Around The State

The UK's Josh & Jase Take Louisiana

The United States has long been… intriguing to those outside of the country. As someone who follows British pop culture pretty well, the British people especially find us as Americans, and as a country, interesting. See also the current debate…

Louisiana is One of the Most Unique Cultural, Art Regions in America

Acadiana In addition to the Cajun and Creole traditions, Acadiana offers numerous visual arts galleries, performing arts venues, theater and, of course, music and dance halls. “There’s always something to do here,” said Jackie Lyle, who’s helmed the Performing Arts…

Meandering Through Opelousas’ Spiritual Trail

Each of our journeys contains three parts. First comes the anticipation. For days, months or years, we look forward to our departure. Then, finally, that day arrives. We travel, some of us, to leave…

May/June Festivals and Events Around Louisiana

The Beauregard Watermelon Festival has been moved up a month earlier (from late June to May 8-10) this year. Learn to dance the Watermelon Crawl, sign up for melon voice singing contests, seed spitting contests, bouncing watermelon races, goat roping,…

Jefferson Parish: The Bicentennial

If I would tell you that Jefferson Parish is the second most populous parish in Louisiana, that might not be a surprise. The assumption would be that neighboring parish, Orleans, is the largest. Ah, but here is where the assumptions…

It's Tennessee Williams Festival Time!

On Sunday, March 23, crowds gathering beneath the Pontalba balconies facing Jackson Square will repeatedly hear the heart-wrenching scream, “Stellllaaaaa!” during a shouting contest emulating Stanley Kowalski’s climactic, drunken scene from “A Streetcar Named Desire,” presented by the Tennessee Willilams…

There's An Event For Everyone This Carnival Season

  It’s true New Orleans gets the most attention when it comes to Mardi Gras and no one would argue that it’s the biggest and — perhaps depending on who you ask — most notorious. But celebrations big and small,…

News: Ballet, Music and more

Baton Rouge | Ballet From the Bayou After 30 years of enchanting Baton Rouge audiences with the acclaimed holiday classic, “The Nutcracker — A Tale From the Bayou,” the show’s creators and original choreographers, Molly Buchmann and Sharon Mathews, have…

Gulfport, Mississippi Sparkles for the Holidays

Coastal Mississippi offers the world’s longest man-made beach — miles of sand framing the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. There’s plenty to enjoy along the coast, from Bay St. Louis and Waveland at one end to Pascagoula bookending…

A Guide to Louisiana's Football Towns and Teams

BATON ROUGE | LSU & Southern Baton Rouge practically doubles in size when the LSU Tigers fill up Death Valley stadium with ticket holders and the parking lots on campus and beyond with tailgaters. On the north side of town,…

Spooky Festivities and More Around Louisiana

The first annual Natchitoches Louisiana Bigfoot Festival (September 7) features an enthusiastic gathering of fans, devoted researchers and investigators sharing documented field knowledge of the ever-elusive, hairy bipedal creature. It’s held near Kisatchie National Forest, known for hundreds of Bigfoot…

Fishing in Venice

You can tell by the sudden, unusually violent squeal of the line spinning out that this time we’ve hooked a big one. That, of course, is the goal of fishing offshore from Venice, Louisiana: to hook big ones, particularly big…

News Around the State: Bears, Essence Fest and more

Louisiana’s first black bear hunting season was unanimously approved by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) for the first time since 1987 (five years later, Louisiana’s black bear was put on the Endangered Species List). The 16-day lottery-based…

Exploring the Creole Nature Trail

Staff at Adventure Point in Sulphur change the spices in the Louisiana culinary corner once every six months. You smell the exhibit long before you see it. It’s Proustian, an aroma that invokes memories of crawfish boils past. This is…

Hurricane Protection via Coastal Conservation

  Thanks to a generous grant administered by the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, construction is underway for Phase 2 of the Houma Navigation Canal Lock Complex, led by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and the Terrebonne Levee…

Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge

Cat Island is home to a 1,500-year-old Champion Bald Cypress, the largest bald cypress specimen in the United States. At 96-feet tall, 17 feet in diameter, and 56 feet in circumference, it’s the largest tree in…

Krewe de Canailles

  Acadiana arguably hosts the second-largest Carnival celebration in Louisiana with the requisite balls, parades and special events akin to its massive cousin to the east. But a group of Lafayette residents thought something new was called for, something intimate,…