48 hours in New Orleans!

Surrounded by jazz music, walking through witch stores and stuffing a beignet down your throat without inhaling the powered sugar. I’m bringing you to the iconic French quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana!

New Orleans surpassed my expectations. It’s much more than getting drunk on bourbon street. The city is filled with rich history and delicious food as well!

Day 1

We started our trip immediately with a food tour. We booked our tour with Urban Adventures ($74 per person for a 3 hour tour filled with food). This was a great start to our trip because we got to try lots of food, walk around the main attractions and learned a lot about the city!

A budget friendly tip: download the RTA Go Mobile app to get an all day street car/bus pass for $3 a person! This is a steal since each ride will cost you $1.25 a person (and you have to have exact change).

Some of the food we got to try on the tour was Beignets, gumbo and alligator sausage!

After our tour and our stomachs being stuffed, we grabbed a quick Cafe Au Lait and split up. The boys in our group went to the jazz museum ($8 a person) and the girls went shopping in the French quarter!

We went into a witch store that had werewolf hair, voo doo dolls and love potions! We also found some beautiful crystal stores and boutiques as well! We even got to go to a real vampire store and was invited to a secret vampire speakeasy bar (ask a worker for the pass code).

After being all shopped out we then went back to our rental to relax. We stayed in the beautiful and calm garden district and wanted to check out the mansion used in the 3rd season of American Horror Story, Coven. We got some great photos and went around the corner to grab some donuts from District Donuts. You have to try the banana donut!

We then freshened up and headed to a restaurant called Gris Gris (must make reservations ahead of time). They had the BEST chicken and dumplings and shrimp and grits!

We ended the night by bar hopping on Frenchman street, in search of some great jazz music!

Day 2

We started our morning more relaxed and decided it was time to indulge into some beignets. We started off at Cafe Du Monde and waiting in the grab and go line (cash only). This line is shorter and goes significantly quicker than waiting in the long line for a table. FYI Cafe Du Monde is open 24 hours so you can go on an off time and hardly wait in line!

Afterwards we popped over to Cafe Beignet, a few blocks away. The lines for these beignets are much shorter and it’s easier to get a table!

My official ranking for my favorite beignets is actually 1. Loretta’s (in the Frenchman market; stuffed beignets with praline), 2. Cafe Beignet and 3. Cafe Du Monde ( sorry it didn’t live up to the hype!).

We then ran over to Franks in the Italian neighborhood and ordered a Muffuletta sandwich that was our favorite! Make sure you ask for it warm!

It was then time for us to do our Cemetery tour. We paid $15 with trip advisor to tour the Layfette 1 cemetery and then we got a tour of the homes in the garden district. I highly recommend this tour because it’s very budget friendly and you learn a lot!

We then heard from a local to hit up the Pontchartrain Hotel for their rooftop bar, the hot tin. There’s great drinks here and an impressive view of the city.

We then had one last tour booked for our trip, a ghost and voodoo tour. Now don’t expect to have someone dressed in a costume jump out at you in this tour! This is a tour filled with history and bone chilling stories. We booked ours through Airbnb for $34 a person!

We ended our night by getting a quick reflexology massage and grabbing dinner at Drago’s and trying their iconic chargrilled oysters. We were told by locals that they are so good, you’ll want to get your own dozen!

All in all, we loved New Orleans! You definitely could make it a drinking/party trip. But I appreciated getting to know about the city’s rich culture and getting to know the locals.