New Orleans Walking Tours: Guided or Solo
New Orleans rewards walking, but the choice between a guide and a solo stroll changes what you see. Some streets are best read alone with a coffee. Others only make sense with a local voice and a ticket. Here is how to split the two.
Walk these on your own
Royal and Chartres Streets. The 1788 and 1794 fires shaped the Quarter’s Spanish-colonial look, and the Old Ursuline Convent from 1752 is on the same stroll, and Faulkner House Books sits on Pirate’s Alley.
Garden District. Walk Prytania Street and Coliseum Street under magnolias and look at the Buckner Mansion and Colonel Short’s Villa. The St. Charles streetcar there costs $1.25 a ride, and the RTA fares page covers passes.
Algiers Point. Take the $2 Canal Street ferry and walk the Victorian cottages for free.
Frenchmen Street. The 500 block fills with street bands in the evening, and no ticket is required.
Cemeteries open to walk-ins. St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 near City Park and Metairie Cemetery admit independent visitors for free.
Book a guide for these
French Quarter history and ghost walks. Two-hour tours cost about $25 to $35 per person and cover fires, yellow fever and local legends. You can compare walking tours on GetYourGuide .
Garden District mansion walks. Expect about $25 to $32 for two hours.
St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Only licensed guided tours may enter. Tours leave Basin Street Station at 501 Basin Street about every 15 minutes between 9:00 and 15:45, last roughly 45 minutes and cost about $25 to $33 depending on seller. The Catholic Cemeteries page lists the official tour details.
Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. The cemetery reopened on 1 October 2026 for guided tours only. The Preservation Resource Center runs about six morning sessions a day for groups of 16 or fewer, each 75 to 90 minutes, with no ghost-tour content. Booking is through prcno.org .
Treme heritage walks. Guides explain Congo Square in Louis Armstrong Park, where enslaved people gathered on Sundays to play drums and dance, and St. Augustine Church in America’s oldest Black neighborhood.
Staying safe on foot
By day, the Quarter and Garden District are easy walking. Petty theft is the realistic risk on Bourbon Street, around Jackson Square and along Canal Street. Touts there may bet you can’t say where you got your shoes, and the answer is a punchline about your feet. Walk on. Late at night, avoid empty side streets in the Lower Quarter and Treme.
Comfort
Wear shoes with grip, since sidewalks are uneven. Carry water from June to September, when midday is hot and humid, and start tours in the morning. Hurricane season peaks from mid-August to mid-October.
Tip
Do a solo morning in the Quarter, then book one guided walk in the afternoon so you have context for the evening. The sightseeing page shows how to fit walks into short windows, and the 2-day itinerary places them in a plan.