new orleans tours

THE 10 BEST New Orleans Tours & Excursions

New orleans tours.

• Sightseeing Tours
• Historical & Heritage Tours
• Walking Tours
• Up to 1 hour
• 1 to 4 hours
• 4 hours to 1 day
• 5.0 of 5 bubbles
• 4.0 of 5 bubbles & up
• 3.0 of 5 bubbles & up
• 2.0 of 5 bubbles & up
• Likely to Sell Out
• Special Offers
• The ranking of tours, activities, and experiences available on Tripadvisor is determined by several factors including the revenue generated by Tripadvisor from these bookings, the frequency of user clicks, and the volume and quality of customer reviews. Occasionally, newly listed offerings may be prioritized and appear higher in the list. The specific placement of these new listings may vary.

1. Swamp Boat Ride and Oak Alley Plantation Tour from New Orleans

2. New Orleans Food Walking Tour of the French Quarter with Small-Group Option

3. New Orleans Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Combo Tour

4. Large Airboat Swamp Tour with Transportation from New Orleans

5. Steamboat Natchez Evening Jazz Cruise with Dinner Option

6. New Orleans Steamboat Natchez Jazz Cruise

7. New Orleans City and Cemetery Tour

8. New Orleans Select Sightseeing Pass

9. Adults-Only New Orleans Ghost, Crime, Voodoo, and Vampire Tour

10. New Orleans Swamp and Bayou Boat Tour with Transportation

11. New Orleans Garden District Walking Tour Including Lafayette Cemetery No. 1

12. New Orleans Airboat Ride

13. New Orleans City Sightseeing Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour

14. New Orleans Cemetery Bus Tour After Dark

15. St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 Official Walking Tour

16. French Quarter Historical Sights and Stories Walking Tour

17. Whitney Plantation Tour with Transportation from New Orleans

18. Small-Group Airboat Swamp Tour with Downtown New Orleans Pickup

19. Culinary Crossroads: A Triple Cuisine Food Tour

20. New Orleans Hands-On Cooking Class with Meal

21. New Orleans Small-Group Haunted History Carriage Tour

22. New Orleans Small-Group City Tour by Van

23. Oak Alley Plantation Tour with Transportation from New Orleans

24. Paddlewheeler Creole Queen Historic Mississippi River Cruise

25. New Orleans Adults-Only Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Tour

26. Haunted Pub Crawl in New Orleans

27. New Orleans Swamp Tour Boat Adventure

28. New Orleans Food and History Walking Tour

29. New Orleans Ghost Adventure Walking Tour

30. New Orleans Small-Group Airboat Swamp Tour

What travelers are saying.

• Rebekah C 1 contribution 0 5.0 of 5 bubbles Delightfully scary! The History of NOLA is intoxicating! I absolutely loved our tour guide Darkania even though I probably didn’t spell her name right, She had a delightful story of herself and her city We were both enthralled and horrified at the tales she told! An excellent narrator. My husband and I enjoyed the tour!! And PS you were not kidding about the parking!! Read more Review of: New Orleans Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Walking Tour Written April 27, 2024 This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.

• Linda C 1 contribution 0 5.0 of 5 bubbles Garden District Fun Our tour guide, Lee, was informative, humorous, animated… made sure we were in the shade as he told us stories… kept everyone’s attention? Had much fun seeing the architecture in the Garden District, recommend Lee as a guide! Read more Review of: New Orleans Garden District Walking Tour Including Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 Written April 27, 2024 This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.

• New Orleans Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Walking Tour
• New Orleans Steamboat Natchez Jazz Cruise
• St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 Official Walking Tour
• Adults Only New Orleans Ghost, True Crime, Voodoo and Vampire Walking Tour
• Steamboat Natchez Evening Jazz Cruise with Dinner Option
• Streets Of Sin Tours - Adults Only
• TOURS by STEVEN
• St. Louis Cemetery Official Tour
• Doctor Gumbo Tours
• Lucky Bean Tours
• Flambeaux Bicycle Tours
• French QuarTour Kids
• New Orleans Top Tours
• New Orleans Secrets
• Tours by Judy
• New Orleans Architecture Tours
• Unique NOLA
• New Orleans Streetwalkers Tours
• Ghost City Tours of New Orleans
• The Voodoo Bone Lady Haunted Tours
• Jonathan Weiss Tours
• Witches Brew Tours

