7 Things To Do In New Orleans Not In The Quarters

There's plenty more to do in New Orleans than catering to a 24 hour drinking binge by walking around Bourbon Street. Though I might not be the best advice on that, given that tends to be one of my favorite activities. But seriously, take a walk. The city is beautiful. Just wander the streets of the Quarters, hit the riverfront, take a ferry back and forth across the Mississippi. And it's got some other gorgeous neighborhoods as well, along with other interesting exhibits.

Jesus calls you to leave the French Quarters

Marigny

There’s another neighborhood bordering New Orleans with an equal amount of jazz and flair that that the Quarters is known for and tends to get more of a local vibe. Marigny is the city’s hipster and gay district, and with Frenchmen Street serving as its answer to Bourbon. It’s not as touristic, and most places require a cover. The patch between here an the Quarters can be a bit shady at night, so keep in mind that Uber is fully functional in the Big Easy.

Most bands playing on this street tend to be originals and not part of the tourist music circuit. It’s not as much of a street party as Bourbon Street is due to the covers, but because of the always solid music, it’s an easy place to go for a good time. Really, you're in a city that bleeds music, and to score a gig and a good place, you've gotta be pretty damned good.

Marigny has a very different feel, pic from Latter&Blum

If you're a regular Colbert watcher, then you should recognize this street as where Jean Batiste really calls his home. If you want to see local underground and national acts, check out d.b.a. for anything ranging from swamp music, to hipster, to blues. For the real taste of New Orleans jazz on Frenchmen, check out Snug Harbor, which keeps it fresh and real all the time. Lastly, for a real fresh and bizarre New Orleans experience, there's the Dragon's Den, which will fulfill all of your fantasies of a gothic New Orleans of vampires and hipster burlesque. To top off the atmosphere, it was also once the home of Aleister Crowley. They also have great Asian food.

the Mona Lisa interior

Marigny is also the best bet to venture towards if you're getting tired of seafood, Creole, and/or Cajun. The further you go in that direction, the more of a diversity the dishes. As I already mentioned, Dragon's Den, there's also Mona Lisa pizzeria, a small hole in the wall filled with hundreds of different interpretations of Mona Lisa. It's not quite in Marigny, but it is toward the neighborhood. For burgers, one of my cousins swore on Port of Call on Esplanade, and other local friends of mine have told me the best pre-drink or post-drink alcohol soaker are the hot dogs that can be had at Dat Dog, on Frenchmen.

My Mona Lisa interpretation, the Monkey Lisa

The Garden District

Another area to see in town is the Garden District, which once housed great Americans like Trent Reznor and Anne Rice. It’s a good place to walk around and explore the beautiful laid back architecture of giant colonial style mansions. In fact, for historical American mansions, this is the best place to get a flavor of the 1800s in the entire country. It’s easy to get there on the tram from Canal Street.

a Garden District house, from Lola's NOLA Scrapbook

The neighborhood was originally the site of plantations, but when New Orleans expanded, it annexed the area and sold it off in smaller parcels. Most of the people moving there wanted to live in New Orleans, but didn’t want to live in the Quarters where all those Creoles lived (read: black people). So thus became the Garden District, complete with its row after row of gigantic houses overlooking beautiful, tree-lined boulevards. A stroll through here and you can see why some folk want the South to rise again.

Gambling

Part of what made this city famous was gambling. It's in its history. The states that line the Mississippi were all against gambling, but the river itself was a kind of free zone. And as most of the waitstaff on the boats were Creoles, that means they took their culture with them up to the big ports like Memphis and Chicago, spreading jazz and blues across the heart of America. There are some riverboats that you can still ride around on, like the Creole Queen.

the old riverboat, Creole Queen

I don't gamble. But there is one big casino called Harrah's that takes up almost an entire city block. We went in there to use the restroom, and one of the lady-guards at the door was hollering after my wife when we passed, "Baby doll, baby doll, we've got to see you're ID!"

the main entrance to Harrah's

You see, everyone in NOLA is conversational. I mean, if you're easily offended, a place called "the Big Easy" is probably not for you--Lafayette though might be. Cajuns have a much more traditional sense of polity and address folk as "ma'am" and "sir", but the Creoles have a much more relaxed manner. "Baby" is the much more common term, for guys and gals both apparently. And I noticed that when I gave out a "ma'am" or "sir", I got some outright cold stares. But if I said, "Could you get me a drink, baby," then the waitstaff would warm right up. It feels awkward at first, but the people are so relaxed about it, that it kind of feels warm and genuine.

