Visiting New Orleans for 2 college tours next month with son: best and safest options?

We have our plane ticket already and reserved an AIrBNB near Audubon park. It’s a 20-30 minute to Loyola and Tulane. I was told this was a safe area.

Should we rent a car vs. an UBER or Lyft to get around NOLA? I know parking is tight, but I am accustomed to that since we’re from the NYC area. How safe are we with Uber? What do you recommend we do other than our college tours? Any fun family friend restaurants and places to check out besides the Garden District? Is French Quarter during the day ok to explore with my kid? Maybe take a historic tour during the day? TIA.

We just spent thanksgiving weekend there, with D19 and D26. Uber is totally fine. French Quarter by day and even into early evening is fine with kids too, and even later than that it’s really only bourbon street and maybe one block either side of it that might be uncomfortable for younger children. We stayed on the edge of the French quarter and had no safety issues, though I’m not sure I’d have been totally comfortable walking alone later at night (I did see other women doing it though).

If you have time to do an airboat swamp tour, I’d highly recommend that. Lots of fun, and the highlight of our trip. You’d need about half a day for that including traveling time. The WW2 museum is very impressive, and huge. The voodoo museum is fun, and tiny. There is also an interesting pharmacy museum. For restaurants, we didn’t try to get too far from the touristy areas to be honest, we liked all of Brennan’s (traditional, birthplace of bananas foster), Domenica (nice Italian) and ol Nola cookery (traditional, on bourbon). House of creole (I think that was the name) on canal had decent food too. We did the jazz brunch at Broussard’s, which was we thought overrated (nice enough, but we thought not really worth the price). If you go to the WW2 museum, flamingo-a-go-go around the corner from it is a fun restaurant.

We took a ride on the river to the Chalmette Battlefield. Seeing the city from the river is interesting. As mentioned, the WWII Museum is outstanding. There are great restaurants in NO. Make a couple of reservations before you leave home.

Can’t tell you about Uber or any specifics because I lived in New Orleans more than twenty years ago, but Magazine Street (stretching from below Audubon Park area to Downtown (roughly parelleling St Charles) is chock full of fun shops, galleries, coffee shop, outdoor cafes. (I lived on Camp Street, a block from Magazine Street and miss rolling out of bed and walking to CCs coffee shop on Magazine near Jefferson! That’s where I met my husband, btw! ) Unless things have changed a lot, some blocks are “rougher at the edges” and some more upscale, but fun to stroll. and I never felt unsafe there. Auduban park is pretty and (in my day) was full of walkers, runners and roller-bladers.

Depending on where your Air B&B is, you may be able to walk easily to both campuses. If the weather’s mild, it’s a nice area to walk in (and take in the gorgeous architecture everywhere). Assuming it’s still running, you can take the street car up St. Charles Avenue all the way to downtown and walk a few short blocks into the French Quarter. The Quarter can be near-impossible to park in at times.

I envy you. Would love to go back!

Even the nicest areas in New Orleans can be unsafe both during the day & after dark. Just unpredictable.

New Orleans was developed in a checkerboard pattern. Mansions & beautiful homes with servant quarters & housing nearby. Led to seemingly safe upscale main streets with high crime rate neighborhooods a block or two away scattered throughout the Uptown area.

If you plan to visit LSU in Baton Rouge, best to rent a car.

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

Audubon Park is across the street from Tulane and Loyola. If your Airbnb says it is near the park, it shouldn’t be 20-30 min. away. You should only need to Uber around town & take the streetcar if close to the line. Can you check the address of the Airbnb & I can give you better advice on the location?

^^^. Agreed. I PM’d the OP with the exact same takeaway. It shouldn’t even be a 20-30 min walk, so “near” the park may be a bit of a stretch.

If you have younger kids with you then definitely go by the waterfront where cafe du monde is and get beignets and coffee/hot chocolate then walk over to the outdoor market. In it are all kinds of fun street vendors selling junk purses to funny named hot sauce and alligator jerky. When we were there last we had a rental car that we pretty much kept parked and ubered everywhere. It was so much easier that way. What a wonderful city to be in! It’s one of my favorite places in the world to visit.

Oh, if you like hot sauce, definitely go to Pepper Palace! It’s awesome, love the sauce names!

We did this trip last fall and my kids favorites were a Preservation Hall concert, a cemetery tour with Save Our Cemeteries, and the WWII museum. Great town for teens! And we Ubered everywhere which is what I would recommend, there is no need for a car.

I am a female and was there with my D20 and S22, the only place I felt unsafe was quiet parts of the French Quarter at night and not because anything happened, I just didn’t know the area. We stayed in the CBD because it was walking distance to FQ.

Audubon Park is across the street from Tulane. Is the 20-30 minute WALKING distance to campus? What street is the Air BNB on?

Our son attends Tulane and lives three blocks from Autobahn park. You will learn about the “Gold zone” around Tulane that is safest. 20 minutes is likely outside of the gold zone and 10 minutes in either direction can make a huge difference. I think all of the restaurants are great in Nola! Favorite is Superior Seafood (on St. Charles) and Red Dog Diner on Magazine Street. Favorite spot that I haven’t gotten tired of is Jackson Square area (by Cafe Du Monde too).

The city of NOLA just got hit by a big cyber attack. Not sure how that will affect things like the streetcars, etc. https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/13/us/new-orleans-cyberattack-state-of-emergency

@jym626: They’ll probably arrive on time.

Har de har.

Thanks for the info. We’re used to sketchy and then upscale. We live near Newark, NJ so we’re good with that. We don’t plan on visiting LSU.

We are further down near the river off Calhoun. Google does say that walking is about 20 minutes from Tulane.