The oldest neighborhood in New Orleans, founded in 1718. Narrow streets packed with wrought-iron balconies, jazz clubs, haunted mansions, and more history per block than most cities have total.
Nightlife Tour
A pharmacist accidentally invented the cocktail. A Creole aristocrat introduced craps and named a street after it. A bartender required twelve minutes of shaking and closed at eight because he hated drunks. Walk from the Roosevelt Hotel to Frenchmen Street and discover how New Orleans invented the good time.
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Ghost Tour
Above-ground tombs, voodoo rituals, and the hairdresser who ran the city's underground — the REAL history behind the ghost tour hokum. Walk from a cemetery where 100,000 bodies share one city block through the birthplace of jazz, past a cathedral that will not stop burning down, and into the most infamous house in New Orleans.
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History Tour
How a pirate, a general, and a fifteen million dollar receipt changed the shape of America — all in one swamp. Walk through the French Quarter (which is actually Spanish) and discover the Louisiana Purchase, the battle fought after the war ended, the plot to rescue Napoleon, and why Mardi Gras colors may come from a Russian coat of arms.
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Food Tour
Beignets, Baronesses & Eight Blocks of Trouble. A woman got shot four times by her father-in-law and built the most famous apartments in the South with eight fingers. A shoemaker challenged segregation sixty-three years before Rosa Parks. A cook chained to a stove set a fire so someone would finally look upstairs. Eight stops through the French Quarter — eighty percent true, twenty percent invented.
See this experienceLandmarks and stories from French Quarter that you'll hear about on the tour.
A Civil War–era coffee stand that accidentally created Vietnamese-American coffee culture.
Where jazz was born — the only legal drum circle in all of slave-era America.
A revolving bar where American literature drank — and where Capote lied about being born.
A statue built by a man who'd never seen one, honoring a battle fought after the war ended.
Built by a woman with eight fingers, bullets in her chest, and a shotgun for the mayor.
A pirate bar named after a pirate who was never here — and who saved the country.
The Voodoo Queen's tomb — where the X marks are completely made up.
Where a mayor planned to stash an emperor rescued by a pirate with a yacht.
A Wharton grad on his honeymoon followed some musicians and accidentally saved jazz.
Three churches on one spot — the first two burned down because nobody rang the bells.
Over 100,000 bodies in one city block — and Nicolas Cage's mystery pyramid.
Where a shoemaker from Treme challenged segregation sixty-three years before Rosa Parks.
Where America doubled in size for three cents an acre.
The most popular socialite in New Orleans had a torture chamber in her attic.
Eleven nuns crossed an ocean and built a colony's entire social infrastructure.
Named for a beheaded dynasty, powered by surplus wartime rum.
You've just crossed Esplanade Avenue into the Faubourg Marigny.
That building on the corner of Bourbon and Saint Philip — the one that looks like it's been slowly returning to the earth? That's Lafitte's Blacksmith
You're on Royal Street near the four hundred block.
Where two cultures disliked each other so much the grass needed a diplomatic designation.
See that building taking up half the block on Royal Street? That's the Hotel Monteleone.
You're on Bourbon Street.
A priests' house that was never used as one — now home to the Mardi Gras museum.
You're looking at the Roosevelt Hotel.
French Quarter is home to 24 notable attractions and landmarks. Explore the area with 4 self-guided audio tours from Bad Historian.
Yes! Bad Historian offers 4 self-guided audio walking tours through French Quarter. Download the free app, head to the starting point, and press play.
French Quarter in New Orleans features landmarks, historic sites, and hidden gems. Explore them all with audio narration in the Bad Historian app.
Download the app, head to the starting point, and press play. The stories start themselves.
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