5 Days: NOLA Day Trips and Beyond

5 Days: NOLA Day Trips and Beyond

Five days stretches the loop to Lafayette: a swamp tour, River Road’s two plantations, a Baton Rouge day, and a 2 hour 15 minute pull into Cajun Country, still returning to the same New Orleans hotel bed each night. Only need the Louisiana side, not Cajun Country? Drop to 4 days . Want the Gulf Coast added too? Move up to 6 days , or read the full day trip guide .

Book these before you go

Day 1: Arrival and settling into your New Orleans base

Land at Louis Armstrong International (MSY), about 25 to 30 minutes from the French Quarter by taxi or rideshare, and check into your French Quarter or Garden District hotel, base for every day trip that follows. Pick up your rental car this evening or first thing tomorrow, you won’t need it inside the city itself, only for what’s outside it. For French Quarter and Garden District specifics, our New Orleans guide covers that ground; this itinerary stays focused on what’s beyond city limits.

Day 2: Jean Lafitte swamp tour, Barataria Preserve

A 25 to 30 minute drive, or a van pickup from your hotel, puts you on a pontoon boat through the Barataria Preserve by mid-morning. The 1 hour 45 minute tour runs $32 adult, $12 for kids 3 to 12, with departures around 10am, noon, 2pm, and 4pm, and it sells out March through August, the same window covered in your booking list above. Skip the rental car today, hotel pickup runs about $30 a person and beats parking at the dock yourself. Afternoon is free, back at your New Orleans base by early evening.

Day 3: Oak Alley and Whitney Plantation, River Road

Both plantations sit about 65 minutes west on Highway 18, and they tell opposite stories. Oak Alley Plantation is the oak-canopy postcard, a quarter-mile drive of 1830s live oaks, $27 grounds-only or $30 with the Big House tour. Whitney Plantation centers the enslaved people who worked the cane fields rather than the family who owned it, $25 self-guided audio or $32 guided, closed Tuesdays. Pair them same day and budget 3 to 4 hours total including the drive each way, the Oak Alley tour link above covers advance booking. You’ll need the rental car today, this is highway driving, not a shuttle hop.

Day 4: Baton Rouge, the Capitol and Mike the Tiger

About 80 miles up I-10, 1 to 1.5 hours each way. The Louisiana State Capitol, the tallest in the country, normally has a free 27th-floor observation deck, currently closed for renovations, so check before building the day around the view. Add the Gothic Old State Capitol, LSU’s campus, and the USS Kidd WWII destroyer museum, a Fletcher-class destroyer that spent part of 2026 at a Houma repair yard, confirm it’s back on the water before you plan around boarding the ship itself, the shoreside exhibits stay open regardless. It’s a full day without repeating a single stop from Day 3, and it also breaks up the two long highway hauls that bookend it on Day 3 and Day 5.

Day 5: Lafayette and Cajun Country

Lafayette is a genuine 2 hour 15 minute pull west on I-10, or about 3 hours 12 minutes routed through Baton Rouge instead of straight from New Orleans. This is Cajun food and music, not a New Orleans side trip: Vermilionville ($12 adult) and Acadian Village recreate the region’s rural French history, and boudin and cracklins replace gumbo and po’boys for the day. Start early, it’s the longest single drive on this itinerary.

Should Baton Rouge and Lafayette be one day or two?

Two, kept separate. Lafayette alone is a 2 hour 15 minute pull each way; tacking it onto a Baton Rouge day means over 5 hours of driving before you’ve toured anything in either city. Give each its own day.

Is Cajun food the same as New Orleans food?

No. New Orleans cooking is predominantly Creole, an urban tradition built on French, Spanish, African, and Caribbean influences. Cajun cuisine belongs to rural Acadiana around Lafayette: boudin, cracklins, and a French-speaking heritage with no city equivalent.

At a glance

Day Distance / drive time Focus
1 MSY to French Quarter, 25-30 min Check in, rental car pickup
2 Downtown to Barataria Preserve, 25-30 min Jean Lafitte swamp tour
3 New Orleans to River Road, 65 min each way Oak Alley and Whitney Plantation
4 New Orleans to Baton Rouge, 80 mi / 1-1.5 hrs each way State Capitol, LSU, USS Kidd
5 New Orleans to Lafayette, 135 mi / 2h15m each way Vermilionville, Acadian Village, Cajun Country

Start Day 5 by 8am. The 2 hour 15 minute drive each way leaves less daylight for Lafayette than any other day trip on this itinerary.