New Orleans: Plantation and Swamp Tour

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We love to get advice on what to do before we head out on a trip. One of our friends highly recommended going on a plantation tour and going on a swamp tour. We immediately started googling it and found a tour on Trip Adviser that did both! Several other people recommended ghost tours or cemetery tours. One of my coworkers said she went on a cocktail tour! Needless to say, we definitely recommend finding some type of tour to go on. New Orleans is bursting with history! 

We met up with our tour bus in the French Quarter and our tour guide was an elderly retired school teacher. She laughed at her own jokes during the whole drive and we kept cracking up! We were so happy that we had her! It made the experience even better. 

For the plantation tour, we went to Destrehan Plantation, the oldest documented plantation home in the area. It was so humbling to hear about and see the living conditions of the slaves. The good news is that during the Civil War, the plantation turned into Rost Home Colony, a place where freed slaves could learn a trade before transitioning into their new life! The grounds were beautiful with so many different trees and so much gorgeous Spanish moss! Since our tour was just a few days after Christmas, the house was still decorated with wreaths, garlands, and even some mistletoe. 

Our next stop was the swamp tour with Cajun Pride Swamp Tours. Their property is an animal refuge and super private - the only boats on the water are theirs so it’s not crowded at all! Even though it was a chilly, cloudy day, we actually saw a few alligators, as well as snakes, raccoons, and birds. Throughout the whole tour we learned so much about the history of the area and all of the animals that live there, even getting to take a close up look at a scute, the bony ridges that you see on an alligator’s back. The highlight of our trip was getting to hold a baby alligator! It was so cute. 

This was our first time ever taking an actual tour on one of our trips and it was definitely worth it! We walked away feeling like we had learned so much about the history of New Orleans and the surrounding area, way more than we would have learned just by ourselves. 

- Nick + Jess