Things to Do in New Orleans: 16 Best Picks (2026)

Looking for the best things to do in New Orleans? You have picked a city that treats doing nothing as a competitive sport and still hands you more to do than a week can hold. Music, food, history, ghosts, swamps, and a street where the party never quite ends, the only real challenge is pacing yourself.

This is the honest, local grade list, updated for 2026, of what is actually worth your time. Some of it costs nothing, some of it needs a ticket, and all of it earns its spot.

One rule before we start, do the free, walkable stuff by day and save your budget for the handful of tours that genuinely need one. We have roughly sorted these by what most people do first, but treat it as a menu, not a march, half the fun is what you stumble into between stops. Locals just call it NOLA, and by day two, so will you.

1718

the year it was founded, the French Quarter is its oldest heart

Nightly

live jazz on Frenchmen Street and at Preservation Hall

Free

Jackson Square, the French Market and the riverfront cost nothing

Year round

festivals from Mardi Gras to Jazz Fest to French Quarter Fest

Wander the Historic French Quarter

The Quarter is the reason you came, and you can fill a whole day in its historic streets without spending a dollar. This is the oldest neighborhood in New Orleans, a thirteen block grid of wrought iron galleries, hidden courtyards, and architecture that reads more Caribbean than American.

The move is to stroll with no particular plan, down to Decatur for the Mississippi River, over to the quiet residential blocks near Esplanade. The Quarter rewards aimlessness, and the best things you will find here will not be on anyone's list.

Mornings are the magic window, before the heat and the crowds arrive, the light is soft, the vibe is calm, and you will have the prettiest streets nearly to yourself. It is also the smartest place to base yourself, which we will get to.

Watch the Street Performers in Jackson Square

Jackson Square is the postcard heart of New Orleans, a tidy park ringed by the cathedral, the Pontalba row houses, and a permanent open air fence gallery of local artists. By day it fills with street performers, brass bands, tap dancers, tarot readers, and the occasional silver painted living statue.

Grab a bench, watch the show, and tip whoever earns it. It is free, it is the best people watching in the city, and it basically never stops.

Come back at golden hour, when the cathedral lights up and the musicians really hit their stride. It is the prettiest free show in town, and it does not cost a cent.

See the St. Louis Cathedral

Towering over the Square, the St. Louis Cathedral is the oldest continuously active cathedral in the country and the most photographed building in New Orleans. Step inside, it is free and quietly grand, then walk around the back.

Behind it you will find Pirate's Alley, a tiny flagstone lane of pure Old World atmosphere and one of the Quarter's best photos. William Faulkner wrote his first novel in the house halfway down it.

Time your visit for late afternoon, when the light hits the white facade and the Square's painters are still out front. Ten minutes inside costs nothing and is worth the detour.

Stroll Royal Street

For the Quarter at its most elegant, stroll Royal Street, the genteel cousin of Bourbon, lined with art galleries, antique shops, and balconies dripping with ferns. Street musicians set up on the pedestrian blocks by day, so there is almost always live music drifting down it.

Look up as you go, because the cast iron galleries and hanging plants are half the reason to be here. Many shops close by early evening, so make Royal a daytime walk.

It is where to go when Bourbon Street gets to be too much, which is usually right around lunch.

Music

Frenchmen Street, Preservation Hall, a jazz brunch

History

the WWII Museum, the cemeteries, a plantation day trip

Food

beignets, po boys, gumbo, the grand Creole rooms

Family

the Audubon Aquarium and Zoo, City Park, the streetcar

Catch Live Jazz on Frenchmen Street

If Bourbon Street is where tourists go, Frenchmen Street is where the live music actually lives. Three blocks of clubs, the Spotted Cat, the Maison, the corner rooms, put the city's best brass and jazz a few feet from your table, usually with no cover charge.

Go later in the evening, wander between the bars, and tip the band. It is the single most NOLA night you can have, and it ruins Bourbon Street for you forever.

There is a nightly outdoor art market at the corner, too, so you can browse local work between sets. Skip the cover charge traps on Bourbon and spend the night here instead, your ears will thank you.

Hear Traditional Jazz at Preservation Hall

For the real, reverent thing, line up for Preservation Hall, a tiny, no frills room in the Quarter that has honored traditional New Orleans jazz since 1961. No drinks, no photos, and no air conditioning to speak of, just a master band a few feet away.

