10 of the Best Things to do in New Orleans with Kids
10 of the Best Things to do in New Orleans with Kids
5 min read
When someone on our team first suggested New Orleans as a family trip, at least two of us laughed out loud. The city that gave the world jazz funerals, late-night Bourbon Street chaos, and Hurricanes in go-cups did not immediately scream "bring the children." We were wrong. Spectacularly, deliciously, sweating-through-our-shirts wrong. If you are trying to figure out the best things to do in New Orleans with kids, stop second-guessing the destination and start booking the flights.
New Orleans has a whole other life running underneath its infamous reputation. It is messy and loud and full of history and crawfish and street musicians who will make your eight-year-old stop dead on the sidewalk. We went in June. We ate beignets until powdered sugar coated our entire existence. We came back with ten experiences that genuinely held up for families. Not "technically appropriate for children" — actually, properly fun.
The Best Things to Do in New Orleans with Kids, Ranked by People Who Actually Went
1. Dive Deep at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas
The Audubon Aquarium sits right on the edge of the Mississippi, and the moment you walk in from the outside heat, the cool blue light of the tanks does something genuinely calming to everyone in your group, adults and overstimulated toddlers alike. The recent renovation shows. The 450,000-gallon Gulf of Mexico exhibit is the kind of thing that makes grown adults go quiet. You walk through a glass tunnel while sharks glide overhead and kids press their noses flat against the walls.
The touch pool was the highlight for our younger crew members. Stingrays have this weird velvet-slick texture that children cannot stop describing for days afterward. Buy your tickets online before you arrive. During spring break or summer the line to get in becomes its own minor ordeal, and you did not fly to New Orleans to stand in a parking lot queue in 90-degree humidity.
2. Spend a Morning (or a Full Day) at the Audubon Zoo
The Audubon Zoo is one of those places that sneaks up on you. You plan a quick two-hour loop. Four hours later, someone in your group is still watching the white alligator like it owes them money. The grounds are shaded and sprawling with that thick green quality that only exists in cities built below sea level.
Frequently Asked Questions: New Orleans with Kids
Is New Orleans a good destination for families with young children?
Yes, and it is better than its reputation suggests. Bourbon Street is one street in one neighborhood. The rest of the city is full of genuinely excellent parks, museums, aquariums, and outdoor spaces built for curious kids. The Audubon Aquarium, City Park, and the Louisiana Children's Museum alone could fill three days. Add a swamp tour and the historic streetcar, and you have a trip with more variety than most dedicated family destinations offer.
What is the best time of year to visit New Orleans with kids?
Spring (March through May) and fall (October through November) are the sweet spots. Summer is brutal, genuinely oppressive humidity that makes everyone miserable by 2pm. Mardi Gras season is electric but extremely crowded; the parades are spectacular for older kids but can overwhelm toddlers. If you are stuck with a summer trip, go out early each morning and build in mandatory afternoon pool time. It is the only way to survive it.
How many days do you need in New Orleans with kids?
Four full days is the comfortable minimum. Here is how we would build it:
Day 1: Audubon Aquarium and the French Quarter
Day 2: Audubon Zoo or Louisiana Children's Museum plus a streetcar ride
Day 3: Swamp tour in the morning, City Park in the afternoon
Day 4: Mardi Gras World, Jackson Square, and one long unhurried dinner with live music
Five days gives you a slow morning, which every family trip genuinely needs.
Are New Orleans swamp tours actually safe for kids?
Yes. Reputable operators run these tours daily on stable flat-bottomed boats with experienced guides. The alligators are real and close, which is exactly the point, but you are never in danger. Kids tend to find the alligators less frightening and more fascinating once they are actually on the water. Most operators accept children of all ages. Just confirm minimum age requirements when booking, since some high-speed airboat tours have restrictions that standard flat-bottom tours do not.
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Planning a trip should be exciting, not exhausting—and that's where Travelfika comes in! With our smart AI-powered tools, insider tips, and seamless planning features, we make travel easier than ever.
