Best New Orleans Tours: Every Way to Experience the City
Find Your Perfect Excursion by Interest, Vibe, or Mode of Transportation
New Orleans is a city best understood through its stories. Whether you're threading through iron-lace balconies in the French Quarter, gliding past cypress knees on an airboat, or following a chef into a neighborhood kitchen that tourists rarely find, a guided tour transforms sightseeing into something far richer.
This page brings together every type of New Orleans tour in one place, organized around the experiences that matter most to travelers: history and culture, food and drink, the supernatural, the natural world, and the city's extraordinary neighborhoods. Whether you have two hours or a full day, you'll find a way in.
The French Quarter rewards slow exploration. Specialized guides bring 300 years of architecture, folklore, and intrigue to the streets of the oldest neighborhood in the city.
From the Treme, the oldest African American neighborhood in the country, to the complex legacy of the antebellum South, these tours offer essential context for understanding New Orleans.
Historic mansions, above-ground tombs, and streets canopied by live oaks make the Garden District one of the most photographed neighborhoods in the American South.
A wider lens on New Orleans' layered past, from its Indigenous roots and French colonial beginnings to its role in the Civil War and jazz's emergence from Congo Square.
New Orleans invented the cocktail. From the Sazerac to the Ramos Gin Fizz, cocktail tours lead visitors through the bars and traditions that made the city a drinking destination.
Louisiana's craft beverage scene has grown substantially. Guided tours of local breweries and distilleries offer a taste of the city's modern food and drink culture alongside its…
The French Quarter after dark is a different city entirely. Ghost tours trace the city's most famous hauntings through gaslit streets, hidden courtyards, and centuries-old hotels.
New Orleans' above-ground "cities of the dead" are among the most striking burial grounds in the world. Tours of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, Lafayette Cemetery, and others illuminate…
Not every evening tour is a ghost tour, but the city's atmosphere after dark gives any excursion a distinct energy. Night tours cover everything from lit-up streetscapes to late-night…
Less than an hour from the French Quarter, Louisiana's swamps are home to alligators, herons, nutria, and ancient cypress forests. Swamp tours are among the most popular excursions in the region.
Even outside of Carnival season, Mardi Gras World and year-round tours explore the floats, costumes, and traditions that define the city's most celebrated festival.
Horse-drawn carriage rides through the French Quarter, sunset riverboat cruises, and private tours designed for couples make New Orleans one of the most romantic cities in the country.
From the literary haunts of Tennessee Williams to the bars that anchored New Orleans' queer community long before Stonewall, guided LGBTQ history tours trace a legacy woven through the…
For families, corporate groups, wedding parties, or travelers who want a bespoke itinerary, private tours offer maximum flexibility with expert local guides.
First-timers tend to love French Quarter walking tours for historical orientation and swamp tours for a distinctly Louisiana experience. Ghost tours are perennially popular after dark.
Most swamp and airboat tour operators are located 30 to 45 minutes from the French Quarter, with many offering hotel pickup from downtown New Orleans.
Yes. New Orleans culinary tours range from neighborhood walking tours with tastings at iconic spots to behind-the-scenes kitchen experiences and cocktail-focused bar crawls.
Several River Road plantations, including Whitney Plantation, are about an hour from New Orleans. Guided bus tours depart from the city and include round-trip transportation.
Yes, most tours operate throughout the year. Ghost and cemetery tours tend to fill quickly around Halloween, and Mardi Gras tours see peak demand in January and February.
