French Quarter Tours du Jour
While the French Quarter is a fascinating place to simply sit and watch the world go by, it becomes ever more so when you learn a bit about its history, quirks, and secrets. A huge number of guided tours are available to address all manner of subjects specific to the French Quarter and a knowledgeable, enthusiastic tour guide can peel back the wrappings and allow you to see what’s really inside. French Quarter tours are quick crash courses that take the form of everything from polite, informative walking tours to pub crawls, paddlewheeler sojourns, horse-drawn carriage rides, and bizarre nocturnal romps in search of ghosts and vampires.
Some tour guides work independently and offer their services almost as a “friend in New Orleans” – for hire. Some of them are highly specialized and offer a microscopic look at one area of interest. Others touch on a little bit of everything, like City Sightseeing New Orleans – New Orleans’ Hop-On Hop-Off tour that traverses four distinct neighborhoods in classic red open-top double-decker buses.
At the other end of the spectrum is Gray Line Tours, a comprehensive one-stop shopping service on the tourism front with numerous tour options available. The company offers investigative tours of the French Quarter and Garden District as well as a sweeping look at the entire city. Specialty tours include cocktail tours, swamp and bayou tours, plantation tours, and ghosts and spirits tours.
Highlighted below are a few of the many tours available. Some are noted for their outstanding reputations, and others for the unique nature of their offerings.
Hop-On Hop-Off Tours
For French Quarter tours and beyond, a tour that offers a few days of sightseeing is a great option for exploring. City Sightseeing New Orleans is New Orleans’ most flexible tour, with options for one-day, two-day, and three-day unlimited Hop-On Hop-Off Sightseeing. Visitors can view New Orleans from a red, open-top double-decker bus while enjoying live narration from a guide. These tours also include walking tours throughout the city for those who want to Hop-Off and enjoy its many attractions.
Walking Tours
This is the very best way to familiarize yourself with the French Quarter. Get a comfortable pair of shoes, some sunscreen, and a hat for the walk.
Friends of the Cabildo French Quarter Walking Tours — Two hours long and led by highly trained volunteers with the Louisiana State Museum system who educate on architecture and historical facts. The tour visits the 1850 House Museum.
NOLA Tour Guy — Offers a free “pay what you feel” tour experience of the French Quarter, the cemeteries, and the Garden District. There are also voodoo and ghost tours available, plus cocktail and jazz tours. NOLA Tour Guy is well-known and respected by both locals and repeat visitors to the city and has been in operation since 2012.
City Sightseeing New Orleans — The company boasts several walking tours along its route. Learn about the French Quarter’s history and see some of its most popular attractions, then hop back on the tour bus to explore beyond the French Quarter!
Gray Line French Quarter Walking Tours — These tours include food and drinks tours and haunted city and cemetery tours. There are also specialty holiday tours like the Christmas Eve bonfire tour.
This is just the tip of the iceberg! For all walking tours New Orleans has to offer please check out this guide from the New Orleans Tourism Office.
Carriage Tours
Every day from about 8 a.m. to midnight, mule-drawn carriages line up on Decatur Street in front of Jackson Square. These tours are a staple in New Orleans tourism. Some carriages hold four people, others hold six. They roll through the French Quarter, rain or shine, pointing out all of the expected sites. For something more substantial than the standard nickel tour, carriage drivers can be engaged for private tours of the city.
Riverboat Tours
See the city from the body of water that made it all possible.
Steamboat Natchez Cruises — Riding the last steamboat on the Mississippi River recalls an era when steamboats were the main source of transportation, communication, and commerce. It cruises downriver to Chalmette (7.5 miles) and back twice daily, and once in the evening for a Dinner Jazz Cruise. During the day there is live jazz and optional food and beverage in addition to the historic and port narration. Special seasonal tours are also available, like Sailing With Santa and Christmas Eve cruise.
Creole Queen Cruises — This beautiful paddlewheeler straight out of Mark Twain’s era offers jazz dinner cruises, historical and weekend jazz brunch tours, plus a slew of specialty holiday tours: Thanksgiving cruise with a traditional feast, Cajun Holiday Tea With Papa Noel, Christmas and New Year’s Eve tours, and more.
Cemetery, Voodoo, Vampire, and Haunted Places Tours
These tours range from highly educational and informative, such as those offered by the reputable Save our Cemeteries, to absolutely ridiculous to the point of insult. Due to their popularity, there are so many vampire, voodoo and whatnot tours currently available that over-competitive guides have been known to engage in battle over customers in Jackson Square. Note that due to vandalism issues, only approved docents who are registered with the Archdiocese of New Orleans can lead tours into St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.
