New Orleans Travel Guide
New Orleans with Kids
The family version of the city, honestly mapped — the aquarium-insectarium-zoo circuit, swamp boats by age, the music kids can attend, powdered-sugar economics, and the Bourbon-avoidance routing that keeps it all G-rated.
The secret about New Orleans is that it is a spectacular family city hiding behind a bachelor-party reputation: streetcars and steamboats, alligators and beignets, costumed history and music children can attend at arm's length. The craft is routing — the kid city and the adult city share a grid, one street apart.
The anchor circuit. The Audubon trio carries the trip: the Aquarium on the Quarter's riverfront (Gulf sharks, the white alligator, the butterfly-and-insect wing with its cricket-tasting dare — two to three cool hours exactly when afternoon heat demands them); the Zoo uptown in Audubon Park (swamp exhibit with its own white gators, oak shade, a full day with the park's playgrounds); and combo tickets linking them. Add the riverfront's levee walk, the French Market's praline-sampling, and Jackson Square's buskers — statue-men, brass bands, the mule carriages — and the Quarter's daylight hours are a children's festival that charges mostly in powdered sugar.
The big-ticket days. The swamp tour is the trip's trophy: covered pontoon boats take all ages (babies ride free and sleep through it); airboats thrill the eight-and-ups; gators are near-guaranteed in warm months and the captains play to the back rows. Book the hotel-pickup package and it becomes the easiest half day in the itinerary. The Steamboat Natchez is the second trophy — paddlewheel, calliope, and an open engine room that transfixes the machine-minded; the day harbor cruise, not the dinner sailing. The WWII Museum lands powerfully for ten-and-ups (warbirds, the 4D film's snow and shudder); under-tens get the Freedom Pavilion's planes and a shorter loop.
Music they can attend. Preservation Hall has no bar and therefore no age gate — floor cushions up front traditionally go to kids, and a 45-minute set at trombone distance is the city's best music-education hour; book the early show. Frenchmen Street's first sets (6-8pm) work with teens; corner brass bands cost a tip and a pause; and the streetcar itself — window down, St. Charles oaks overhead — is transportation that doubles as a ride.
The G-rated routing. The Quarter by day is family territory nearly everywhere; the one rule is Bourbon Street, which is skippable by design — Royal and Chartres run parallel and prettier, and no family itinerary in this guide touches Bourbon after dark. Ghost tours offer early family slots (8pm, history intact, gore gentled) that tweens rank the trip's highlight; the cemetery tour reads as architecture-and-story by daylight for school-age kids. Evenings end well with beignets — Cafe du Monde at nine with the night crowd is a kid's idea of sophistication.
Logistics that save the trip. Summer demands the aquarium-pool-storm-nap rhythm (book a hotel pool: the Sonesta courtyard and Roosevelt rooftop earn their rates in August alone); spring and fall walk easily. Strollers handle the Quarter's flagstones grudgingly — carriers beat wheels under age two. The Monteleone and Sonesta put families mid-Quarter with pools; the Roosevelt adds space and the December lobby-lights pilgrimage. And the universal bribe structure of the city — praline, sno-ball, another beignet — costs three dollars a miracle, which is the best arithmetic in family travel.