Aquarium

I'll admit that this is almost in the Quarters. It's right on the edge of it, so it's not quite cheating.

my wife calls these manta rays, "smiling fish"

A much more child-friendly option of entertainment is Audobon Nature Institute Aquarium. It's complete with a sting ray tunnel, a big shark tank, and a few crippled birds of prey living out the last legs of their life, unable to enjoy the wilds. It's a hugely educational place for kids, and for parents too. There I learned that weirdly enough, the oil rig stands serve as a kind of replacement coral reef, creating homes and ecospheres for hundreds of different fish. For this reason, the platforms leave the underwater rigs on the ocean floor, creating a kind of wildlife reserve after they're gone.

a lot of seahorses at the aquarium

Cemetaries

Finally, no visit to New Orleans is complete without a glimpse of a cemetery. Made famous from the sets of Interview with a Vampire, the New Orleans cemeteries are some of the most beautiful around the world. Due to the high water density in the ground, they aren’t able to bury bodies there (that and they're prone to vampirism, young vampires can dig out of dirt easily, but not having yet acquired human blood, they can't lift the heavy stone of a sarcophagus). The water meant they had to come up with an above ground solution, and they built giant, expansive tombs and sarcophagi, all covered and replete with statues of angels and demons guarding the dead from hurricanes. Did one of those angels just move? Don't blink.

There are also extremely interesting Plantation Tours, where you can see how both the masters and slaves lived, and see and learn how being a slave wasn't all some would make it out to be. And for the adventurous, there are Swamp Tours, that take you deep into the bayous of South Louisiana, right up to the mouths of angry, snapping gators. I'll delve into those more in a future post, so stay tuned and don't forget to subscribe!

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Protect the Most Important Tool While Still Looking Cool

When traveling, one of the most important things you can have to make your life easier is a cell phone. I can’t tell you how helpful having a good one has been, from wandering the alleys of Fez in Morocco, to finding a quick hotel in Salzburg, it’s a tool that is simply amazing for the modern traveler. I remember being in Moscow before the advent of the smartphone, and comparing that to my travels now, it’s really unlocked the world.

However, having a good smartphone comes with a price.

It can get stolen and it can get broken.

There’s not much you can do about the first situation, then just keeping your wits about you. But there is a lot to do about the second. You should certainly have a protective case of some kind, and an extra layer of tempered glass in place.

I already had both of those in place, but to quite a boring design. For about the same price as a case anyway, you can go the extra measure and get it truly personalized.

This is my first time getting a kind of sponsorship. When I got in the email word from GoCustomized.com that they’d ship me a free sample of their product for a review, I jumped at it. It’s really quite exciting. Especially when it was about getting a new personalized case for my phone.

Of course, I went with the Saint Facetious logo design, which came from the cover of my book, How It Ends.

I got my wife a new phone case a while ago. But for Samsung. Samsung cases, like Apple cases, are super easy to find, both customized and bare. The selection of custom phone cases that GoCustomized offers is a lot wider though, and was happy to see that it included my Moto Z (though a Moto Z Force, rather than a Moto Z Play, but the sizes are the same and it fits fine), which is not an easy phone to find a useful case for, let alone a customized one.

From customization and order to delivery here in Prague, it took about one week, so that was a pretty quick turnaround time. It helps that they print it not far away, over in Amsterdam, but the printing turnaround time is really quick.

is that the same hand model featured on Zoolander?

The case as you can see, is the gel type. It’s pretty thin and sleek and doesn’t give too much extra body to the phone, though it does feel like it gives a good padding to the edges and the corners. The quality itself actually feels better than the generic gel cover that I had on the phone before.

the case is cool, but I mean, look at that hand!

The design print is high quality and exactly what I had asked for, which is my logo and the cover to my How It Ends novel. It really is picture perfect, with no pixelization or anything, and everything, from buttons to plugins, fit snugly and work. Where the design is placed feels like a rubber material, so it offers a good grip.

I can firmly get behind this product, and when I or a friend need another phone case, I won’t hesitate to suggest the site. The case is certainly staying on my phone.