Gray Line Ghost & Spirits Walking Tour — Includes several ghost tour operators, which means no two tours are exactly alike. While the sites you visit will vary, expect to take in destinations including haunted hotels.
Voodoo/Treme/Storyville Walking Tour — The guides at the Historic New Orleans Walking Tours have a talent for sprinkling just enough intrigue and mystery over the facts to keep them compelling.
Save Our Cemeteries — This outstanding non-profit group works to preserve the city’s fragile, crumbling burial places. The tours are led by Save Our Cemeteries-trained volunteers who unveil the mysteries of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 (temporarily closed for maintenance and repairs) in the Garden District as well as St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, which is adjacent to the French Quarter. The wise folks at Save Our Cemeteries are wise to the reality that these places are compelling enough without the mythical embellishments some others place on the Cities of the Dead.
Bike Tours
Flat, warm New Orleans is a perfect city for casual cycling.
Confederacy of Cruisers — The original godfathers of the local cycling tour scene, the folks at Confederacy Cruisers offer several wryly funny tours of the city’s iconic neighborhoods (including the Quarter). Some rides take in the city’s distinctive architecture, and some focus on Creole culture – any way you slice it, you’ll bike away happy.
FreeWheelin’ Bike Tours & Rentals — Established in 2010 and highly rated since, FreeWheelin’ Bike Tours & Rentals is a veteran- and family-owned company that specializes in guided and self-guided bike tours. It also does electric and pedal bike, and scooter rentals.
Music Tours
Learn serious facts about the history of jazz or bang your head at a nightclub. The offerings are diverse.
New Orleans Music Tour — Offered by NOLA Historic Tours, the New Orleans Music Tour is an all-ages daytime walking tour that will take you around the French Quarter and nearby and will cover many of the greatest musical and historical moments, from Storyville to the Old French Opera House, and much more.
New Orleans Music & Heritage Tour — Brought to you by Abel Tours and Keith Abel as your tour guide (Abel has spent decades in the music business so you’ll be in very capable, knowledgeable hands), this walking tour begins at the Louisiana Music Factory on the cusp of the Marigny (421 Frenchmen Street) and proceeds to visit the boyhood home of Danny Barker, Preservation Jazz Hall, Bourbon Street to hear Pete Fountain, and J&M Studios. The tour also makes a stop at Armstrong Park’s legendary Congo Square, and touches upon over three centuries of music that helped share New Orleans.
Photo courtesy of Pearl River Swamp Tours on Facebook
Swamp Tours
Though there are days when the French Quarter may feel like a swamp, to really see one you have to leave the neighborhood. Several of the numerous swamp tour companies distinguish themselves for their quality while others merely ride along on ridiculous bits of pseudo-Cajun folklore and pantomimed accents, which people seem to eat up.
The Louisiana bayous and swampland are stunning, majestic and mysterious. In summer, when the heat can be brutal, a morning tour is recommended. Insect repellent and sunscreen are a must. Reservations are required. These tours offer transport from many French Quarter hotels.
Pearl River Swamp Tours — While swamp tours may be numerous, this one, located 45-50 minutes from downtown New Orleans, distinguishes itself in a number of ways. The folkloric approach is avoided in favor of a learning adventure that is richly informative and exciting in its own right. The tour which heads deep into the Honey Island Swamp has become a favorite for its intelligent focus and quality experience. The company’s motto alone should persuade you to book a tour: “We work in the swamp, we live in the swamp, we play in the swamp… we are the swamp!
Gray Line Swamp & Bayou Tour — After a short motorcoach ride across the Mississippi River, take a fascinating boat trip into the Louisiana swamps and bayous. Experience the timeless beauty of South Louisiana in a custom-built, all-weather swamp boat. Local guides will reveal the mysteries of the swamps and bayous and the Cajun joie de vivre. Hear how the Cajuns turned soup into gumbo, the washboard into a musical instrument, and the swamps of Louisiana into a paradise. Alligators! Observe the nesting grounds of alligators, egrets, raccoons, nutria, and many species of snakes. Some wildlife are more numerous during the warmer months of the year. Also, you will be treated to a Bayou Nature Wildlife Show by a local naturalist. Snakes, alligator snapping turtles, raccoons, and nutria will be among the animal guests.
Whitney Plantation by Michael McCarthy
Plantation Tours
Gray Line’s Whitney Plantation Tour
Motorcoach guided tours leave from the Gray Line ‘Lighthouse’ in the French Quarter at Toulouse Street and the River. The Whitney Plantation, besides being a fine example of Creole architecture, is the only plantation museum in the state that focuses on the history of slavery.
