellum plantations offer a look at the lives of enslaved workers, how local landowners ran their farms using – and profiting off – the labor of the enslaved and how agriculture impacted New Orleans.

Picking the right tour means more than picking a plantation close to your hotel. (Many plantations are located within an hour's drive of the French Quarter .) You'll want to find a tour where first-person accounts depicting the brutal conditions enslaved workers had to endure are the focus. These stories help to provide a more complete picture of plantation life and provide context for why plantation owners were able to afford the luxurious mansions preserved on the property. Additionally, look for plantations that emphasize researching about the lives of enslaved workers, plantations that do not host weddings and those that employ descendants of former slaves.

Not sure where to start? Begin at Evergreen Plantation. This research-focused property is not open to the public, but you can explore its comprehensive website to learn more about the lives of the enslaved men, women and children who were forced to work on the plantation. Visitors can also peruse a slavery database, read biographies of slaves who labored at Evergreen and take a virtual tour.

Taking into account the above criteria – as well as traveler opinion and expert sentiment – U.S. News identified some of the top New Orleans plantation tours.

Gray Line – Whitney Plantation Tour

Price: Adults from $79; kids from $39 Duration: 5.5 hours

Opened to the public in 2014, Whitney Plantation offers a distinct look at the enslaved people who lived and worked at the site more than 200 years ago. This Gray Line tour, which lasts about 5.5 hours, allows access to museum exhibits, artwork and recorded first-person slave narratives. Reviewers say this tour is particularly powerful and important and describe it as a must-do activity. They also appreciate the bus drivers who share more tidbits of information on the drive to Whitney.

Tours depart Wednesday through Monday at noon and 1 p.m. Ticket prices start at $79 for adults and $39 for children 12 and younger. Gray Line offers other plantation tours, ghost tours, swamp tours and more.

View & Book Tickets: Viator | GetYourGuide

New Orleans Kayak Swamp Tours – Whitney Plantation & Swamp Kayak Tour Combo

Price: From $195

Duration: 8 hours

Travelers say this daylong tour is a wonderful way to experience two must-do New Orleans attractions. Half the tour is a kayak trip through Manchac Swamp to see cypress trees and local wildlife while learning about the history of the area. The other half is a moving visit to Whitney Plantation, where the experiences of enslaved workers are the main focus. In between the activities, you'll stop for lunch (at your own expense).

Fees start at $195 per person, regardless of age, and tours begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday through Monday. Transportation to and from New Orleans (pickup is near Frenchmen Street) is included. The company says the paddle is suitable for beginner kayakers. It also offers kayak excursions through Honey Island Swamp, among other options.

View & Book Tickets: New Orleans Kayak Swamp Tours

Legendary Tours – Laura Plantation Tour

Price: Adults from $79; kids from $45 Duration: 5.5 hours

Named for Laura Lucoul, a Creole member of the family who owned the plantation, Laura Plantation allows visitors not only to explore the lives of enslaved workers on the property, but to also learn more about Louisiana's Creole heritage. During this half-day outing with Legendary Tours, travelers will explore the plantation in depth, view slave quarters, see the great house and much more. Tourgoers commend their drivers and say the guides at Laura Plantation are excellent.

Tours last about 5.5 hours and operate Wednesday to Monday beginning at 10 a.m. (though keep in mind, transportation pickup starts at 8 a.m.) Tickets start at $79 for adults and $45 for children 5 to 12; kids 4 and younger explore for free. Fees include round-trip transportation from select areas of New Orleans. Legendary Tours also offers tours exploring other area plantations.

View & Book Tickets: Legendary Tours

You may also be interested in:

• Best New Orleans Tours
• Best New Orleans Cemetery Tours
• Best New Orleans Ghost Tours
• Best New Orleans Swamp Tours
• Best New Orleans Walking Tours

Tags: Tours , New Orleans , Travel , Vacations , Louisiana Vacations , Southeast Vacations , US Vacations

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Looking for a shorter walking tour? Check out www.shorttoursnola.com!

Lucky Bean Tours

Small groups and great stories, some of the great ways we explore new orleans.

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French Quarter Tour

New Orleans has grown in 300 years, but its Creole heart still beats in the French Quarter. Explore the oldest, most vibrant neighborhood in the city with your guide.

Garden District Tour

Explore the sights and stories of the elegant Garden District with your expert local guide. Your guide shares recommendations for shopping, dining, and sightseeing in this gracious area of town!

Private Walking Tours in New Orleans, LA

Do you want to customize your New Orleans walking tour? Lucky Bean guides can craft a GREAT private tour for your specific needs.

• Users All Ages

Marigny Triangle Tour

We’ll meet at the lower end of the French Quarter and head downriver to the next neighborhood, the first faubourg (suburb) of New Orleans which was laid out in 1806 by our most famous bon vivant of the time, Bernard de Marigny.

• Users Age 12+

French Quarter Ghosts and True Crime Tour

Explore New Orleans’ “darker side” on a nighttime tour of the French Quarter. THIS is the sacred ground where centuries of unforgettable, intense characters have lived, loved, fought, celebrated, made music, and taken their last breaths.

About Lucky Bean Tours

Lucky Bean Tours was created by passionate New Orleans tour guides who are eager to show off our most beloved aspects of our city. When you are on a Lucky Bean walking tour of New Orleans, there are no scripts. You are being shown around by the creator of that tour, the person who had the passion that produced the idea.

Libby was great and showed us the french quarter alongside stories about the amazing history of New Orleans. That's the way to get to know a city, and in NOLA every house has a story. Would defently recommend this tour to anyone coming to the city as the first thing to do before you decide what to do next. Enjoy!

Libby was everything you would want out of a tour guide: personable, professional, and knowledgeable. The stories she told were both entertaining and informative. I highly recommend this tour to anyone who would like to add a layer of culture and history to their New Orleans trip. Thank you, Libby!

We joined the French Quarter tour on July 5 and it turned out it was just the two of us and our guide, Josh. Josh provided information and shared many stories about New Orleans in general and the French Quarter in particular. He really provided a sense of the city historically and in the present. We could answer questions about lots of topics and were given great answers. We highly recommend this tour and company.

James is the best tour guide ever, he’s hilarious! My husband and I could not stop laughing, we had a wonderful time. We would honestly take this tour again just for James because it felt like we were with a long-time friend, who knew a lot of history!

Our guide Suzanne Stone was absolute wonderful. She was very knowledgeable of the history and identity of buildings where strange things happened in NOLA. We loved hearing her stories and information of the people and development of the French Quarter. We would definitely request her and recommend her to all our friends.

Libby was truly amazing. Her depth and breadth of knowledge about New Orleans history was inspiring, and her passion for sharing it all with us kept us enthusiastically engaged the entire time. Our 10 year old daughter truly loved your storytelling, too! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Never been to New Orleans before and decided to take the family and kids tour. Ms. Libby is a one of a kind lady! She brought the kids little gifts that with their simplicity and the stories they carry open all our hearts. The candy, the food and most of all Ms. Libby's stories made us full in love with New Orleans and we will be coming back for more. Thank you so much Ms. Libby we will never forget you."

Ms. Peak was so kind and informative, the crafts were cute and the kids enjoyed them. She definitely made the best out of a rainy situation and made what could have been a bad thing a good one!! Loved her energy and I will definitely be recommending the tour to my friends with kids! Great job!