Sets are short and the seating is mostly the floor, so come early. You can queue for the cheaper walk up line or pay a little more online to reserve, which is worth it on a hot, busy night.

Whatever you do, do not miss it, this is the room where the tradition is deliberately kept alive.

Eat Beignets at Café du Monde

You are, legally and morally, required to eat beignets at Café du Monde, the open air institution that is been dusting tourists in powdered sugar since 1862. Order three and a café au lait, and accept that you will be wearing some of it home.

It is open around the clock, so beat the line at dawn or after midnight. The beignets are the same at three in the morning, and so, somehow, is the crowd.

If the main stand's line looks brutal, the City Park location is calmer and serves the same powdered sugar idea. Order extra napkins either way, because every visitor underestimates the sugar.

Ride the Algiers Ferry Across the River

For a couple of dollars, the Algiers ferry carries you across the Mississippi River from the foot of Canal Street to the old neighborhood of Algiers Point. The ride is short, breezy, and serves up the one skyline view of the Quarter from the water that does not require a cruise ticket.

Wander Algiers Point's quiet, pastel streets for an hour, then ride back. It is one of the great cheap thrills in New Orleans.

Catch a Free Second Line Parade

If you happen to visit on a Sunday in season, track down a second line, the rolling, brass band street parades that are New Orleans at its most joyful and genuine. Anyone can fall in behind the band and dance the route.

Check the local listings (the station WWOZ keeps a calendar) for where one's rolling. It is free, it is pure local culture, and it is the kind of thing you stumble into and never forget.

Ride the St. Charles Streetcar

The St. Charles Avenue streetcar is a moving attraction and a genuine bargain, a century old olive green car that rattles past the oak lined mansions of the Garden District for the price of a coffee. There are three lines in all, St. Charles for the mansions, the red Canal Street cars, and the Riverfront line along the Mississippi River.

A day pass costs only a few dollars and turns the streetcars themselves into a slow, breezy city tour. Grab a window seat, let the breeze do the work the air conditioning will not, and watch the city roll by.

It is the most relaxing hour in town, and a genuinely fun way to get your bearings on day one.

Explore the Garden District

Hop off the streetcar around Washington Avenue and you land in the Garden District, the leafy, genteel counterpoint to the Quarter. This is where you stroll past antebellum mansions, cornstalk shaped iron fences, and the kind of architecture that makes everyone stop and point.

Peek through the gates of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, then drift down to Magazine Street for lunch. A guided walking tour adds the gossip, which actor owns which mansion, but it is a lovely free wander on your own, too.

Give it a half day, and pair it with the streetcar ride out and back.

1. 1
   Morning

   Beignets and chicory coffee at Café du Monde, then Jackson Square and the cathedral.
2. 2
   Midday

   Browse the French Market and Royal Street. Lunch on a po boy or gumbo.
3. 3
   Afternoon

   Ride the St. Charles streetcar through the Garden District.
4. 4
   Evening

   Live jazz on Frenchmen Street, the locals' Bourbon Street.

Tour the National WWII Museum

Routinely ranked among the country's finest, the National WWII Museum is a half day experience even if you do not consider yourself a museum person. Personal stories, restored aircraft, and a walk through theater make the history land in a way a textbook never did.

Buy timed tickets ahead and wear comfortable shoes, then budget more time than you think you need, because everyone does. The on site restaurant and the rooftop bar make it easy to stay right through lunch.

If you only visit one museum in New Orleans, make it this one.

Take a Swamp Tour in the Bayou

Twenty minutes outside the city, the swamp is another world, cypress, Spanish moss, and alligators that drift up to the boat like they pay the mortgage. An airboat ride is the loud, fast version. A covered boat tour is the calmer one that is better for photos.

Most tours include hotel pickup, so it is an easy half day, and they run year round, though spring and fall are the most active for wildlife.

Bring sunscreen and a hat, because the bayou offers no shade and the gators have zero sympathy for a sunburn. It is the excursion everyone's quietly glad they did.

Cruise the Mississippi on the Steamboat Natchez

The Steamboat Natchez is the last authentic steamboat on the Mississippi River, and a jazz cruise aboard it is exactly as charming as it sounds, a calliope, a brass band, and the big river rolling by.

