Where Jazz, Gumbo and Mardi Gras Began
Louisiana is a Gulf Coast state in the southern United States, known for New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, for Creole and Cajun cooking, and for Mardi Gras. Its culture grew from French, Spanish, African and Native American roots, and the result is unlike anywhere else in America: a state with parishes instead of counties, French place names and a musical heritage that shaped the modern world. The Mississippi River winds through it to the Gulf, and the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 began here, in a story that still shapes the state.
New Orleans is the headline. The French Quarter, laid out in the early eighteenth century, is a grid of iron balconies, courtyards and brass bands, while the Garden District answers with oak-lined avenues and grand porches. Frenchmen Street is the place for live jazz, and the streetcar along St Charles Avenue is one of the city's most graceful rides. For a tourist board, this is a destination with a story to tell in every neighbourhood.
Creole Tables, Cajun Country and Bayou Light
Food is the state's calling card. Gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, po'boys, crawfish boils and beignets dusted with sugar at Cafe du Monde each have their own devoted following. Creole cooking, rooted in New Orleans, and Cajun cooking, from the countryside, are distinct traditions that reward tasting side by side. Westward, Acadiana around Lafayette keeps Cajun French alive through zydeco, fiddle music and Saturday dance halls, and the Atchafalaya Basin offers boat tours through cypress swamp at a slow, golden pace.
Baton Rouge, the state capital, adds a handsome 1930s Art Deco capitol and riverside museums, while plantation-era houses along the river road tell the region's wider history. Fellow Gulf neighbours make easy companions: Mississippi lies just to the east with its Gulf Coast and blues trail, Texas stretches to the west, and Florida is a short way along the coast. A hotel group can build a whole itinerary from this variety.
Read the full Louisiana guide on Visit Travel Group, or see VisitLouisiana.co.uk on Visit Travel Group.