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The Best New Orleans Tours, from Cemeteries to Street Art

By Paul Oswell

One of the many great things about New Orleans is that it’s an eminently explorable city. Much of the downtown was designed in the 18th century, and so the streets lend themselves to walking; unlike most American cities, car travel is often unnecessary. This makes exploring all the Crescent City’s many facets an absolute delight, and there’s a thriving industry of tours in and around the French Quarter and the Garden District to educate you about most of them. Down here, the locals have a love affair with music, food, art, cocktails and tradition year-round, and the menu of tours celebrates all these things with a tangibly New Orleanian flavor. 

Read our complete New Orleans travel guide here .

This gallery has been updated with new information since its original publish date.

Garden District/Lafayette Cemetery Tour Arrow

Spend two hours walking around the Garden District and one of NOLA's most grand burial grounds with guides whose love of history and New Orleans' rich culture rings out loud and clear. It's okay to geek out seeing the current and former homes of larger-than-life figures like Trent Reznor, Nicolas Cage, and Anne Rice. History buffs are much better suited for this tour than ghost hunters and Goths.

Saints and Sinners Tour, French Quarter Phantoms Arrow

Tour operator French Quarter Phantoms is one of the larger tour options in New Orleans, and this is one of their more niche tours; one that dives into the seedier side of the city’s history in a way that the regular ghost and cemetery tours don’t. Learning the origins of the more hedonistic parts of the French Quarter is an eye-opening part of the experience, from the reason Bourbon Street caters to revelers, to the local burlesque scene, to pirates, corrupt politicians, and other unsavory characters (i.e. the sinners). The saints on this tour are far and few between but include Henriette DeLille, a Black Catholic nun in the 19th century. It’s an eclectic mix, delivered entertainingly and even-handedly.

The Cocktail Tour – Drink & Learn Arrow

Drink & Learn, a walking tour, kicks off in a bar in the heart of the French Quarter. Your guide will furnish you with chilled drinks, meant to savor on the route. With the perfect blend of humor and information, Elisabeth, the guide, uses cocktails to talk about the city's history and highlights. Sugar cane, absinthe, bitters: They were all a huge part of the local economy at various times.

LGBT Queer History Tour, No Secrets Tours Arrow

This tour of New Orleans' LGBTQ+ history has an average group size of around four people; typically members of the LGBTQ+ community, although it can also be a cross-section of allies, people interested in local history, and those who just want a change of pace from the regular ghost tours. It meets in the middle of the historic French Quarter, just a block or two from Jackson Square, and is led by guides with encyclopedic knowledge of the queer history of New Orleans that weaves into modern day political and social context. It’s queer history, but it’s also a social history of civil rights and changing attitudes in the city and in the United States, from Stonewall-era NOLA riots to ‘the closet’ as a Southern phenomenon and queer culture in the city's Mardi Gras celebrations. 

Harrison Pierce

María Casbas

CNT Editors

New Orleans City Tour Arrow

Consider this a solid way to see all the best sights in the city. Greatest part: It doesn't just focus on touristy areas like the French Quarter or Jackson Square; it also covers the cold, hard realities of Katrina and shows the current state of the 9th Ward via a 14-seater van that covers an incredible amount of ground over three hours. Only have time for one tour and never been to NOLA before? Make it this one.

New Orleans Street Art & Mural Walk Arrow

Anyone with an interest in art beyond the galleries and museums would love this tour, which demystifies street art and provides meaning to the murals that you’ll see walking around the Marigny neighborhood. There’s around two hours of walking in total, with a bathroom/refreshment break in the middle; comfy shoes are a must. Some tours like this can feel voyeuristic, but the detail and well-informed tour guides here will make you feel like you are being shown a city's ‘behind the scenes.’ It’s even-handed, well-informed, and brings to life the murals and assorted art works with respect paid to various recent current events in New Orleans history. Plus you’re in the fresh air, appreciating striking paintings with fresh eyes.