Whether you're crafting the perfect itinerary, discovering hidden spots, or getting real-time recommendations, Travelfika has your back. No more endless research—just smooth, effortless travel planning tailored to you.Read More
Planning a trip should be exciting, not exhausting—and that's where Travelfika comes in! With our smart AI-powered tools, insider tips, and seamless planning features, we make travel easier than ever.
Whether you're crafting the perfect itinerary, discovering hidden spots, or getting real-time recommendations, Travelfika has your back.Read More
Planning a trip should be exciting, not exhausting—and that's where Travelfika comes in! With our smart AI-powered tools, insider tips, and seamless planning features, we make travel easier than ever. Read More
Planning a trip should be exciting, not exhausting— and that's where Travelfika comes in! With our smart AI-powered tools, insider tips, and seamless planning features. Read More
The animal variety is impressive without being overwhelming, and the zoo does a better-than-average job of actually educating kids about what they're seeing rather than just parading animals past them. Our kids lost their minds over the sea lions. One of our editors nearly cried at the giraffes. We are choosing not to elaborate on that.
3. Get Wonderfully Chaotic at the Louisiana Children's Museum
If you have kids under ten, block out a full morning for the Louisiana Children's Museum and accept upfront that you will not be in a hurry. The place is four floors of hands-on everything. There are climbing structures, a bubble station that produces soap bubbles roughly the size of a small sedan, a working grocery store play area where children aggressively stock shelves with fake produce, and a life-sized Mississippi Riverboat that kids commandeer like tiny, very serious captains.
It is loud. It smells like that particular mix of craft supplies and fruit snacks that every children's museum in America seems to share. It is absolute gold. We have been to children's museums in a dozen cities and this one has a creativity and scale that most do not come close to matching. Spend the extra time. Let them do the bubble station twice.
4. Go Behind the Curtain at Mardi Gras World
Here is one that surprised us: Mardi Gras World is not a tourist trap. We went in skeptical and came out genuinely impressed. The warehouse where they build the Mardi Gras parade floats is enormous, cathedral-scale, and walking through it with your kids feels like stumbling into a fever dream where everything is twenty feet tall and painted in gold and purple. The papier-mâché figures alone are worth the trip. There is a king cake statue you can photograph that is simultaneously regal and deeply absurd.
The guided tour walks you through the float-building process in real detail, and kids who have never even seen a Mardi Gras parade end up genuinely riveted by the craftsmanship. It answers a question most people never thought to ask: who actually makes all that stuff? The answer is a surprisingly small team of artists who work year-round in a building that smells permanently of paint and sawdust.
5. Ride the Historic Streetcar (Yes, the Actual One)
The New Orleans streetcar is not just transport. It is a vibe, a piece of living history, and it costs almost nothing. Hop the St. Charles line and let the city unspool past the window: Garden District mansions, oak trees forming a canopy over the road, and locals who have been riding this exact route for decades and regard tourists with exactly the level of patience you would expect.
Kids love it because it sways and clangs and feels nothing like a subway. We love it because for a few dollars you get a slow, gorgeous tour of the city's most beautiful neighborhood without renting a car or explaining GPS to anyone. If you are staying more than two days, grab a Jazzy Pass for unlimited rides on all public transit. It pays for itself by day two.
6. Lose a Full Afternoon in City Park
City Park is one of the most underrated family spaces in any American city, and we will die on that hill. Storyland, the storybook-themed playground inside the park, is the kind of place that makes kids forget screens exist. The playground structures are built around classic fairy tale characters in this wonderfully old-fashioned way that feels nothing like a corporate playground kit. It is a little worn in places. It is perfect.
Beyond Storyland there are paddleboats on the park's lagoons, a Botanical Garden that is genuinely gorgeous and not just for adults who like flowers, and enough open green space to run off whatever sugar your kids accumulated at the beignet stand. We rented paddleboats on a Tuesday afternoon with almost no one else around and it was one of those quietly perfect family moments that do not get photographed but do get remembered.
7. Stand in Jackson Square and Feel the History
Jackson Square earns its reputation. The St. Louis Cathedral, the oldest continuously operating cathedral in the United States, anchors one end of the square in a way that makes you stop talking mid-sentence just to look at it. The square itself is always alive: tarot readers at folding tables, portrait artists who will sketch your kid in under ten minutes, street musicians playing things that drift out across the Mississippi.