Do the evening cruise for the sunset, or the daytime one for the harbor in full light. Book ahead in peak season, and arrive early to claim a spot on the open top deck.

The river traffic, tankers, tugs, the odd ocean going ship, is its own slow motion show.

Take a Cemetery, Voodoo, or Ghost Tour

New Orleans buries its dead above ground, the water table votes no on the alternative, and the result is the eerie, beautiful "cities of the dead." St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 now requires a guided tour to enter, which is just as well, because the stories are the whole point.

It holds the reputed tomb of voodoo queen Marie Laveau, and the Garden District's Lafayette Cemetery is the other classic. After dark, the city's ghost and voodoo tours lean hard into the spooky.

There is a surprising amount of real history under the theatrics, and the guide is genuinely the reason you came. For the full breakdown of the cemeteries, ghost tours, and famously haunted hotels, see our guide to haunted New Orleans.

The Quarter's best hits, Jackson Square, the cathedral, the river, the street music, are free and walkable. Save the budget for what genuinely needs a ticket, the WWII Museum, a swamp tour, a steamboat jazz cruise, or a cemetery tour you cannot do solo.

Many of the best experiences here, swamp tours, the steamboat, cemetery and ghost walks, cooking classes, are bookable in advance, which saves you the line in peak season. A few top rated options,

Brave Bourbon Street, Once

Love it or roll your eyes at it, Bourbon Street is a rite of passage, a neon, brass, hand grenade cocktail fever dream you should see at least once. Go in the early evening for the spectacle, before it gets genuinely sticky.

Then escape to Frenchmen for the actual music. If you do drink your way down it, the bars here pour strong and to go cups are legal, so pace yourself.

One slow pass through Bourbon is plenty. A second is a decision you make about yourself. For the lay of the land, our guide on whether New Orleans is safe covers the corridor.

Sip a Sazerac at a Historic Bar

New Orleans practically invented the American cocktail, so drink like it. The Sazerac, rye, bitters, a whisper of absinthe, is the official one, and the Carousel Bar at the Monteleone slowly rotates whether or not you have earned it.

For the tourist classics, a Hurricane at Pat O'Brien's and a frozen daiquiri on Bourbon both count. Treat the bars here as an attraction in their own right, not just a stop between sights.

It is a cocktail list you can tour like a museum, ideally, a little responsibly.

Eat Your Way Through New Orleans

You do not really visit New Orleans so much as eat your way across it. The restaurants here run from corner po boy shops to white tablecloth institutions, and you will want to hit both ends.

Beyond beignets, the must eats are a po boy (get a shrimp one, dressed), a bowl of gumbo, and a plate of char grilled oysters. For the splurge, the grand Creole restaurants, Commander's Palace, Antoine's, Galatoire's, are an experience as much as a meal.

Do not miss a jazz brunch, which is the most New Orleans way to eat eggs there is. Come hungry every single day, and walk between meals to make room. For the full rundown, see our guide to the best restaurants in New Orleans.

Browse the French Market and Magazine Street

For shopping with a pulse, hit the French Market, part farmers' market, part flea market, part praline stand, at the downriver end of the Quarter. For boutiques and local design, Magazine Street runs six miles of shops and cafés through Uptown.

The French Market has a small food court for a quick bite, and Magazine Street is dotted with cafés for when your feet give out. Both are walkable, browsable, and a great rainy day plan precisely because they are half indoors.

Bring a tote and a little restraint.

See the Audubon Aquarium and Zoo

Traveling with kids, or just want a break from the Quarter? The Audubon Aquarium on the riverfront and the Audubon Zoo Uptown are both genuinely good, with a combo ticket if you tackle both.

They are easy, shaded, and a welcome change of pace from cobblestones. The zoo's Louisiana Swamp exhibit is a gentle preview of the real thing.

Both sit on the riverfront streetcar and ferry loop, so you can do them without a car, the easiest fun the city hands families. Traveling as a family? See our full guide to things to do in New Orleans with kids.

Escape to City Park and the Sculpture Garden

Bigger than Central Park, City Park is a moss draped, lagoon laced retreat with the free Besthoff Sculpture Garden, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and a Morning Call stand for, you guessed it, more beignets.