Killers and Thrillers Ghost Tour, Ghost City Tours Arrow

This adults-only tour goes deep into the city's most notorious and gruesome crimes. Guides don't go overboard on the drama, but let the history speak for itself. People who enjoy true crime and the darker side of documentaries will find much to unpack on this 90-minute tour that might make you never look at the gorgeous French Quarter in the same way again, from the iconic Pharmacy Museum to more unassuming spots like the Sultan's Palace house on Dauphine Street.

Conspiracy in the Big Easy, Strange True Tours Arrow

Lee Harvey Oswald lived in NOLA from April to September of 1963—just before the Kennedy assassination. This tour seeks to uncover just what exactly he was doing in New Orleans over about a mile of walking. People who like to ask questions and never stop learning will appreciate how compelling this tour is. Cynics and the easily bored, though, need not apply. In our opinion, this tour is so thorny and thought-provoking it's best experienced with no expectations at all.

Hermann-Grima House Urban Enslavement Tour Arrow

This new offering from the well-established Hermann-Grima House, a historic house museum in the French Quarter of New Orleans, runs five times per day with advance reservations required and group sizes capped. The tour covers the history of rural and urban slavery practices, pairing the general social and political climates of the time with deeply humanizing details of everyday existence in the very house in which the tour takes place. Visitors learn the names of those people that lived here and their familial relationships and roles in the household, and see where people slept and ate. Slavery is presented in all its brutal truth, given its full historical context, and in the end, presented as a lesson for modern day incarceration. The house itself is an interesting example of how the upper classes lived, and it has been well conserved with all the original decadent fixtures and fittings. These, if anything, underline the stark contrast at play during this dark time, and it’s a sobering, impactful tour for anyone.

New Orleans Music & Heritage Tour, Abel Tours Arrow

This is for anyone remotely interested in New Orleans' rich history of jazz, blues, and rock music. The tour starts at Louisiana Music Factory and manages to cram three centuries of musical history into a few hours. Stories include those of the Royal Orleans Hotel —a longtime favorite of Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, and The Grateful Dead—plus key songs shared on a Bluetooth speaker.

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City Sightseeing New Orleans: Your Gateway to the Best City Vibes!

See you on the top-deck, ticket packages.

3-TOUR UNLIMITED PACKAGE

• 3-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Tour
• Stops Near All Major Sights
• Live Guide in English
• Guided French Quarter Walking Tour
• Guided Garden District Walking Tour

2-TOUR EXPERIENCE PACKAGE

• 2-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Tour

1-DAY HOP-ON HOP-OFF

• 1-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Tour

CITY SIGHTSEEING NEW ORLEANS

City Sightseeing New Orleans is the most entertaining, informative, and fun City Tour you can find that offers transportation approximately every 30 minutes on an exhilarating open-top, double-decker bus!

HOP-ON! and in a single 1-hour 30-minute loop, experience a complete City Tour — 3 centuries of history, architecture, and culture narrated live in English by your very own Tour Host – see the Garden District, French Quarter, and CBD.

HOP-OFF! at any stop along the way and explore New Orleans most popular neighborhoods, attractions, and shopping districts – or – take advantage of our Guided Walking Tours in the Garden District and French Quarter, included in the 2-Tour and 3-Tour Package or sold separately.

See the city at your own pace, the next bus is less than 30 minutes away!

HOP-ON HOP-OFF NEW ORLEANS TOUR FEATURES

Tour at your own pace, live guided city tour, buses visit each stop, every 25 minutes, daily tours, french quarter walking tours, garden district walking tours, deals and discounts along the way, bus tracking app, group tickets, private tours, sightseeing attractions.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Hop-On Hop-Off tour buses operate from 9:30am to 5:30pm, 7-Days a week. First Service at each stop will be between 9:30am and 10:00am. Board by 4:00pm from Any Stop for Full Loop tour.

Tour service closes at 5:30pm – You should board around 4:00pm if wanting to return to a particular stop.

Yes, on a few days each year, city-wide street closures impact our route and we are unable to operate. Here are the upcoming 2022 and 2023 Black Out Dates:

• Mardi Gras – No Tours on the 5 Daytime Parade Days (two Saturdays, two Sundays, and Mardi Gras Tuesday).
• Mardi Gras – Limited Services are provided on the 5 Parade Nights where streets are closed to vehicles between 3pm and 4pm .

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