During your visit to New Orleans, you’ll find no lack of attractions and activities. One of the area’s most popular activities is a visit to one its majestic plantations, where guided tours make history come to life.

Tour operators offer transportation from New Orleans to a variety of nearby plantations. Some of these tours combine other activities as a package.

Be sure to see our reviews of Swamp Tours, Food Tours and River Boat Dinner Cruises.

Best Plantation Tours From New Orleans

	Small-Group Airboat and Plantations Tour with Gourmet Lunch from New Orleans	Oak Alley & Laura Plantation Tour with Transportation from New Orleans	Small-Group Louisiana Plantations Tour with Gourmet Lunch from New Orleans
Departure:	Hotel pickup and drop off included	317 N Rampart St, New Orleans	Hotel pickup and drop-off included
Start:	8:00 AM	10:00 AM	8:30 AM
Duration:	8.5 - 9 hours	8 hours	7.5 hours
Includes:	Transportation to and from New Orleans, guided tour of Laura Plantation, plantation gourmet lunch and tour of Houmas House Plantation and Gardens, swamp tour with native Cajun guide	Admission to two plantation homes, guided tours, live commentary, round-trip coach transportation from New Orleans	Hotel pickup and drop-off, transportation to Destrehan Plantation, Houmas House Plantation, guided tour and admission ticket, gourmet lunch at Houmas House
	Tour Information & Booking	Tour Information & Booking	Tour Information & Booking

Quick Answer: The 5 Best Rated New Orleans Plantation Tours

1. Small-Group Airboat and Plantations Tour with Gourmet Lunch from New Orleans
2. Oak Alley & Laura Plantation Tour with Transportation from New Orleans
3. Small-Group Louisiana Plantations Tour with Gourmet Lunch from New Orleans
4. Oak Alley Plantation Day Tour from New Orleans
5. Oak Alley Plantation and 3 Hour New Orleans City Tour

We have reviewed the 5 top rated plantation tours from New Orleans to help you select which one best fits your interests and needs.

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New Orleans Plantation Tour Reviews

1. Small-Group Airboat and Plantations Tour with Gourmet Lunch from New Orleans

We recommend this tour for those who prefer a small group dynamic. It’s a perfect fit for romantics, foodies, and adventurers alike.

You’ll be whisked back into time on this tour that takes you from New Orleans to Louisiana Creole country. Your guides will point out historical sites and provide interesting facts about the area en route to your three separate stops.

The boat ride to the Manchac Swamp is narrated by friendly locals who go out of their way to make sure you see plenty of gators up close and personal; but don’t worry, your safety is their first concern!

After your exciting tour through the swamp, you’ll be guided through the 200-acre Laura Plantation where you’ll get an in-depth look into the Duparc family, the original owners of this plantation, and their slaves. Laura is celebrated for its early 19th-century Créole-style big house. Several of its structures are on the National Historic Registry.

Finally you’ll finish at the Houmas House Plantation and Gardens where you will dine on scrumptious creole brunch items like chicken and smoked sausage gumbo and crawfish etouffee.

Meander beneath the moss-draped oaks on this plantation, which has been the filming site for several productions, including the movie “Interview with a Vampire”. You’ll have a guided tour of the inside of the plantation big house.

More Information & Tour Booking

100% refund for cancellations within 24 hours of tour experience

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Other New Orleans Activities You May Enjoy

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2. Oak Alley & Laura Plantation Tour with Transportation from New Orleans

We recommend this trip for those who’d like to squeeze in two of New Orlean’s stately plantations into a one-day outing. It’s ideal for those who are comfortable in larger groups and looking for a full day of history.

While this tour will take you from New Orleans to two plantations: Oak Alley Plantation, Laura Plantation. These are the two most popular and well known plantations in the area.

You’ll start your day by boarding a comfortable coach which will transport you alongside the Mississippi River to the two plantations of your choice. Your driver will offer informational and amusing tidbits, which makes the short ride fly by!