It is the city's exhale. Rent a bike, paddle a boat, or just sit under an oak that was old when the French showed up.

Every local has a soft spot for City Park, and after a few days of cobblestones, so will you.

Take a Cajun or Creole Cooking Class

The food is half the reason to come, so learn to make some of it. A cooking class, gumbo, jambalaya, a proper roux, turns a great meal into a souvenir you can actually use at home.

Most run a couple of hours and feed you what you cook, which is the best kind of homework. Several run right in the Quarter, so it is an easy midday plan between sights.

Check whether yours includes a market tour, the good ones do, and you will leave knowing why everything down here starts with the holy trinity.

Take a Day Trip into Plantation Country

With an extra day, head up the Mississippi River to River Road, where the old plantations tell the harder history of the region, Oak Alley's quarter mile oak canopy is the famous one. It is about an hour from the city.

Pair it with a swamp stop and you have got a full day out of New Orleans without needing a car, since most tours include pickup.

It is the easiest way to see beyond the city limits and put the place in context.

Time Your Trip for Mardi Gras or a Festival

If you can swing it, aim for a festival, the city basically runs on them. Mardi Gras is the headliner, but Jazz Fest, French Quarter Fest, and Essence each take over the city with music, food, and crowds.

There is something on almost every month, so whenever you visit, check the calendar before you book. Book your room months ahead for Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, though, because rates and availability vanish fast.

Off a festival, you will trade the spectacle for shorter lines and a calmer city.

Geek Out at the Offbeat Museums

For a rainy hour or a weird streak, the Quarter hides gems, the Pharmacy Museum (America's first licensed apothecary, leeches and all), the Jazz Museum in the old Mint, and Mardi Gras World, where the giant parade floats are built and stored.

They are cheap, quick, and exactly the right kind of strange for this city. Each one is a fast, cheap way to dodge an afternoon rain shower.

The Pharmacy Museum alone will make you grateful for modern medicine.

Free

Worth a ticket

Do

Jackson Square, French Market, riverfront, street jazz

 

WWII Museum, swamp tour, steamboat cruise, cemetery tour

Best for

Wandering, people watching, photos

 

History, the bayou, the Mississippi, the cemeteries

Tip

Most of the Quarter costs nothing

 

Book guided tours ahead in peak season

The Best Things to Do When You Visit New Orleans

These are the best things to do in New Orleans, but the list is really a starting point, every neighborhood here feels a little different, and the magic is that the people, the food, and the music do most of the work. Which means you mostly show up and keep your schedule loose.

A good rhythm is free wandering and street vibe by day, a great meal at dusk, and live music by night. For a first visit, three or four days covers this list without rushing.

1. 1
   Day 1, the Quarter

   Jackson Square, Royal Street, beignets, Frenchmen Street jazz at night.
2. 2
   Day 2, history & garden

   The WWII Museum, then the streetcar through the Garden District.
3. 3
   Day 3, the wild side

   A swamp tour or steamboat cruise, a cooking class, a cemetery walk.

If you are still sorting the travel logistics, our other New Orleans guides, from where to stay, the best time to visit and our 3 day itinerary to day trips and whether it is safe, pick up where this one leaves off, so you know what to read next. Every block down here has its own story and a slightly different mood, so slow down and let the city tell you.

Where to Stay Between Adventures

All of this is walkable if you base in or near the French Quarter, which keeps you steps from the music, the beignets, and the river. Staying central means you can drop your bags, walk to dinner, and wander home from the music without ever needing a car. The Hotel Monteleone is the grand Quarter classic, home to the slowly rotating Carousel Bar.

9.2Exceptional

★★★★

Hotel Monteleone

New Orleans, LA· 976 reviews

Guests loved: Exceptional service · Great location

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A few blocks over, the NOPSI Hotel anchors the CBD with a rooftop pool and an easy walk to everything.

9.2Exceptional

★★★★★

NOPSI Hotel New Orleans

New Orleans, LA· 2,662 reviews

Guests loved: Great location · Friendly staff

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For the full area by area breakdown, see our guide to where to stay in New Orleans, or browse the New Orleans hotels hub.

However you fill your days, the price you book your room at here is the same one everyone else sees, no surveillance pricing, no fake "deal," no fee sprung on the last screen. Pick your base, lock the rate, and let NOLA do the rest.