Baton Rouge
Fans of R&B music are richly rewarded here; Baton Rouge grooves to the blues. Baton Rouge Blues Week brings live performances and cultural events; year-round, catch great blues acts and up-and-comers at local clubs such as The Varsity, Chelsea’s, and The Bayou. Best place to hear the hum of nature? Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center, where boardwalk trails meander through a cypress-tupelo swamp and magnolia beech forest.
Lafayette
From gumbo and potboys, to plantations and poltergeists, the area provides a special sense of place. Visit Vermilionville Louisiana’s Cajun/Creole Heritage & Folklife Park and two-step back in time. Go on to the Acadian Cultural Center, and experience moments in time from 200 years ago. Skim through the swamp on the Atchafalaya Experience. Go downtown for one-of-a-kind dining at T-Coon’s, Chris’ Poboys, Dwyer’s and the Original Don’s Seafood and Steakhouse Acadia at its best offering visitors sights, sounds and tastes with uniquely Cajun spirit.
New Orleans
Voodoo tours and cemetery visits are among the excursions with a distinctly “Big Easy” vibe. And where else but in Cajun Country would you expect to find the McIlhenny’s Tabasco Sauce factory? Join the lively tour, complete with palette-searing samples. How to blend in with local folk: heat up the floor with zydeco dancing, and devour mounds of spicy crawfish.