7 Best Towns In Louisiana For A Two-Day Recharge

Louisiana runs on its own clock. Two days is enough to reset if you pick the right town. Breaux Bridge has crawfish country, Morgan City has an offshore oil rig turned museum, and Grand Isle runs seven miles of Gulf beach. Some towns lean on their food. Others lean on their landscape. All seven work for a weekend without asking you to plan much.

Breaux Bridge

Breaux Bridge is the self-declared Crawfish Capital of the World, and the town commits to it. Almost every storefront on Rees Street has a crawfish painted on it. The Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival runs the first weekend of May and has been named one of the country's top food festivals more than once.

Ten miles east of Lafayette, Lake Martin sits just outside the town center and is one of the more accessible cypress swamps in the state. Champagne's Cajun Swamp Tours runs pontoon trips out onto the water, where great blue herons and egrets outnumber people by a wide margin. On the way back, Crazy Bout Crawfish serves the crawfish boiled with potatoes and corn on butcher paper, which is how everyone in town would serve it if you were eating at their house. Bayou Cabins is a small bed and breakfast on the edge of town with antique furnishings and private baths, close enough to walk anywhere that matters.

Houma

Houma sits about 55 miles southwest of New Orleans and functions as the practical gateway to the Terrebonne Parish wetlands. Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge covers roughly 4,400 acres of freshwater marsh and cypress-tupelo swamp just west of town, with a boardwalk trail and observation deck that put you a few steps into the habitat without a boat.

Every October, Houma throws the Rougarou Festival, which honors the Cajun werewolf. The event runs two days downtown and includes a costume parade, live music, and food vendors, all built around a swamp folk creature that most towns would not put on a t-shirt. The rest of the year, the Regional Military Museum on Barrow Street holds veteran-donated artifacts and restored military vehicles. Nearby, the Terrebonne Folklife Culture Center runs classes in Cajun quilting, dancing, and boat-model making. 1921 Seafood & Oyster Bar handles dinner with gumbo, boiled crawfish, and a menu that reads like a Louisiana greatest hits.

New Iberia

New Iberia is in Cajun country on Bayou Teche, and the town has more famous residents than most places its size. It is the setting for James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels, and just south of downtown, Avery Island is where Tabasco has been made since 1868. Jungle Gardens on Avery Island covers about 170 acres of bamboo groves, bird rookeries, and roaming alligators, all created by the McIlhenny family who own Tabasco.

Ten minutes past Avery is Jefferson Island and the Rip Van Winkle Gardens. The mansion at the center of the gardens was built in 1870 by the actor Joseph Jefferson, who played Rip Van Winkle on stage over 4,500 times and bought the whole island on the proceeds. Back in town, Jane's Seafood & Chinese Restaurant runs a menu that mixes boiled crawfish and charbroiled oysters with kung pao chicken and rice, which is exactly the kind of combination that only makes sense once you have eaten there. Spanish Lake north of downtown is quiet enough for kayaking and fishing on a Sunday afternoon.

Alexandria

Alexandria is the biggest town on this list and sits on the Red River in central Louisiana. Kent Plantation House on Bayou Rapides Road is the oldest standing structure in central Louisiana, built around 1796 in the French colonial style and predating the Louisiana Purchase by seven years. Tours run Monday through Saturday and cover the main house plus the outbuildings, where guides run open-hearth cooking and candle-making demonstrations on Saturdays.

The Alexandria Zoological Park across town covers 33 acres and houses roughly 500 animals across 160 species. It is one of only about 200 AZA-accredited zoos in the country and one of a small handful anywhere with Malayan tigers. The Alexandria Museum of Art on Second Street runs rotating exhibitions in a converted 1898 bank building with a permanent collection built around North Louisiana folk art. Downtown accommodations are mostly national chains, and the Holiday Inn on MacArthur Drive is the practical pick for a weekend base.

Morgan City

Morgan City sits at the confluence of the Atchafalaya River and Lake Palourde, and it is the only town in the country where you can walk aboard an authentic offshore oil rig. The International Petroleum Museum on First Street is built around Mr. Charlie, the first transportable submersible drilling rig in the world, retired in 1986 after 32 years drilling in the Gulf and now moored permanently on the river. Guided tours run twice a day, Monday through Saturday, and last about an hour and a half.

The Labor Day weekend belongs to the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, running downtown every year since 1936 and now the oldest state-chartered harvest festival in Louisiana. The pairing tells you what built the town. On the calmer side, Lake End Park on Lake Palourde offers a marina, boat launch, and fishing piers. Campsites sit at the water's edge. Brownell Memorial Park across the lake holds a 106-foot carillon tower with 61 bronze bells and a small stand of cypress that the swamp still visits when the water rises.

Grand Isle

Grand Isle is Louisiana's only inhabited barrier island, seven miles of sand and marsh at the far end of Highway 1. The houses stand on stilts for the same reason the fishing is good: this is where the Gulf meets the wetlands. Grand Isle State Park at the eastern tip holds a stretch of public beach, a 400-foot fishing pier, and a boardwalk over the dunes.

Fishing is the point. Anglers have documented more than 280 species in the surrounding waters, and charters run out of the marina year-round. Elmer's Island Wildlife Refuge across the pass covers more than 1,000 acres of beach and marsh and functions as a critical stopover for spring migratory birds. Starfish Restaurant on Highway 1 serves the local catch with the sides Louisiana would expect. Hurricane Ida made landfall here in 2021 and the island is still rebuilding, which is worth knowing before you plan a stay. Bridge Side Cabins & Marina reopened after the storm and offers cabins, laundry, and a lighted fishing pier at the full-service marina.

Lacombe

Lacombe sits on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, about 48 miles from downtown New Orleans across the Causeway. The town is small enough that most of a weekend runs outdoors. Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge covers about 15,000 acres of hardwood forest, longleaf pine savanna, and coastal marsh. A boardwalk and bird blind at the Bayou Lacombe Centre give the closest look, with bald eagle nesting sites active most winters.

Fontainebleau State Park sits a few miles west and offers the easiest access to the lake shore. Facilities include a sandy beach, boat ramps, several hundred campsites, and rental cabins built above the water. The 31-mile Tammany Trace rail-trail runs through Lacombe on the old Illinois Central line and connects Slidell to Covington by foot or bike. There is not a lot else to do here, which is the point.

Two Days, Seven Towns

The seven towns above run on different Louisianas. Breaux Bridge and New Iberia are Cajun country. Houma and Morgan City are working-water towns where the wetlands and the offshore oil industry share the same shore. Alexandria is central-Louisiana river town. Grand Isle is the barrier island holding the Gulf back. And Lacombe is what happens when the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain gets to be quiet. Two days is enough at any one of them, which is the whole idea.