New Orleans

Barataria Preserve: Bayous, Boardwalks & Alligators

Jean Lafitte National Historical Park's Barataria Preserve, just 45 minutes west of New Orleans across the Huey P. Long Bridge, protects 26,000 acres of the bottomland hardwood forest, swamp, and freshwater marsh that once characterized the entire Mississippi Delta region. Eight miles of maintained trails and elevated boardwalks thread through a cypress-tupelo swamp where alligators bask year-round, roseate spoonbills nest in spring, and the air smells of mud and Spanish moss — an experience of wild Louisiana within easy reach of the city.

North Shore Day: Covington, Abita Brewery & Mandeville Waterfront

A gentle day across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway reveals a Louisiana that most visitors never find — the shaded streets of Covington with their galleries and antique shops, the tasting room of one of the South's pioneering craft breweries in Abita Springs, and the Victorian cottage waterfront of Old Mandeville on the lake's north shore. The pace is unhurried, the food is excellent, and the 50-minute causeway drive over open water is itself a memorable experience.

River Road Plantations: Whitney, Oak Alley & Laura

The west bank of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Vacherie preserves one of the most concentrated corridors of antebellum plantation architecture in America — and now one of the most honest reckonings with what those estates actually meant. Whitney Plantation stands apart as the only plantation museum in the United States whose entire interpretive focus is the experience of enslaved people; Oak Alley offers the iconic canopy of 28 live oaks planted around 1700, long before the Greek Revival house behind them; and Laura Plantation tells the intimate story of a Creole family across six generations through 5,000 pages of documented family archives.