Oak Alley Plantation sits on 25 acres and is located 55 miles west of New Orleans. Once a functioning cattle ranch, it was purchased in the 60’s and renovated to its previous splendor. At Oak Alley visitors will meander through its lovely gardens and under majestic oaks, explore the antebellum mansion, and learn about the plantation’s history as working sugarcane plantation.

Laura Plantation, formerly known as “Duparc Plantation”, is a 200-year-old sugar cane plantation, boasting a big house, several surviving outer buildings, including 2 slave cabins, and three gardens. It’s also situated less than 60 miles west of New Orleans. Laura Plantation provides guided tours and a self-guided exhibit that details the Duparc family history.

Borrowing from first-person slave narratives, memorial artwork, and restored buildings, informative tour guides will give you a moving perspective into that dark time period of American history. This tour may not be appropriate for younger children.

More Information & Tour Booking

100% refund for cancellations within 24 hours of tour experience

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3. Small-Group Louisiana Plantations Tour with Gourmet Lunch from New Orleans

We recommend this tour for those travelers who are looking for a small group experience to a restored historic Creole plantation, especially those who are interested in the personal accounts of plantation slaves.

Sit back and relax while your driver transports you 75 minutes from New Orleans to Destrehan Plantation. The drive out will be a learning experience in itself, as your driver is knowledgeable about the area’s history and highlights.

Destrehan Plantation is a 200-year-old Creole plantation. With it’s many structures that have been preserved and renovated, you will get a good sense of how life was for its inhabitants when the sugarcane plantation was in its heyday. A guided tour will take you through the Big House, three vibrant gardens and the kitchen potager.

You will be moved by the focus on slaves’ experience during this plantation tour, where you will visit an authentic slave cabin that dates back to the 1840’s. Destrehan Plantation is the only one in this area that has an exhibit dedicated to sharing the stories of enslaved individuals.

After your tour you will then head over to the Houmas House Plantation and Gardens for an authentic gourmet lunch consisting of dishes like Chicken and Andouille Gumbo, Red Beans, Sausage and Rice with White Chocolate Bread Pudding for dessert. After your delicious lunch you will have a tour of the stately mansion and its artwork.

More Information & Tour Booking

100% refund for cancellations within 24 hours of tour experience

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4. Oak Alley Plantation Tour from New Orleans

We recommend this tour for those visitors who are looking for a half-day trip to take in one of southern Louisiana’s most picturesque plantations.

On your way to Oak Alley Plantation, once known as Bon Séjour, you’ll be entertained by your friendly, informative driver as you travel alongside the Mississippi River.

Once you’ve arrived at the plantation, experienced docents will lead you on a tour that will take you back in time to the days when the property functioned as a sugarcane producer. You’ll be captivated by plantation’s Big House, a Greek Revival-style mansion; the canopied-pathway that’s lined by enormous southern oaks; and the property’s onsite garden.

Learn about the history that landed Oak Alley on the National Historic Registry. A slave exhibit educates visitors and pays tribute to the enslaved men, women, and children who were responsible for building the Roman family’s wealth.

More Information & Tour Booking

100% refund for cancellations within 24 hours of tour experience

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5. Oak Alley Plantation and 3 Hour New Orleans City Tour

We recommend this tour for those who are short on time but don’t want to scrimp on sightseeing and learning about the fascinating history of New Orleans and its grand sugarcane plantations. The two parts of this tour may take place on two separate days.

Your day will start with a 3-hour tour in a mini-bus. Visit all the must-see locations throughout historic New Orleans. Get a better sense of how the area was affected by Hurricane Katrina and how the community has forged ahead to rebuild.

Some of the key areas you’ll visit in the city include: Jackson Street, the French Quarter, the French Market, St. Louis Cathedral, and the Cabildo Museum. Your licensed, informative tour guide will share interesting tidbits about the St. Louis Cemetery, an above-ground cemetery, while you wander among the tombs.

The second portion of this tour takes visitors to Oak Alley Plantation, the 25-acre restored sugarcane plantation that lies approximately one hour from New Orleans. At Oak Alley you will be given a professional guided tour of the Big House, a Greek Revival-style mansion.

