Booze, Blues and Bourbon Street - New Orleans, LA

New Orleans is one of those places that, as someone who has travelled reasonably extensively in the USA in the past (at least, more extensively than your average Aussie) people consider that I should have been. When I would talk to people about my USA 2010 itinerary, it was generally shocking to people that I had no plans to visit New Orleans. I'm not sure why it wasn't somewhere of interest to me in the first place. I think maybe it's because I always had a perception that it is the kind of place that would be more fun with friend, especially for someone like me who doesn't get much into the crazy drunk crowd in the hostel. Nonetheless this time around it was in my list of places to hit, trying to go to different cities in different states than I explored last time.

As I identified in my USA on a budget entry, a lot of the time your itinerary gets planned for you according to where you can get decent flights and cheap accommodation. Because New Orleans does have a thriving nightlife and a music scene, it is the kind of place that appeals to budget travellers and backpackers, and so it actually made a lot of sense for me to go there.

The evening that I arrived (via a flight from Baltimore), it was absolute bedlam at the airport. As I discovered later on, I was actually in town over the weekend of some R&B festival. The result of this is that New Orleans was filled with people ready to party, even more so than your average summer weekend. The hostel instructions of ‘how to get there’ were simply to take an airport shuttle, and when I was arriving in the evening, I honestly couldn’t be bothered with trying to figure out public transportation options. To my understanding there is a public bus that you can take to get into the city and then you can use the trolleys to get to wherever your accommodation is located.

USA Hostel – European Style

Arriving at the hostel I’d booked into – India House Backpackers - immediately I was struck by the accuracy of the hostel describing itself online as being a ‘European style’ hostel. You could pick up that hostel and put it in Eastern Europe, in summer. (Not in winter. I don’t think the outdoor breakfast patio and swimming pool would make much sense during European winter!) It’s overall culture and vibe was like what you’d encounter in Eastern Europe – a smaller style hostel, relaxed, chill.  The primary difference between the style of hostels in the European market and the USA market comes down to something in the overall personality and vibe of the place. India House felt one of the cities I went to where the Australians overtake, people sleep half the day, where it is acceptable to chill out and hang about at the hostel watching TV, drinking or utilising the wi-fi and a computer. It wasn’t a new place, it was blatantly run down, a series of houses which backed onto one another which they’d merged the outdoor areas to form one large communal outdoor space. If you were to buy one of the houses and want to renovate to modern standards, it would be like one of those shockingly dreadful houses they use on renovation reality shows with holes and cracks in walls and floorboards, rusty bathrooms – but it was clean, so if you’re the kind of person who can distinguish between ‘old’ and ‘dirty’ then you wouldn’t have any issues.

The two best things about the hostel, in my opinion were:

The hostel cat - as I always will say, any hostel with a cat is awesome.

Readers, meet Taj.

The hostel chef - there was no free breakfast however between 9 - 1 you could purchase freshly made breakfast, tailored to your specific request. I.e. you could ask for blueberry pancakes and he would use his usual pancake batter and fresh blueberries from the 'fruit' menu. I did not partake, choosing to buy my own bagels, however they all looked super yummy. This is the ideal for a hostel in a party city - if you choose to be out late and sleep in you aren't missing out on breakfast. Free breakfast is great but it does create bathroom havoc because everyone is waking up at a similar time.

The hostel chef also would sometimes do dinners - for $5 I got a super yummy home cooked "Southern" meal. They didn't make mass amounts, there was enough for about the first twenty people. I had pulled pork (a first for me, melt in your mouth deliciousness), coleslaw and cornbread.

Amazing, amazing dinner.

New Orleans - first impressions

Even after my initial welcome at the airport to a zillion people, it continued to be clear that New Orleans is one of those places that has somehow wound up with a party city vibe attached to it. It is like Miami, Barcelona, Ibiza. My general assessment about preferring to be there with a friend rang true, I had the right perception. A lot of party cities and hostels I've been to, I leave with an impression that I wouldn't care much to go back. New Orleans I would go back with company. I did enjoy generally wandering the streets, listening to some live music. It would be nice to have company so it is  little more 'socially' acceptable to be going into bars and places rather than it being like it was, with me being the awkward solo person.

I think palm trees are compulsory in party cities

Beyond the party scene

As with all cities that wind up with a reputation, there is more there than just music, people getting drunk and partying – and I’m not talking about Harrah’s Casino, although I did wind up there a couple of times to compensate for the fact that I am unlikely to make it to Vegas this trip.

Harrah's, right in the middle of the action and at the end of the Canal Street trolley line

New Orleans does have quite a bit of history, some interesting sightseeing which is independent to its party culture. The street car in itself is a novelty, with one of its lines having some historical title about being the longest continuously running street car in the USA, or something like that. The street cars are very tourist friendly, I found all of the operators to be very friendly and happy to offer directions and assistance to those who made enquiries about where to go and getting directions. This is something fresh and surprising - I'm not used to a high level of customer friendly interaction from these types!