Don't hesitate to check it out for yourself: GoCustomized.com

Here’s a little video of my opening and my first thoughts:

Disclaimer: I did get this case for free, but I wasn't compensated otherwise for this blog. And everything I said/typed here is 100% true. Any more questions, or if you're a business looking for plugs, here's our policy.

#productreviews #traveltips

A Complete Facetious Guide to New Orleans

The Big Easy. The Crescent City. NOLA. All names for the same awesome city. New Orleans.

The city has always been one of my favorite places to visit in the US. It’s filled with culture, life, music, and some the most delicious food the Americas have to offer.

When I was a kid, I remember having to ride long hours with my parents from Oklahoma down to South Louisiana to visit my family. I hated the long drive, I hated the stifling heat, the choking humidity, and, what for a fat kid, seemed like absolutely nothing to do.

But as I grew older, I began to appreciate it all that much more. The memories of the treacherous car rides have since turned into idyllic travels listening to music with my dad. What was once nothing to do, now seems like hours spent listening to the weird odes of my old cigar-smoking grandfather, with Louis Armstrong spinning on the vinyl. Our perceptions evolve as we grow older, and even the worse times can sometimes seem good in memory.

a street in NOLA

The Crescent City is one of the most historical cities in the US, with all its old town architecture still intact. In this sense, it’s one of the few major US cities to even have an area that can truly be called an “old town.” Founded at the beginning of the 18th century by the French Mississippi Colony, it was lost to the Spanish after the French and Indian War (the 7 Years War for Europeans, or as I’ve always liked to call it, World War 1/2) ended with the Treaty of Paris.

It came back to French rule until Napoleon, strapped for cash while fighting the British, sold it off to President Jefferson for nickels on the dollar, including much of the middle of North America which had been only markedly explored and was already inhabited by people who weren't even aware of the cash transfer. Land exploration back then was thus a lot like oil exploration these days.

Bourbon Street, proving New Orleans is still wild

New Orleans was a wild place, with lots of not only pirates, prostitutes, ne'er do wells, and slave traders, but also freed men, musicians, and skilled craftsmen. Most famous of the pirates were the Brothers Lafitte, who helped Andrew Jackson protect the city from the British during the War of 1812. The Battle of New Orleans was the only battle the US won in the only war which saw DC burn to the ground.

I won't lie. New Orleans can be dangerous. All my family warned us of this over and over. But it's like any city. Stay in the touristic areas--which means, for the Big Easy, the French Quarters, Marigny, downtown, and the Garden District, and don't go off hustling for drugs or prostitutes, and most certainly don't go down any alleys hunting down no Madame LaLaurie expecting for some kind of divination into your future affairs. Don't do any of that and you'll be fine. Also, that "voodoo mama" that tells you you can sleep off the mescaline on her couch is definitely going to steal all your cash and leave you to Jonny LeNonbon.

The French Quarters

This is the premium district of New Orleans. It’s possible to never leave this area and still be completely happy with your visit. That’s how I managed this last trip with my parents and wife. I don’t mind venturing to the seedier turf myself, but I know my parents aren’t so keen on it.

Looking down Chartres, towards the cathedral

Any visit starts with Jackson Square and drinks in any of the bars around. There are always painters on the street at work or selling, professional musicians on the benches jamming out on their down time, and Tarot card readers ready to make some stuff up with their magic cards. There’s a really affordable place with cheap cocktails that opens right onto the square, Café Pontalba, where you can enjoy all that atmosphere under a fan with a giant weirldy named cold daiquiri like Angry Pirate or Mama's Toothache.

your fortune is waiting to get read... and waiting... and waiting

Then just walk around for a bit and soak in the beautiful French and Spanish colonial architecture. Supposedly Paris looked more like the French Quarters does until Napoleon III knocked down most of the neighborhoods in favor of large boulevards (supposedly because it’s harder to block a boulevard with a protest and furniture blockade ala Les Miserables).

Mixed drinks are definitely the flavor in New Orleans, so abandon any preference for beer you might have. There are some microbreweries starting up around South Louisiana, but in general they all just taste like watered down versions of what they’re supposed to be. So if you’ve got time and you don't believe me, you can check them out for yourself while listening to some live jazz (though where in New Orleans can you NOT see live music?) at the Crescent City Brewhouse.

the horny gator at Tropical Isle

Bourbon Street is the evening mainstay of the Quarters, lined with bars all having their own live bands, with the parties always flooding out on the streets. Women often run around collecting bead necklaces by showing their boobs (I’m not sure why, but I won’t complain) and it’s generally just all non-stop crazy. Most bars open around two in the afternoon with the first bands coming on, and the street is the easy recipe for the 24-hour drunks that stumble around the town, one reason that earned the town's nickname as the Big Easy.

