New Orleans, Louisiana

Just the name conjures up visions of exciting parades, voodoo, smoky jazz, steamy nights, spicy Cajun food, and Anne Rice vampire novels. While much of this is true about New Orleans (except maybe the vampires), there is still much more to the city.

New Orleans is a city full of history. It's a city that was ruled by France, then Spain (for 41 years after the Seven Years War, which ended in 1763) before the US took control in 1803. It's also the only city in the US where French was the predominant language for more than 100 years. (You can thank Canadians for that one, as most of the Cajuns [which comes from the word "Acadians"] were originally French colonists in Nova Scotia.) In addition, New Orleans has more than 35,000 buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places, most of which are in the French Quarter. That's the most of any US city.

All the historic architecture as well as the fact that all the cemeteries are "above-ground" contributes to New Orleans' sometimes "spooky" image, which has been exploited in many a novel and movie. Also, the plethora of voodoo shops and strong voodoo history (with such notables as Doctor John and Marie Laveau) gives a real aura of mystery and history.

If you like jazz, you'll love New Orleans. It's considered the birthplace of jazz, and was home to such greats as Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, and King Oliver. They all got their start playing in clubs in the Red Light District. Even today – thanks to people like the Marsalis family and Harry Connick Jr. – New Orleans is renowned for jazz and music as well as a large number of music festivals.

By far, the main thing that comes to mind at the mention of New Orleans is Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday, if you were to translate it). This is arguably the biggest party in North America. Leading up to Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), it's 12 days of parades, flashy costumes, balls, pageants, and, of course, just plain partying. The idea behind all this decadence is to get all the partying out of your system before you have to give it up and be pious for the 40 days of Lent!

However, aside from all the jazz and partying, there's also sports: New Orleans is home of the NBA's Hornets and the NFL's Saints.

And even better, the residents typically help one another out and are generally friendly with everybody. At least 1/3 of the residents volunteer in some form or another. About 3/4 know their neighbors by name. This isn't a common feature in a city of 484,674! You're bound to love New Orleans!

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