Canal Street Trolley

There is a waterfront street car which runs along the French Quarter, the most visited tourist district.

Along the St. Charles line, there is a zoo down the far end, another park, a couple of universities (including Tulane), the Garden district and an arts and culture district with museums and art galleries.

On an extremely rainy day, I lashed out for a museum entry.

I'm a sucker for big traditional US universities

Down the far end of each of the Canal Street streetcar lines are tourist points - City Park and Cemeteries. I lived on the Canal line, with the hostel maybe fifteen, twenty minutes from the action on the street car (depending on the time of day and how many idiots are getting on and off – I say idiots because if people are slow and taking their time getting their tickets it slows down the journey) so became very familiar with this journey.

At the sculpture garden at City Park, I confronted my phobia.

Music and nightlife

However despite all of these touristy things, the nightlife and the music scene is the most prominent. Of course depending on your scene, there are different areas which cater to different entertainment tastes. Bourbon Street is the most famous of the New Orleans nightlife streets. I enjoyed walking along and people watching however the reality is that Bourbon Street is where you go if you want to get drunk and messy. One of the other guys in the hostel described it as being a mixture of Las Vegas and Hollywood Boulevard. I would add to this that it was the sleaziest parts of these towns. It felt more like a really messy Cavill/Orchid in Surfers Paradise, for people from my home town to make a comparison.

New Orleans, due to a series of legal loopholes finds itself under different legislation in terms of alcohol in public, and in the French Quarter, it is legal to walk around in the public streets with alcohol as long as it is contained within plastic container - so not walking around with a glass or a beer bottle. The result is that there are a series of locations which serve 'to go' alcohol and that is their purpose - you buy a drink, you consume it while wandering the street, and generally you need to have finished consuming before entering the next place because of course they won't let you in because they want you to buy their alcohol. A lot of places have signs indicating rules about this - one drink minimum. You cannot just go in and sit and listen to the music and use their bathroom without buying a drink. From a business perspective, of course I understand this - you could be entertained for hours in New Orleans going from bar to bar listening to live music not buying anything.

 Perhaps the best concept to me is the "pizza and daiquiri" - a series of daiquiri machines with different flavours and a slice of pizza. Perfection! To the point, and an outlet selling two of the greatest things ever, and no fuss with anything else on offer.

New Orleans - always surprising

On my final evening in New Orleans, I decided that I wasn’t going to let the boring people at the hostel stop me from enjoying my night, so I decided to go out, have a couple of drinks, wander the streets and donate some money to the casino. Now, these plastic beaded necklaces, like with metallic colours, are popular in New Orleans, popularised through to their usage at Mardi Gras but now readily available as a souvenir and worn by party goers and random people everywhere.

There was a bouncer outside of a club, this stereotype of a bouncer – a big black fellow. Around his neck was about five of these necklaces, all gold, one of them made of these giant, giant beads, like the size of snowglobes. I couldn’t help but chuckle – it was such an amusing sight because he’s supposed to appear intimidating but he just looked ridiculous. He saw me chuckle and asked if I liked them. I asked him if they were heavy, he’s all “no darling, feel them!” Long story short was that I wound up chatting to this guy, he was fascinated by my accent because he loves all of the Australians he meets in New Orleans (probably because he meets all the crazy drunk ones). He asked me if I’d just wait a second because he wanted to go inside to get something to show me. I decided to go along with it.

I waited a minute, and big black bouncer with the giant gold beaded necklace comes back with a book in his hand. The book is called “Australia.” We wound up having this conversation about how he so badly wants to leave the United States. He hasn’t been privy to a good education in the United States and he’s never read a book voluntarily until he saw this book and decided to read it because he has decided that he wants to come to Australia and study at university. He’s working multiple jobs to save enough money to be able to do this.

It was one of the craziest conversations of my life and one of those conversations you have that prove the value of being open-minded, not judging someone by their stereotypical appearance. For me, this random encounter is the highlight of the trip, and represents all of the reasons why I’d love to go back to New Orleans in the future.

Overall I enjoyed New Orleans - it wasn't a trip highlight but I can see it being the kind of place which, in the future, could perhaps be a trip highlight on a different style trip, with a companion, with a bit more discretionary money to spend. I wouldn’t go back on my own, but as someone who enjoys and appreciates live music, pizza and daiquiris, I do hope to return. There is a unique spirit and vibe in the air that doesn’t exist in any other US city I’ve encountered, and it isn’t often you come across a city that succeeds to embody such a unique spirit which sets it apart from the rest.