Things to Do in New Orleans - Search for Cheap Airline Tickets to New Orleans

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New Orleans is a city on the rebound.  Hurricane Katrina might have put the good times on hold, but this unique Gulf Coast city is once again becoming a capitol of cuisine, culture and music-fueled good times.  Many tourism mainstays like the French Quarter and Bourbon Street only took a brief hiatus after the storm, while other areas of the Big Easy are still being rebuilt.  This has created a mix of classic New Orleans tourist “must-dos” and new attractions that redefine what it means to take a trip to New Orleans. 

Here are the best activities in the Big Easy.

Budget

Street car rides are a popular tourist activity.  The street cars of New Orleans, while not very practical for getting around the city, are nonetheless a good way to see the sites.  These are the longest continuously running streetcars in the United States.  A trip down St. Charles Avenue and along Canal Street is a great way to combine the experience of a train ride with sightseeing.

The River Ferry is used by many locals as a practical way to get from one side of the Mississippi to the other.  However, sightseers can get a great view of the French Quarter, downtown New Orleans and river itself.  Fares are cheap compared to the longer, but significantly more expensive, rides on the historic riverboats. 
 
Value

The New Orleans Museum of Art (Mid-City) has a unique collection of local art and also works from France, South America and the Caribbean.  A jewelry collection and a large display of ornately decorated Fabergé eggs are among the highlights. 

Aside from Mardi Gras, Katrina and the French Quarter, New Orleans is most known for its spooky cemeteries.  There are tours that showcase the oldest (and scariest) of these.  The most interesting, by many accounts, is Metairie Cemetery (Metairie Road near City Park in Mid-City).  It has the atmosphere that many cemetery tourists are looking for when they visit New Orleans graveyards, but also has some fine examples of historic mausoleums from the 1800s. 

Splurge

Royal Carriages take tourists on horse-powered sightseeing tours of the most famous neighborhoods in New Orleans.  In addition to the obvious routes along Bourbon Street and through Jackson Square, there are tours of the city’s Garden District in Uptown.  If a horse-and-carriage tour is a little over-the-top for you, there are similarly themed bicycle tours and walking tours that pass by the same sights.