We had a picnic lunch here once. Muffulettas from Central Grocery, eaten on a bench while a saxophone player worked through a slow jazz standard twenty feet away and pigeons aggressively lobbied for our sandwiches. That is not us being poetic. That is just what Jackson Square is on a Wednesday afternoon. Bring cash for the performers. They earn every dollar.
8. Take a Swamp Tour (It's as Good as It Sounds)
A swamp tour is non-negotiable. We do not care if your kids are nervous about alligators. That nervousness becomes excitement the second the first one surfaces next to the boat, which happens faster than you would expect. Gliding through Louisiana bayou on a flat-bottomed boat while cypress trees drag their Spanish moss into dark water is one of those genuinely cinematic experiences that makes you understand why this state produces so many writers and musicians.
The wildlife is real and abundant. Herons and egrets picking their way through shallows, turtles stacked on logs, and alligators, lots of them, sometimes uncomfortably close. The guides know everything and deliver it in that particular Louisiana storytelling style where facts and folklore get mixed together in the best possible way. Book a morning tour. The light is better and the animals are more active.
9. Let the Music Find You
You do not have to plan the music in New Orleans. It finds you. Walk two blocks in the French Quarter and you will hear jazz bleeding from a doorway, a brass band turning a corner, a solo trumpeter on a stoop playing for no one and everyone simultaneously. Street music in this city is not busking. It is the city's actual heartbeat, and kids pick up on that energy immediately.
For something more structured, Frenchmen Street has spots that welcome all ages earlier in the evening, and even a short set of live jazz at a restaurant is enough to make the trip feel complete. Do not overthink it. Just walk and listen. New Orleans has been making music longer than almost anywhere in America, and it shows in every note that drifts out of every open window.
10. Actually Plan the Logistics (Because New Orleans Rewards Preparation)
This one does not get its own Instagram moment, but it might be the most important thing on the list. New Orleans rewards families who do ten minutes of planning and punishes those who do not. Book a hotel with a pool, not as a luxury but as a survival mechanism for when the afternoon humidity hits 95 percent and the kids have hit their wall. Look for properties near the streetcar lines so you are not renting a car and losing hours to parking that does not exist.
Schedule flights around nap and meal times if you can manage it. Meltdowns in the New Orleans airport are survivable but unnecessary. Pack clothes you are willing to lose to beignet powder and swamp splash. Build in one slow morning where nobody has to be anywhere. The city has its own rhythm, and once you stop fighting it and just move with it, the whole trip shifts into something easier and better than anything you planned.
The Bottom Line
New Orleans does not need to be sold as a family destination. It just needs to be experienced as one. Every single thing on this list held up. Some of it, the swamp tour, Mardi Gras World, that afternoon in City Park, genuinely surprised us. This city has depth and strangeness and generosity in equal measure, and kids, who have not yet learned to be cynical about places, feel all of it immediately.
We have helped a lot of families plan a lot of trips. New Orleans belongs on the shortlist. Browse Travelfika's New Orleans vacation deals and start building the trip before the good hotel rooms disappear.
What should families eat in New Orleans?
Start with beignets from Cafe Du Monde. Deep-fried dough under a blizzard of powdered sugar, costs almost nothing, and your kids will talk about them for months. Beyond that:
Po'boys (roast beef or fried shrimp, dressed) are a revelation
Muffulettas from Central Grocery are perfect for a Jackson Square picnic
Red beans and rice will convert even a picky eater
Do not eat on Bourbon Street. Walk two blocks in any direction and eat where the locals eat.
Is public transportation in New Orleans good enough for families?
For the main family attractions, yes, especially if you are based in or near the French Quarter or Garden District. The St. Charles streetcar is genuinely useful and genuinely fun. A Jazzy Pass covers unlimited rides on all public transit and pays for itself within two days. One caveat: most swamp tour operators are outside the city, so getting there usually means a shuttle, rideshare, or tour package pickup. Factor that into your planning.
