Louisiana

The official language of Louisiana is music and the Louisiana songbook gave birth to musical artists as varied as Louis Armstrong, Tim McGraw, Harry Connick, Jr., and countless others. Stop your car anywhere in Louisiana, roll down your window, and odds are you'll hear great music.

In Louisiana we take food seriously too. Our stars have names like Emeril Lagasse, Paul Prudhomme and John Besh.  A great place to sample all Louisiana has to offer is at one of our many festivals. Or hop on the Louisiana Culinary Trail and take your palate to places it's never gone before.

When the state’s nickname happens to be “Sportsman’s Paradise”, there’s a lot to live up to. Louisiana has nearly 20 state parks located throughout the state, each carefully chosen for outstanding hiking, fishing, biking, birding and nature trails. And with one of the largest game preserves in the U.S. our state is also a natural habitat for many rare and endangered species, making Louisiana a "Bird Watcher's Paradise" as well.

And if you'd rather hunt your birdies on a world-class golf course, welcome to the Audubon Golf Trail--twelve top courses that play, you guessed it, twelve months a year. Come experience the courses of Hal Sutton, Pete Dye, David Toms and the most magnificent designer of them all–Mother Nature.

We don’t have to reenact history.  It’s still alive and well and waiting for you to discover.  Follow the epic journey of the original Acadians to the heart of Cajun Country. Experience the rich cultural legacy of the Mardi Gras Indians. And learn firsthand of the Canary Islanders, Spanish colonists who arrived here in the 1720s and whose unique culture and language has been preserved until today.

Tour Civil War battlefields. Learn about Storyville, the French Quarter's notorious red-light district where jazz was born. Splash ashore with the soldiers of World War II at the National D-Day Museum. And stroll the streets of Natchitoches, the oldest French settlement in the Louisiana Purchase Territory.