Start off at the insanely cheesy Pat O’Briens, in operation since 1933, where you can get your street-ready hurricane—a rum filled fruit cocktail that’s usually a slushy—and witness their famous flaming fountain. The interior courtyard is honestly a pretty relaxing spot, the tourist drink isn’t even overpriced, and the whole complex contains four or five different bars, including a dueling piano bar playing all your favorite Top 40s.

that fountain is lit

Then onto Bourbon Street itself there’s the Tropical Isle chain of bars, each with their own musical theme--none of them tropical--and all famous for their hand grenades, a lemony slushy rum drink that’s served in a plastic grenade. Two of their bars do zydeco, another rock, and another blues, and you can bring the drinks you bought in one of the bars to the others. Out of their bars, I found the Funky Pirate Blues Club to both have a top notch musical lineup and a great bartender with full knowledge of sazeracs, a New Orleans rye cocktail mixed with bitters and absinthe.

also served are hand grenades

Another club of note that we hit up was BB King’s Blues Club, where they serve a solid cocktail list and have nightly live music, though their blues tends to be on the pop-side of a major scale, as one might tell from the owner’s name. It’s near the French Market, so a little less touristic, but pop neanmoins.

For walking around, make sure to peak inside St. Louis Cathedral, a really beautiful 19th century Catholic cathedral, and on to the Old Ursuline Convent, which dating 1745 makes it the oldest building in NOLA.

St. Louis Cathedral

What to Eat

The Quarters, like most of the city, smells of fish. Fresh fish, blackened fish, fried fish, smoked fish, rotten fish. This is a reality that will always exist in New Orleans. When you’re there, you know you’re in a place of seafood. The food is outright.

The Quarters though might not have the best food available in New Orleans, as a lot of the spice and seasoning that Cajun and Creole food are famous for have been toned down for tourists. But there are spots that are still pretty rocking. I really enjoyed the poboys and gumbo at Napoleon House (a 1940's hole known for its gin Pimm's Cup mix) on Chartres and St. Louis. A poboy is a type of sandwich on a baguette usually stuffed with some seafood component, like shrimp, crawfish, or gator. If you feel like a walk, head over to Mulate’s Original Cajun Restaurant next to the Convention Center on Julia, which probably serves the best hands down gumbo in New Orleans, and is a one hundred percent Cajun place, complete with zydeco music in the evenings.

The Napoleon House

For breakfast, the choice is clear. You’ve got to hit up Café du Monde for an order of beignets, or French donuts served with lots of powdered sugar and no holes. It’s an outdoor café, is always packed, there’s always a street band belting out Louis Armstrong songs, and they only serve beignets and coffee, so don’t be picky. Another breakfast I thoroughly enjoyed, a crawfish eggs benedict, was dished out at the Royal House on St. Louis and Royal. But really, it’s not hard to find good food in New Orleans, just go anywhere.

Where to Souvenir

New Orleans is full of really fun souvenirs. By which I mean voodoo dolls and Saints' gear. If you want to find the cheapest and widest selection of souvenirs all in one spot, then head to the French Market. It's an outdoor market along the riverside with nearly a hundred vendors selling crafts, home-printed shirts, and Chinese-made goodies alike. It's great location means you can hit it right after eating some beignets, and then enjoy a hurricane while listening to some more great outdoor blues or jazz music at another outdoor patio café right next door.

the French Market

Where to Stay

I've been to NOLA half a dozen times at least, and I must say, my continual favorite place to stay is Le Richelieu. This is mainly for their insanely awesome customer service. They once screwed up our order and sent me and two friends to the penthouse suite, complete with a private sauna. Never mind that New Orleans IS a sauna--a dirty, smelly, public sauna--but it was sweet nevertheless.

Last we stayed was Hotel Provincial, which as an old hospital and possibly haunted spot, definitely gives Le Richelieu a run for its money. In seriousness though, it's got a pretty relaxing pool and great staff as well.

Disclaimer: this article does include affiliate links (the two hotels). So use those links when you book. Here's our policy.

#NewOrleans #hotels #bars #restaurants