New Orleans is one of those American cities that Black travelers talk about like it's something different from the rest of the country. They're right. NOLA is a majority Black city with a culture rooted in African, Creole, and Caribbean traditions that survived everything this country tried to do to erase it. Walking through the Tremé — the oldest Black neighborhood in America — and feeling that history underfoot is an experience I can't fully put into words. I'll try anyway.
Start in the Tremé, Not the French Quarter
Every first-time visitor to New Orleans lands in the French Quarter, and that's fine — the architecture, the food, Café Du Monde, Bourbon Street spectacle — it's worth seeing. But the French Quarter is the tourist version of New Orleans. The Tremé is where the music actually started, where brass band culture lives, where jazz was born in the streets and in the clubs and at the second lines.
Walk through Tremé. Find the Backstreet Cultural Museum (call ahead for hours, it's worth it). Have a drink at Bullet's Sports Bar. Listen for brass bands — they practice in the streets and it is not an arranged performance, it's just how people live here.
"NOLA is a majority Black city with a culture rooted in African, Creole, and Caribbean traditions that survived everything this country tried to do to erase it."
The Food Situation, Which Is a Spiritual Matter
I need you to understand that I think about the food I ate in New Orleans regularly, months later. This is not an exaggeration.
Dooky Chase's Restaurant: This is the restaurant. Leah Chase — who passed in 2019 — changed what "Creole cuisine" meant and who it belonged to. The buffet is perfect. Go for lunch. It will be the best $25 you spend in New Orleans.
Li'l Dizzy's Café: Neighborhood spot in Tremé. The fried chicken and red beans and rice will recalibrate your standards for the rest of your life.
Café Reconcile: Creole comfort food that also runs a job training program for at-risk youth. The shrimp and grits alone justify a trip to this city.
McHardy's Chicken & Fixin': This is a takeout spot in a neighborhood that will get called "sketchy" in some travel guides. Those guides are wrong and missing it. The fried chicken is transcendent.
Second Lines: The Best Thing You Can Experience in America
A second line is a New Orleans tradition — a brass band parade that anyone can join, winding through neighborhoods, with people dancing in the street. They happen almost every Sunday from September through May (summer is too hot). The New Orleans Social Aid and Pleasure Club Task Force publishes a schedule. Find one. Show up. Dance. You don't need to know anyone. The invitation is implicit and always open.
If you're traveling in Mardi Gras season, the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club parade — the historically Black Mardi Gras krewe founded in 1909 — is the one.
Where to Stay and What to Skip
Stay in the Garden District or Uptown if you want a quiet base with easy access to everything. The Marigny (right next to the French Quarter) is walkable to live music and has a neighborhood feel. I'd avoid most chain hotels in the central business district — they're fine but they put you in a part of the city that doesn't feel like New Orleans.
Skip: the "haunted tour" industry built around enslaved people's suffering at plantation homes. That's not tourism, that's something else.
Seek out: the Whitney Plantation, which is the only plantation in Louisiana that centers the experience of the enslaved rather than the enslaver. It's 45 minutes outside the city and it's important.
One Last Thing
New Orleans is also one of the most vulnerable cities in America — below sea level, protected by levees that were insufficient in 2005 and are still imperfect, facing a coastline disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico. The city's Black community bore the overwhelming weight of Hurricane Katrina's impact and the subsequent failures. When you travel here, spend money with Black-owned businesses. Tip generously. The music you're hearing exists because of generations of Black artists who kept it alive through everything. Honor that.
Go. Just go.