The sugarcane exhibit offers a glimpse into how the original owners built their empire on sugarcane production. The slavery exhibit relates how the plantation was built and supported by enslaved men, women, and children.

More Information & Tour Booking

100% refund for cancellations within 24 hours of tour experience

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A Real Guide to New Orleans Plantation Tours

The oak trees at Oak Alley are almost 300 years old, planted before the house behind them existed, and they’re the reason half of Louisiana’s postcards look the way they do.

They’re also standing on a former sugar plantation worked by enslaved people, which is the part the postcard leaves out.

That tension runs through every single one of these tours. Go in knowing which version of the history each site tells, and you’ll get more out of the day than someone who just booked the prettiest oak-lined driveway on Instagram.

Why This Trip Is Worth Taking

Roughly eight major plantations along the Mississippi still operate as tour sites, and they are not interchangeable. Some, like Whitney Plantation, exist specifically to center the enslaved people who lived and worked there.

Others, like Oak Alley and Houmas House, lead with architecture and Southern grandeur, and address slavery as one exhibit among several rather than the whole point.

Neither approach is automatically the right one. But you should pick based on what you actually want to learn, not just which mansion photographs best.

This is not a light day trip for everyone. If you’re bringing kids, or you know this history is going to sit heavy with you, plan for that instead of being surprised by it halfway through a tour.

When to Go

February through May is the window. Temperatures run 60 to 80 degrees, humidity is manageable, the azaleas are blooming, and the crowds are thinner than peak summer.

Summer, June through August, means real heat, real humidity, and afternoon thunderstorms that can shut down outdoor portions of a tour without warning. Some properties extend their hours in summer to compensate, which helps if you’re set on going in July.

Most single-plantation tours run five to six hours round trip from New Orleans, including the drive. Full combo tours that hit two properties run eight to nine hours with lunch built in. Plan your day around one option or the other, not both.

What You’ll Actually See

The Memorial Approach

Whitney Plantation is the one site on this list built entirely around the enslaved experience, not the plantation owners. There’s no mansion tour glorifying the family that lived there.

Instead you get first-person narratives, a self-guided app, and memorials naming specific enslaved people who lived on the property. It’s the most emotionally direct of these tours, and also the most honest.

If you only have time for one plantation, this is the one historians and serious travelers point to first.

The Architecture and Grandeur Approach

Oak Alley and Houmas House both lead with the visual. Oak Alley’s quarter-mile canopy of live oaks is the most photographed spot in the state, and the Greek Revival mansion behind it dates to 1837.

Houmas House goes further into opulence, sometimes nicknamed the Sugar Palace for how much money the sugar trade generated for the family that owned it.

Both properties do include exhibits and guides addressing the enslaved people who worked the land, and Oak Alley in particular has expanded this over the past decade. But the framing still centers the house and the family who owned it, so go in with that understanding.

Houmas House also runs formal gardens and an on-site restaurant, which makes it a longer, slower visit than most of the others on this list. Budget an extra hour if lunch there is part of your plan.

The Creole Heritage Approach

Laura Plantation tells a different story than the other two. It’s a Creole property, and the guided tour centers on Laura Locoul Gore, a woman who ran the plantation as a working sugar operation into the late 1800s and later wrote a memoir about it.

It’s a useful counterpoint to the Greek Revival plantations, since Creole plantation culture, inheritance, and family structure worked differently than the Anglo-American model most people picture when they hear the word plantation.

The After-Dark Approach

Destrehan Plantation, the oldest plantation home still standing in the lower Mississippi Valley, runs a night tour that covers the 1811 German Coast slave revolt, one of the largest uprisings of enslaved people in U.S. history, alongside local voodoo history.

This one is worth doing specifically because most day tours skip the 1811 revolt entirely. It’s a heavier evening than a standard house tour, and it should be. Go in for the history, not for a ghost-tour thrill.

