NOLA Blog

Gators and Ghosts was recently named a local expert on ApartmentGuide. We recommended Mona Lisa, a charming Italian restaurant in the Lower French Quarter, as a hidden gem perfect for a unique, intimate, and affordable date night.

As a small family-run business, taking time off for paternity leave can be tricky. I'm still working a bit from home, but I'm so grateful for our incredible team, Tracy and Jessie, who are holding down the fort and keeping everything running smoothly. It helps that September is usually a slower month for us.

Discover the captivating history and stunning beauty of Oak Alley Plantation, one of the most iconic plantations in the American South. From its early beginnings in sugarcane production to its role in film and television, explore the complex and multifaceted story of this National Historic Landmark. Join Gators & Ghosts for an immersive tour that delves into the plantation's past and showcases its breathtaking landscape.

Discover the spine-chilling world of ghost hunting with our essential paranormal tools guide! Unleash your inner investigator and capture eerie evidence of the supernatural. Ready for a thrilling adventure? Join Gators and Ghosts on a haunted French Quarter tour and unlock spine-tingling mysteries lurking in the shadows!

Experience New Orleans' charm without spending a fortune! 🎉🎷 Dive into the city's history, explore elegant neighborhoods, and indulge in delectable food with our budget-friendly travel tips. Savor every moment in the Big Easy with Gators & Ghosts as your guide, and find the promo code in the post for extra savings! 🎭🍹💚

Experience Louisiana swamps in every season! Pick from exciting airboat tours or calming pontoon cruises, and discover remarkable wildlife and captivating flora. With each season offering distinct charm, there's no time to waste! Secure your unforgettable adventure now – you may even hold a baby alligator!

Mardi Gras is upon us – an entire season dedicated to sparkles, parties, and dancing in the streets! Carnival begins each year on January 6 (Epiphany) and runs through Mardi Gras Day, also known as Fat Tuesday, which falls 41 days before Easter each year. The full season includes parades, both large and small, parties, balls, and lots of celebration throughout the entire city of New Orleans. In the two weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday, you’ll find most of the major parades that take place across the city, and these usually include costumed horseback riders, marching bands and dance teams, as well as hundreds of people riding on giant floats and tossing parade “throws” or trinkets to the onlookers. Mardi Gras is definitely a crowd participation sport, so here are a few tips to help you make sure you have the best Carnival possible:

One spirit with the most enduring mark on the city of New Orleans belongs to a woman who lived in the early 1400s, nearly 300 years before Iberville and Bienville staked their claim of this land for the French – Joan of Arc. Long hailed as the patron saint of NOLA, the ancient woman was born in Orléans, France, a sister city and namesake of New Orleans. We celebrate Joan of Arc each year on January 6, which also happens to be the start of the Carnival season, but who is this French woman so revered in a city thousands of miles from her birthplace?

Beloved sports team mascot, apex predator, survivor – you could use any of these terms to describe the alligator. While these creatures probably walked among dinosaurs, they managed to adapt, evolve, and endure over millions of years, and now they are a vital part of our landscape and ecosystem, especially in South Louisiana. It isn’t hard to spot an alligator or two (or a whole congregation!) on one of our swamp tours, you may not know some of the most interesting facts about these beasts:

The cold rarely lingers in New Orleans, but every once in a while, we find ourselves in a brief but deep winter. Nights like these bring to mind one of the most notorious NOLA ghost stories – the tale of Julie.

You can always tell it’s the holiday season in South Louisiana when someone dusts off a copy of Cajun Night Before Christmas, a retelling of the classic tale with a few distinctly bayou-based twists. If you take a swamp tour with us, it’s not hard to tell why this version might sound just a little different than the traditional tale: the Cajun accent of South Louisiana is heavily influenced by “Louisiana French,” a dialect of French that has developed since the arrival of the Acadians in region back in the 1700s. It definitely doesn’t sound strictly French, but it isn’t quite a southern accent either.

Families come together between Thanksgiving and Christmas to build large wooden structures, some simple pyramid shapes and some elaborate constructions of local landmarks and more, and on Christmas Eve night, they light these structures stretched all along the levee system, creating quite the spectacle.

You cannot understand the history of New Orleans without looking back further than the European settlement of this area. While the city of New Orleans celebrated its 300th anniversary of cityhood in 2018, the land itself has been home to indigenous peoples for much longer than that.

New Orleans is a city that loves to eat, especially when it comes to big holidays. So if you find yourself in town for Thanksgiving Day this year, here are a few places you can feast. Be sure to make reservations so you have a guaranteed spot at any of these fantastic restaurants:

Since we do not have the luxury of changing foliage to announce the arrival of autumn in New Orleans, we have to look to other markers around the city. Thankfully with a little research, you can find a few things to do and the obvious indicators that it is the perfect time to FALL in love with NOLA!

Daylight Savings Time is awesome: All that extra sunlight when we are actually awake and doing something. But every autumn (for now), we must fall back. Standard Time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday Nov. 6 this year.

One of the most infamous characters in New Orleans history was a man named Jean Lafitte. He was a pirate, a smuggler, and a slave trader — not exactly a nice guy — but in certain circles, he was seen as a dashing and mysterious antihero, maybe even a patriot. Like many figures in New Orleans history, the legend overwhelms the reality.

Murder, mayhem, mystery – with a history as storied as ours, it is not hard to find spooks and scares in New Orleans, one of America’s most haunted cities. While you can seek out a goosebump-inducing experience just about any day of the week in NOLA, it is especially easy to celebrate the macabre during Halloween season. Here are the best ways to have a hair-raising experience in New Orleans this fall.

Don't be overwhelmed by the hundreds of things to do in New Orleans. We'll help you figure out what's worthwhile with this handy list of the top 10 New Orleans attractions.