Things To Do

Bicentennial Festivities

Lafayette’s year-long bicentennial revelries continue with the Celtic Bayou Festival bicentennial celebration March 17-18 (celticbayoufestival.com) followed by the March 26-30 Festival International de Louisiane bicentennial celebrations (festivalinternational.org). Chartered by the Louisiana Legislature in 1823 two years after its founding, the…

Mountain Time

Asheville, a small city in the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina, is known for its quirky charm and beauty. With a thriving culinary and arts scene, a walkable downtown bursting with shops, art galleries and restaurants, and…

Irish for a Day

In 1986, Mabyn Shingleton, her husband, TV personality Pat Shingleton, and her baby son Michael in a stroller, lined up at the Baton Rouge City Park Golf Course and headed toward Perkins Road where the couple owned Zee Zee Gardens…

Abstract Narrative

Commemorative statues are everywhere in Louisiana. We have them for soldiers, explorers, musicians, sports figures, politicians and saintly people. Now, New Orleans has a new monument that celebrates the work of the nationally acclaimed New Orleans artist John Scott…

Big skies & wine

Drinking and driving? That’s dangerous! But nobody says you can’t shuffle a few steps from the wine bar to your comfy bed using your own two feet after a few tipples. Romantic, beautiful to behold, and a way to…

Main Streets

Monroe/West Monroe West Monroe native Becky Thompson always loved baking, so it was only natural that she earned her degree in hospitality management at Ole Miss, then the L’Art de la Pâtisserie at the French Pastry School in Chicago.…

Double the Music and Double the Fall Festival Fun

It’s an Acadiana tradition about to hit its golden anniversary. And even though it hit a speedbump during the pandemic, Festivals Acadiens et Créoles has returned. Twofold. The annual fall festival, which turns 50 in 2024, has been celebrating…

Literary Lovers Travel Guide

Marie-Madeleine Hachard arrived in New Orleans in the early 1700s with a group of Ursuline nuns. She wrote of her new home in the French colony and that collection of personal accounts would become one of the first books about…

Charming Towns

Take a road trip through Louisiana and visitors will find the most charming small towns scattered throughout the Bayou State. Nestled among bayous, fields of sugar cane and cotton, and filled with historic properties, these small towns provide for outstanding…

Farther Flung: Traveling through the Gateway

Doth Union and Confederate troops had Corinth in its crosshairs during the height of the Civil War, due to its two strategic rail lines. The small town in the northeast corner of Mississippi was originally named “Cross City” for the…

Covington Heritage Foundation 2021 Antiques & Uniques Festival

COVINGTON, La (press release) – The Covington Heritage Foundation will host the 7th Annual Covington Antiques and Uniques Festival, April 17-18, 2021, at the Covington Trailhead at 419 N. New Hampshire St. in Covington. The two-day, juried, free event will…

Houma Area CVB Announces Bayou Country Crawfish Trail

HOUMA, La (press release) – Houma Area Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (HACVB) is proud to announce the launch of the Bayou Country Crawfish Trail, a new culinary attraction. This permanent attraction invites trail goers to explore the delicious crawfish and…

Old Mandeville Shop Local Saturday Returning in Spring 2021

MANDEVILLE, La (press release) – Old Mandeville Shop Local Saturday is returning in the Spring of 2021! The event, which is hosted by the Old Mandeville Business Association (OMBA) and its member businesses, will feature dozens of artist pop-ups, food…

Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes

Stroll through the historic downtown of New Iberia and you’ll find gracious live oak trees, beautiful historic homes and the Shadows-on-the-Teche plantation, spots where James Lee Burke used in his best-selling novels and the cement Grotto of Our Lady of…

Relive the siege at Port Hudson

  My first battlefield experience was Bull Run in northern Virginia, the first full skirmish of the Civil War and one that would repeat itself years later. Listening to the park ranger talk of flanks and advances while staring at…

Eating Our Way Through Shreveport

  Go ahead, twist our arm! The 318 Restaurant Week, a citywide promotion of local restaurants organized by the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau and its partners, returns March 18 through 23 at more than 50 participating restaurants. Lunch and…

No Man’s Land

  When the United State purchased Louisiana from France, practically doubling the size of the country, their next-door neighbor had a few issues with the deal. Spain, which owned the territory that’s now Texas, disputed the boundary lines on its…