The Plantations, Stop by Stop

• Whitney Plantation. About an hour from New Orleans. Self-guided app, first-person narratives, memorials to specific enslaved individuals. The most important stop if you’re only doing one.
• Oak Alley Plantation. Same general distance. The oak-lined driveway everyone’s seen in photos, plus a Big House exhibit and a Confederate Commanding Officer’s Tent display. Restaurant and blacksmith shop on site.
• Laura Plantation. Creole heritage focus, centered on Laura Locoul Gore’s memoir. Featured in the film Interview with the Vampire and Beyoncé’s “Déjà Vu” video, if that means anything to you.
• Houmas House. The most opulent of the group, sometimes called the Sugar Palace. Best pick if you want the full antebellum-mansion experience with formal gardens attached.
• Destrehan Plantation. Oldest documented plantation home in the region. Daytime tours cover general plantation history. The night tour specifically addresses the 1811 slave revolt and regional voodoo history.
• Evergreen Plantation. Smaller and less commercialized than the others, and the filming location for Django Unchained. Worth a drive-by even if you’re not booking a full tour here.

What It Costs and How to Plan

Single-plantation guided tours with round-trip transportation from New Orleans run $69 to $82 per person. Site-only entry without transportation is cheaper. Oak Alley, for example, charges $27 for grounds access or $30 with the Big House exhibit included, with discounted rates for kids 6 to 17 and seniors.

Double-plantation combo tours run $130 to $195 and usually include lunch. The most common pairings are Whitney with Oak Alley, since that combination gives you the memorial approach and the architecture approach in one day, or Destrehan with Houmas House.

Across every option, plan on spending $80 to $290 per person depending on how many sites you visit and whether you drive yourself or book transportation. Self-driving saves money if you’re comfortable navigating River Road, which is a straightforward hour-long drive from downtown New Orleans.

Book ahead in high season, particularly February through May weekends, since combo tours with lunch included sell out faster than single-site tickets.

Most operators pick up directly from downtown hotels, so check your pickup time the night before. A tour marked as 8am pickup can mean anywhere between 7:45 and 8:15 depending on your hotel’s spot on the route.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which plantation should I visit if I only have time for one?

Whitney Plantation, without much competition. It’s the only site built entirely around the enslaved experience rather than treating it as one exhibit among several.

If architecture and photography matter more to you, Oak Alley is the better single stop, but you’ll get a shallower version of the history.

Are these tours appropriate for kids?

That depends entirely on the site and your kid. Oak Alley and Houmas House are more house-tour focused and manageable for most families.

Whitney Plantation and Destrehan’s night tour go into the specifics of slavery and the 1811 revolt directly, and that’s a conversation worth having with your kids before you go, not during.

How far are the plantations from New Orleans?

About an hour’s drive, roughly 55 miles, along River Road. Most sites cluster close enough together that a combo tour hitting two plantations in one day is realistic without excessive driving.

Is it better to drive myself or book a tour with transportation?

If you want to set your own pace and stop at more than one site without a fixed schedule, drive yourself. River Road is a straightforward, well-marked drive.

If you’d rather not deal with parking and driving decisions after an emotionally heavy site like Whitney, book transportation and let someone else handle logistics.

What’s the deal with the night tours and voodoo history at Destrehan?

Destrehan’s night tour covers the 1811 German Coast slave revolt, one of the largest uprisings of enslaved people in American history, alongside the regional history of voodoo in south Louisiana.

Go for the history. If a tour is marketed mainly on ghost stories and ignores the actual 1811 revolt, that’s a sign to book somewhere else.

Do any of these tours acknowledge slavery honestly, or is it all softened for tourists?

Whitney Plantation doesn’t soften anything. It’s built specifically to avoid that.

Oak Alley and Houmas House have both expanded their exhibits addressing enslaved people over the past decade, but the core experience at both still centers the family who owned the property. Laura Plantation sits in between, addressing both the Creole family and the enslaved people who worked the land as part of the same guided story.

Can I visit more than two plantations in a single day?

Technically, but I wouldn’t. Most combo tours cap at two properties for a reason, since each site runs 90 minutes to two hours on its own before you factor in driving between them.

Trying to squeeze in a third turns a thoughtful day into a rushed one, and this history deserves more than a drive-by.