New Orleans Travel Diary | Itinerary

I’ve been wanting to travel to New Orleans for about a solid year. My sister and I scored an amazing deal on tickets and booked a 3 day trip. We flew in early Wednesday morning and left Saturday at 6am, therefore we had three full days to explore! Today I’m sharing our daily itinerary for each day, however tomorrow I will have a full post on all the places we ate at!! Trust me we ate a lot therefore it deserves its own post!!

Day 1 – Wednesday || As soon as we arrived we took an uber to the hotel to check in. We stayed at the Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter. The location of the hotel was perfect!! I highly recommend it this hotel for anyone who wants to stay in the French Quarter. The rooms were affordable, the staff was incredibly helpful, and there is a pool, gym, and a ton of other wonderful amenities! The hotel is famous for the Carousel Bar.

After check in in her walked over to Brennan’s Restaurant to have breakfast. After a delicious meal we head out to explore the French Quarter. Thankfully since it was the middle of the week it wasn’t that busy! I was able to zig zag in the middle of the streets to snap photos of every corner. We made our way to the French Market and Cafe Du Monde. I couldn’t believe how it easy it was to get a table, order beignets and coffee, inhale it, and continue exploring! We continued to walk and explore Jackson Square. After thoroughly exploring the French Quarter we made our way back to our hotel to relax for a bit. In the evening we walked over to Gumbo Shop for dinner. After dinner we explored more of the French Quarter. Since we had an early start to the day we ended it up calling it a night around 10!

Day 2 – Thursday || We woke up early – can’t help it – and headed out for breakfast around 8am. We took an uber to Surrey’s Cafe and Juice Bar for breakfast. I loved the fact that it wasn’t super busy and we were able to be seated immediately. The food was delicious!! After a quick bite we headed down Magazine Street toward the Garden District. On the way we stopped at District Doughnut for a delicious donut and some ice-tea. The weather was incredibly hot and humid while we were there, therefore the pit stop was totally worth it!

We walked over to Lafayette Cemetery to begin our walking tour of the Garden District. In theory we were going to start at Lafayette Cemetery, walk around the Garden District and view the incurable historic homes, and have lunch at Commander’s Palace. However in reality it was 90 degrees and extremely humid. Both my preggo sister and I were not having it – therefore we aborted the plan and took an uber back to the hotel! We had lunch reservations for 1:30pm at Commander’s Palace and decided we would do the walking tour after lunch and hopefully the weather would cool down by then. Thankfully it all worked out and we enjoyed a delicious lunch followed by a self-guided walking tour of the Garden District. I will share the tour in another blog post this week. For dinner we went to the delicious and adorable 1000 Figs!

Day 3 – Friday || On our last day we started the morning off at Salon by Sucré. Afterward we made our way to the Lighthouse to board the Steamboat Natchez for a daytime jazz cruise on the Mississippi. The cruise was about two hours and super fun! We opted for the cruise only and not lunch, they do have snacks and drinks on board for purchase. The cruise provides a wonderful narration about New Orleans and the history of the city as well as facts about the Mississippi. After the cruise we took an uber to Mother’s Restaurant to get some delicious Po’ Boy for lunch. Even though we were fully stuffed we made our way to the Central District area to Drip Adffogato Bar for some delicious adffogato! We took the St. Charles Streetcar back to the French Quarter and walked back to the hotel. For dinner we made it out to St. Roch Market for some delicious food from all the vendors! Later that night we attempted to finally check out Bourbon Street – however just to our luck a portion of it was under construction and you could barely walk the street. Therefore we aborted the idea and went back to the hotel since we had an early flight the next morning.